Mentoring.

The mentors granting of freedom is fairly clear. He must not judge what his understudy will become. But how about the freedom that the understudy will achieve? What is it, and how does the climate set by the mentor encourage its growth?

[...] the important qualities they will need cannot be dictated or directed by me or by anyone but will emerge as a natural consequence of the total environment in which the person lives. [...] I don't have access to that total environment.

Robert Greenleaf, “Growing Greatness in Managers”, ON BECOMING A SERVANT LEADER

I have an opportunity to fill a mentoring role for a group of students from the University of Wisconsin Madison chapter of Engineers Without Borders. We leave for a trip to Rwanda today where the students will be following up on some projects they have been working on related to improving farming practices and drinking water systems. Therefore, I will not likely be posting here again until we return in the middle of June.

I hope to learn much about the role of a mentor, servant leadership, and living simply from the students I work with and the people of Rwanda. I will try to post some thoughts when I return. I hope to allow myself to grow from both the duel role of the mentor/mentee.