Mentoring: Creating Tomorrow's Nurse Leaders Today

In his article “Mentoring: Creating tomorrow’s nurse leaders today,” Vann (2012) asserts that nurse leaders have a unique opportunity of impacting on the lives of young nurses through mentorships. In nursing, mentorship is a guided experience, formally or informally assigned, over an agreed period, that empowers the mentor and the mentee to develop personally and professionally. Learning about the mentor and mentee relationship leads to an understanding that mentoring is critical to encouraging collaboration and leadership development within a caring and culturally competent and respectful environment. Vann (2012) maintains that mentors do more than teaching skills since they are involved in facilitating new learning experiences that help new nurses in making career decisions and introduce them to a network of colleagues who can provide professional challenges and opportunities. In a way, Vann (2012) insinuates that mentorship helps in bringing out leadership qualities in a mentee.

Through mentorship, nurses get to an opportunity to be full partners with other healthcare professionals in the redesigning of healthcare, thus encouraging leadership development. Having worked in a busy environment during my clinical placements, I concur with Vann (2012)’s assertion that mentorship is instrumental for the development of leadership qualities. Since all nurses from chief nursing officers to community nurses and members of nursing organizations must take responsibilities for their actions, they must equally take responsibility for their personal and professional growth by developing leadership competencies. However, it is almost impossible for one to be a competent leader in the nursing profession without a mentor who guides on the dos and don’ts of the