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Building upon a larger mixed-methods research agenda, the purpose of this research study was to explore the growth of generativity (i.e. care for the next generation) among college student leaders who mentor, answering the central question “What changes in generativity do college student leaders who mentor associate with their mentoring experience, and why?” and associated sub-question “How does generativity develop among college student leaders who mentor?”

Applying methodological innovation to a phenomenological design, semi-structured interviews were conducted and triangulated with pictorial degree-of-change graphs among 33 collegiate leadership mentors at a large Midwestern USA land-grant university.

The findings indicated that senior collegiate leadership mentors overwhelmingly acknowledged sustained generativity increases as a result of mentoring a younger student when given the tools, environment to process and time needed to develop trusting investment relationships. These increases in generativity were associated with changes in their understanding of generativity, the desire to pass on the knowledge given to them and growth in both mentor and mentee.

Findings from the current study advance mentoring research and practice by providing a deeper understanding of mentoring as a developmental intervention, informing antecedents of generativity and utilizing innovative qualitative methodological techniques.

Considering the substantial upcoming transfer of leadership to younger generations, it is critical to study the unique trait, skill, and behavioral associations of youth leaders. The purpose of this two-phase study was to quantitatively examine the relationship between positive psychological capacities (PsyCap), personality, and empathy with leadership skills in youth. Regression results from both phases revealed cognitive empathy and academic PsyCap as significant predictors of youth leadership life skills. These results follow earlier research that identified trait-based emotional intelligence as a significant predictor of leadership skills in youth. The combined results offer important considerations as leadership scholars and practitioners attempt to accurately predict and plan for the leadership transfer landscape over the next two decades. These combined results also serve as helpful considerations for youth leadership practitioners as program outcomes, learning objectives, and activities targeting the development of cognitive empathy and PsyCap will perhaps allow for more productive youth leadership development efforts and better documentation of their impact.

The current study examined and explained the relationship between generativity and socially responsible leadership using an explanatory sequential mixed methods design. The first, quantitative phase examined the predictive relationship between generativity and socially responsible leadership among 82 college student leaders who mentor at a four-year, Midwestern, land-grant university using multiple regression. The second, qualitative phase used a phenomenological design to explain the quantitative results by conducting semi- structured interviews among a sub-sample (n=9) of the quantitative phase participants. Results from the current study advance leadership research in social change as well as advance instruction by helping leadership educators demonstrate their outcomes related to generativity and social responsibility.

Generativity, defined as care for the next generation, is a hallmark of developmental theory (Erikson, 1950). Mentoring is an antecedent to generativity (Doerwald et al., 2021), with college students who mentor demonstrating higher generativity than their peers (Hastings et al., 2015). Yet no research has studied generativity development longitudinally among college students who mentor. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned issue.

Using MANCOVA analyses, Study 1 (N = 91) cross-sectionally examined the influence of years spent mentoring on generativity levels among college students who mentor in the USA. Study 2 (N = 44) employed growth curve analyses (GCA) in multilevel modeling (MLM) to analyze longitudinal changes in generativity over three timepoints, each one year apart, while accounting for the influence of gender.

Although the results of the MANCOVA analyses in Study 1 were nonsignificant, Study 2 revealed a significant and positive increase in generative behavior. Specifically, generative behavior (e.g. teaching a skill or serving as a role model; McAdams and de St. Aubin, 1992) increased by 3.26 points, indicating that participants may have moved, for example, from performing a generative behavior never during the past two months to performing it more than once.

The current study advances the fields of college student development and mentoring by arguing for the utilization of mentoring interventions among college students to increase generativity and calling for changes to generativity measurement among collegiate populations.

The purpose of this application manuscript is to address assessing and evaluating the impact of leadership mentoring programs on collegiate mentors. Specifically, this paper addresses the nuanced considerations of creating appropriate program outcomes and associated objectives given the individualized nature of mentoring relationships. Additionally, the current paper discusses assessment and evaluation strategies to demonstrate impact of leadership mentoring on the collegiate mentor via a three-year program evaluation effort. By innovating leadership mentoring program practice, leadership educators can more soundly design and deliver leadership mentoring programs and more precisely measure and demonstrate impact.

Although service-learning increases several important development and learning outcomes in college students (Yorio & Ye, 2012), it is not clear whether service-learning is better preparing these students for their future careers (Gray, Ondaatje, Fricker, & Geschwind, 2000). To better understand the influence of service-learning on student development, an exploration of a leadership service-learning course and an important workplace attribute, Positive Psychological Capital, are theoretically explored.

With the rapid growth of leadership research and the increasing complexity of research methods, preparing doctoral students to do research in leadership studies is becoming more challenging. This article outlines an exploratory research study and presents results of what is currently being done by university PhD leadership programs to prepare students to do research in the complex area of leadership. The paper also discusses some areas of encouragement as well as some areas of concern in regard to the current state of research methodology preparation for future leadership researchers and scholars.

Considering the role of higher education in preparing the next generation of leaders for social change, leadership education is challenged to consider how best to prepare young adults for socially responsible leadership. Service-learning and professional internships, separately, have been identified as vehicles for preparing young adults for leadership roles. The purpose of this Application Brief is to describe a hybrid of service-learning and professional internships, called “Serviceship,” which employs undergraduate students as interns for a community rather than a company. Now in its fifth year at a Midwestern, four-year land-grant institution, the “Serviceship” program has placed 21 interns in 11 rural communities. Utilizing an asset-based community development framework, undergraduate students are matched with rural communities whose local leaders have self-identified a community development project.

Leadership is necessary for organizational effectiveness (Kroeck et al., 2004), a finding that applies to student organizations at institutions of higher education (Plante, 2016; Posner, 2012). However, student leaders of campus organizations face nuanced and significant challenges (Foubert & Urbanski, 2006; Plante, 2016). Therefore, we sought to diagnose and analyze the central challenge of a peer leadership position within a collegiate leadership mentoring program. After diagnosing the central challenge of the position, we built a training and development intervention grounded in the leadership theory of consideration versus structure (Halpin & Winer, 1957; Stogdill, 1974). The intervention was administered to two cohorts of seven student leaders and subsequently assessed for effectiveness. The current paper shares the assessment results, along with details on developing and implementing the leadership intervention. We hope practitioners can (a) implement the process we outline to conduct a needs assessment and create a leadership development intervention and (b) utilize the training in their co-curricular organizations.

While there are well-established personal benefits to being a mentor, such as increased life satisfaction and job performance (Ramaswami & Dreher, 2007), how mentors grow and develop requires exploration. We meet this need by presenting six key themes from two recent research studies related to the experiences that mentors perceived as contributing to their development. The growth of two leadership theories in particular were explored: generativity and Psychological Capital. Six themes emerged: (a) curricular training, (b) exposure to leadership outcomes, (c) being mentored by peers, (d) experiences with mentee, (e) reflection, and (f ) observing a ripple effect. These themes offer insights on how curricular and co-curricular experiences might maximize leadership development of students and ground leadership interventions, such as mentoring, in theory and research.