Establishing Effective Mentoring Networks: Rationale and Strategies.

Introduction: Mentoring networks constitute an effective mentoring model in academic medicine and significantly add to the traditional dyadic mentor-mentee relationship. There is an unmet educational need for medical faculty to recognize the importance and characteristics of effective mentoring networks and to develop tools and strategies to appraise and construct strong, individualized mentoring networks.

Methods: An interactive educational session on developmental mentoring networks for physicians and scientists in an academic environment was designed.

The young and the clueless.

It's natural to promote your best and brightest, especially when you think they may leave for greener pastures if you don't continually offer them new challenges and rewards. But promoting smart, ambitious young managers too quickly often robs them of the chance to develop the emotional competencies that come with time and experience--competencies like the ability to negotiate with peers, regulate emotions in times of crisis, and win support for change. Indeed, at some point in a manager's career--usually at the vice president level--raw talent and ambition become less important than the ability to influence and persuade, and that's the point at which the emotionally immature manager will lose his effectiveness.