The multifaceted nature of mentors’ authentic leadership and mentees’ emotional intelligence

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate, from a critical perspective, mentees’ perceptions regarding the persons they view as their influential mentors – whether they regard them as authentic leaders and whether these mentors affect the development of mentees’ emotional intelligence (EI). Using a sample of 62 teacher-mentees from different school levels and different sectors in Israel, semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore participants’ perceptions of mentoring processes that had influenced them professionally. A qualitative analysis, based on a confirmatory approach using ATLAS.ti, revealed that the influential mentors were perceived as authentic leaders, acting within different dimensions of authentic leadership (AL) at different levels. In addition, it was found that mentees perceived their influential mentors as contributing to the development of the mentees’ EI, including different relationships between the various dimensions of AL and the different dimensions of EI. This led to the generation of a multifaceted model which may develop a critical perspective regarding the difficulty of mentoring, considering the uncertainly in mentors’ works. The findings support this critical review of mentoring and, it is argued, will encourage educational leaders to focus on advancing different dimensions of authentic leadership during mentors’ professional development programs, in order to develop different dimensions of mentees’ EI.