What’s Needed for Mentoring Future Leaders: The Connections between Risk-Taking, Living Values, and Radical Listening

Mentoring Gen Z to be effective leaders requires fostering a comfort with the uncomfortable, a willingness to take risks and accept potential failure. Based on our experience teaching Gen Z in the college classroom, and working in mentorship relationships, we propose that the key to developing the skill of risk-taking lies in mentoring individuals to define their values; providing a structure through journaling for mentees to experiment with how values guide actions. We link value identification to listening as an essential component of leadership and offer the method of reflective structured dialogue as a tool for fostering listening skills. The relationship between risk aversion, values, and listening impacts every facet of life and interaction between individuals. Teaching the links between risk aversion, value clarification, and the art of listening is an opportunity for mentorship.