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Mentoring is recognized as one of the most promising practices for both leader and leadership development because of its effectiveness at facilitating development (Day, 2001). Mentoring embeds leadership development within the ongoing experiences of a developing leader-an increasingly desired feature of leadership development interventions (Day & Liu, 2019). Each mentoring opportunity generates unique leadership development experiences and outcomes. An effective mentoring relationship satisfies the need to develop and sustain positive relationships; linking mentoring to positive affective, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes (Allen & Eby, 2010). Mentoring develops intrapersonal and interpersonal competence in the mentee, expanding their understanding of organizations and achieving greater social capital (Day, Fleenor, Atwater, Sturm, & McKee, 2014). Mentorship also positively influences outcomes like leadership self-efficacy, political skills, and socially responsible leadership (Chopin, Danish, Seers, & Hook, 2013; Dugan & Komives, 2010). Mentors themselves also benefit from increased pride and satisfaction, refined leadership competencies, stronger confidence, improved job performance, and higher levels of generativity (Hastings et al., 2015).

PurposeGenerativity, 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.Design/methodology/approachUsing 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.FindingsAlthough 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.Originality/valueThe 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.

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.

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