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CHAPTER 5: LEADERSHIP MIND AND HEART 157
Share your experience with one or more students. What are the common characteris-
tics that mentors possess based on your combined experiences?

In Class: A discussion of experiences with mentors is excellent for small groups.
The instructor can ask each group to identify the common characteristics that their men-
tors displayed, and each group’s conclusions can be written on the board. From these lists
of mentor characteristics, common themes associated with mentors can be defined. The
instructor can ask the class the following key questions: What are the key characteristics
of mentors? Based on the key mentor characteristics, is effective mentoring based more on
a person’s heart or mind? Will you (the student) reach out as a mentor to others in life,
and how will you do it? What factors might prevent you from doing so?

Leadership Development: Cases for Analysis

The New Boss
Sam Nolan clicked the mouse for one more round of solitaire on the computer in his
den. He’d been at it for more than an hour, and his wife had long ago given up trying to
persuade him to join her for a movie or a rare Saturday night on the town. The mind-
numbing game seemed to be all that calmed Sam down enough to stop agonizing about
work and how his job seemed to get worse every day.
Nolan was Chief Information Officer at Century Medical, a large medical products
company based in Connecticut. He had joined the company four years ago, and since that
time Century had made great progress integrating technology into its systems and processes.
Nolan had already led projects to design and build two highly successful systems for Century.
One was a benefits-administration system for the company’s human resources department.
The other was a complex Web-based purchasing system that streamlined the process of pur-
chasing supplies and capital goods. Although the system had been up and running for only a
few months, modest projections were that it would save Century nearly $2 million annually.
The new Web-based system dramatically cut the time needed for processing requests and
placing orders. Purchasing managers now had more time to work collaboratively with key
stakeholders to identify and select the best suppliers and negotiate better deals.
Nolan thought wearily of all the hours he had put in developing trust with people
throughout the company and showing them how technology could not only save time and
money but also support team-based work, encourage open information sharing, and give
people more control over their own jobs. He smiled briefly as he recalled one long-term HR
employee, 61-year-old Ethel Moore. She had been terrified when Nolan first began show-
ing her the company’s intranet, but she was now one of his biggest supporters. In fact, it
had been Ethel who had first approached him with an idea about a Web-based job posting
system. The two had pulled together a team and developed an idea for linking Century
managers, internal recruiters, and job applicants using artificial intelligence software on
top of an integrated Web-based system. When Nolan had presented the idea to his boss,
executive vice president Sandra Ivey, she had enthusiastically endorsed it. Within a few
weeks the team had authorization to proceed with the project.
But everything began to change when Ivey resigned her position 6 months later to
take a plum job in New York. Ivey’s successor, Tom Carr, seemed to have little interest in
the project. During their first meeting, Carr had openly referred to the project as a waste