Reflecting back on their careers as leaders, the executives we interviewed felt that the most pivotal experiences in their development had been jobs where they felt the challenges were over their heads—at least, at first. It took a sponsoring mentor who asked them to take the job and then protected them from meddling by “helpful hands” at corporate headquarters. The umbrella created by the mentor was so critical that the company began referring to this mentoring competence as giving others “room to act.”
