Using Self-Mentoring to Increase Teacher Efficacy and Confidence as Leaders: A Review of Multiple Studies from the Field

Introduction

We cannot be all things, which would require mastery of every realm of human life. Therefore, we must identify where we differ in which to cultivate self-efficacy within our given pursuits as leaders. Perceived self-efficacy is concerned with people’s beliefs in their capabilities to produce given attainments (Bandura, 1997). Thus, the efficacy belief system is not a global trait but a differentiated set of self-beliefs linked to distinct realms of functioning (Bandura, 2006) as a leader. But how do we develop self-efficacy and inspire confidence in these fledging leaders?

Self-mentoring, the act of leading oneself in an unknown environment is a sustainable practice of leadership when developing teacher leaders. One manner in which self-mentoring contributes to the development of a teacher leader is through increased confidence and self-efficacy (Bond & Hargreaves, 2014). It becomes important while developing teacher leaders, to recognize the potential impact on the formation of students’ behavior and success. When the self-efficacy of a classroom teacher increases, the efficacy of the students also increases (Bandura 1997), promoting higher levels of achievement. Public school teachers involved in the self-mentoring studies harvested the benefits of self-mentoring in their role as a classroom leader through augmented student engagement and motivation, but analogously in school-wide leadership roles.

This chapter will elucidate how to use self-mentoring to increase confidence and teacher efficacy as leaders. We begin with an overview of 1) self-mentoring inclusive of theory and the results yielded from several research studies; 2) self-efficacy and confidence as it relates to teacher leadership; and 3) how self-mentoring supports the development of teacher leaders and organizational citizenship.