The mentorship imperative for health leadership.

Mentorship plays an important role in supporting the career development of health leaders. An examination of mentorship programs in different organizational settings provides a frame of reference to discuss and explore personal and professional mentorship experiences. Specifically, between October 2015 and April 2016, the Emerging Health Leaders (EHL) National Health Leadership Conference (NHLC) working group collaborated on an environmental scan of mentorship programs and activities to understand innovations in mentorship. In April 2016, EHL Toronto developed a mentor feedback survey using the LEADS in a Caring Environment framework to capture the varied experiences of mentors engaged in EHL Toronto's past mentorship events. A summary of this data presented at the 2016 NHLC situates a discussion on the highly interconnected and iterative nature of mentorship and leadership development in career progression. Mentorship is seen as a continuous journey of discovery, shared learning, and personal and professional development to achieve leadership excellence.