Influence of mentorship on development of leadership skills among young future leaders in Ondo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The development of the required leadership skills by young future leaders is very important to addressing the lack of efficient and effective leadership to achieve planned socio – economic development in both private and public sectors at the national and state levels in Nigeria. This has been identified by some studies on leadership skills in Nigeria. However, nothing seems to have been done on factors that influence the development of leadership skills among young future leaders, especially, in Ondo State, Nigeria. Therefore, this study examined the influence of mentorship on the development of leadership skills in young future leaders in Ondo State, Nigeria. An exploratory mixed research design was employed for the study. The total number of universities engaged in the study was six comprising one federal university, three state universities and two private universities. The targeted population for the study was 396 respondents out which 358 questionnaires were successfully returned representing 90.4% return rate. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. The results revealed that at 0.05 level of significance, leadership skills are practised by young future leaders as evidenced by the p-value of 0.000. Furthermore, the result revealed that mentorship is received for leadership skills by young future leaders with p-value of 0.000. The result also showed that received mentorship significantly influence leadership skills practised by young future leaders with a p-value of 0.000. In addition, since the p-value is 0.000, the result indicated that demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the mentors significantly influence leadership skills practised by young future leaders. In this same vein, the result showed that the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the mentees independently influence the leadership skills practised by young future leaders with a p-value of 0.003. It was also discovered that with a p-value of 0.000, the frequency of meetings, duration of meeting and mentorship style each independently have significant influence on leadership skills practised by young future leaders. The study concluded that mentorship plays a crucial role in the development of leadership skills among young future leaders. Through this relationship, young future leaders can develop the needed leadership skills like communication, decision making, problem solving, taking risks, emotional intelligence, strategic visioning, motivating and inspiring others for effective and efficient leadership. Consequently, the study recommended that all relevant bodies should urgently incorporate mentorship courses into the curriculum of higher institutions and provide the enabling environment for mentorship to flourish in all sectors.