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IN 1985, CHIEF OF STAFF of the Army (CSA) General John A. Wickham, Jr., designated "leadership" as that year's Army theme and addressed a framework designed to produce more effective Army leaders. The benchmark for the framework revolved around senior leaders challenging all leaders within the Army to be mentors to their subordinates. Mentoring immediately became an Army paradigm.
Wickham quickly generated tremendous support for the concept of mentoring, and "[m]entoring emerged as a primary concept in all leadership courses throughout the Army's professional education system."' The term "mentoring" began to appear in official Army publications, and most officers included "mentoring of subordinates as a major objective on their Officer Evaluation Support Form."2
Problem Statement
According to Wickham, "the problem was that the Army had not formulated an official definition of mentoring nor had it established any guidelines for instituting a mentoring program."3 This lack of a widely accepted, clear definition of mentoring and the absence of an approved mentoring program created a void in Army policy, much ambiguity, and was the beginning of many different interpretations of mentoring and diverse ideas about how to implement a mentoring program. Consequently, mentoring came to mean different things to different people, causing considerable misunderstanding.
During this CSA initiative, U.S. Army publications provided minimal coverage of mentoring. Field Manual (FM) 22-103, Leadership and Command at Senior Levels, did not specifically mention mentoring; however, "it did discuss coaching, teaching, and role modeling in the leader development process."4
Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-80, Executive Leadership, provided the best description of mentoring, defining mentoring as a "process used to develop the thinking skills and frames of reference for sequential and progressive leader development."5 Mentoring is different from coaching in that "coaching focuses on here-and-now performance and is the responsibility of immediate superiors. Superiors are the mentors and they are concerned with assessing potential and developing the capabilities and frames of reference that will be required in the future."6 The pamphlet pointed out that mentoring could not be imposed as a requirement. Consequently, "executive leaders are responsible only for establishing and reinforcing a mentoring structure through the organization by setting the example."7
Field Manual 22-100, Army Leadership, addresses mentorship to a degree and provides guidance on the skills and competencies an...