Graduate Studies, UNL

 

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

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First Advisor

Lindsay Hastings

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Committee Members

Jordan Soliz, LJ McElravy, Wayne Babchuk

Department

Leadership Studies

Date of this Version

7-3-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Citation

A dissertation presented to the faculty of the Graduate College at the University of Nebraska in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy

Major: Leadership Studies

Under the supervision of Professor Lindsay Hastings

Lincoln, Nebraska, May 2026

Comments

Copyright 2026, Jennifer Okoliko. Used by permission

Abstract

Leadership identity development has received considerable attention in the literature, but most of what we know comes from studies focused on students in formal leadership programs or on the mentee’s side of mentoring relationships. Less understood is the mentor's leadership identity development journey and the role of culture in that process.

This study explores how mentors from low power distance cultural backgrounds who engaged with mentees from high power distance cultural backgrounds interpreted the impact of those experiences on their leadership identity development.

Using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), I conducted two semi-structured interviews with ten participants recruited from different formal mentoring programs across the United States. The Four Es Model of Leadership Narrative Development: Entry, Encounter, Emergence, Embodiment, provided the analytic frame, and Hofstede’s (2011) power distance dimension framed how cultural and relational dynamics were interpreted across the data.

Five overarching themes emerged. At Entry, the mentors arrived with culturally informed expectations and personal motivations rooted in reciprocity and curiosity which were all commitments that were already part of who they were before the program began. At Emergence, they began to question what leadership actually meant and to shift their practice towards mutuality and focusing on the specific person in the relationship instead of a cultural category. The findings suggest that intercultural mentoring can be an opportunity for leadership identity development in the mentor, and that the conditions that made it possible were present in the mentors before the program began.

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