Lynn Strangway is an experienced educator with 35 years in various roles across four school boards, the Education Quality and Accountability Office, and the Ontario Ministry of Education. She recently retired as Executive Superintendent for Learning Centre 3 in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB). Lynn is the president of LMS Consulting and Coaching, specializing in leadership development, coaching, and mentoring. She has held numerous leadership positions, including Associate Director, Executive & System Superintendent in Peel and TDSB. A published author, Lynn wrote The Principal as Mathematics Leader and has contributed articles to several educational publications. She is dedicated to leadership development and mentorship.
In today’s complex and rapidly evolving career landscape, effective leadership is more crucial than ever. Cultivating a pipeline of capable leaders requires more than just identifying high potential individuals—it demands intentional efforts to nurture and develop them from recruitment to retirement (or off-boarding). Mentoring and coaching are powerful tools in this process, offering personalized guidance and support that fosters the skills, confidence, and strategic thinking necessary for successful leadership. When embedded into an organization’s leadership development strategy, these practices not only accelerate individual growth but also create a strong foundation for succession planning, ensuring the continuity of leadership excellence within the organization for years to come.
It is important for organizations to ensure that new employees, and those seeking to continuously develop their skills to be more effective in their roles, or to prepare for future promotions, have strong mentors. The expectation of mentorship should be embedded in the fabric of the organization. For mentoring to be effective it should be mandatory. According to the Harvard Business Review (2022), “New research finds that mentorship programs can indeed produce valuable gains—for employees and their firms—but only when they are mandatory. That’s because if mentoring is optional, the people most in need of it tend to decline the opportunity.” Managers and other leaders should have mentoring and coaching as an expectation in their job descriptions. There should also be volunteer callouts for those employees who would like to mentor others. Organizations’ leadership capacity plans need to include ongoing professional learning opportunities for mentors to be effective at mentoring and coaching employees that will seek future leadership opportunities. Investing in the capacity of mentors also strengthens the leadership talent pool of the organization.
Staff being onboarded into new roles within the organization need to be immediately assigned a mentor who has received the necessary professional learning opportunities to be effective at mentoring and coaching. There should be a flexible, yet formal mentoring/coaching framework to ensure accountability to the mentoring program and the participants.
For staff who work for an organization that does not have a formal mentoring/coaching structure or program for staff, seek out your own help. Look for a trustworthy mentor who has faced similar challenges to yours or seek out an executive coach to meet with regularly to help you reach your leadership goals (Harvard Business Review, 2021, pg. 23).
As an executive leader in the Education sector, I had the benefit of having mentors and coaches throughout my career who offered the following essential mentoring components:
- Honest feedback – sugar coating feedback when someone is invested in personal and professional growth does not help them to meet their goals
- Strategic advice – asking hard questions to ensure that a variety of options and perspectives are explored
- A mentoring framework – to provoke critical thinking, provide tracking and act as an accountability tool
- Meaningful scenarios or practice tasks – to prepare for upcoming challenges or job competitions
- A caring and empathetic ear – listening to understand and to help plan for next steps
One sample mentoring framework that worked well is noted below:
| What do you hope to gain or learn from this mentoring opportunity? | What’s your primary objective of participating in mentoring? | What are your strengths and areas of improvement? | How will you know that you are improving or getting what you need out of the mentoring? | What is your evidence of impact? | Other? |
As I moved through my career in education, I found it extremely helpful to be proactive and ask for assistance when preparing for a job competition or when trying to improve in my role. As a mentee, when I found a quality mentor that I knew would be honest and push me, I stuck with them and returned to them often for advice and support. The most effective mentors were the ones that were brave enough to tell me what I didn’t want to hear, but needed to hear.
As a mentor, I would approach educators and leaders that showed strong potential for leadership and offer to mentor and coach them. I was very aware of the principles of Employment Equity when mentoring and coaching and sought to be a sponsor for colleagues with identities that were under-represented in leadership. I also participated in continuous professional learning to be a more effective coach and mentor, including a Career Coaching Certificate and micro credentials in Coaching Skills for Leaders and Executive Decision Making.
As a leader who had the benefit of strong mentors and coaches starting early on in my career, I felt it was my obligation to pay-it-forward to others. Contributing to the cadre of future leaders in the organizations I have worked in has been a privilege and an important part of succession planning. As leaders, we need to invest in those who are working through the organization and may become our successors, to ensure that future leaders have the necessary knowledge, skills and supports in this ever-changing complex world.
Resource
Harvard Business Review (2021). Management Tips 2. Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation
Harvard Business Review (September/October, 2022). Why Your Mentoring Program Should be Mandatory. https://hbr.org/2022/09/why-your-mentoring-program-should-be-mandatory