Elements of Successful Mentoring of a Female School Leader

Abstract

This case study examines the successful mentoring relationship between an early-career principal and her mentor as they participated in an Entry Year Program for early-career school administrators as a component of an Administrative Leadership Academy (ALA). Using a feminist poststructuralist framework, the findings show that contrary to traditional mentoring paradigms, which hold that the exchange of information is passed from the mentor to the protégé, the success of this mentoring experience was the nonhierarchal and mutual learning interactions afforded the protégé and her mentor. Implications of such findings are offered for future entry programs to increase support of more nontraditional leaders moving into the school principalship.