Having reviewed leadership styles in the session this morning I have reflected on the implications that these different styles may have on members of staff that I currently work with. It has made me realise that I may be less democratic and visionary than I previously perceived myself to be. This has lead to me consider how my leadership style may impact on getting the best out of members of my department. It has also raised questions about my leadership challenge and forced me to wonder if the students that have volunteered to act as mentors share my vision and long term view of the impact it will have on them as students and the mentees they are working with. I also scored lowest on coercive which is a slight surprise. However this has lead me to consider what sort of rewards/incentives I could put in place for the mentors and how this could affect their motivation. This could consist of some form of rewards presentation or financial reward e.g. money on their I.D card etc.
I have looked into possible rewards and what mentors and mentees may value. The link below shows research conducted by the university of Reading and what they found:
http://www.reading.ac.uk/engageinmentoring/Running-mentoring-schemes/eim-reward-and-recognition.aspx
The key finding that I may want to consider is that mentors valued positive feedback from mentees and mentees shy away from formal recognition and the progress that they make is reward enough.
