Mentorship is often considered one of the best ways to develop leadership potential in new library and information professionals. Mentors act as teacher, role model, and cheerleader, but there are potentially serious aspects to mentorships that will negatively impact the protege. Such negatives include mentors sabotaging or taking credit for a protege's work; personality clashes; abusive relationship behaviors such as sexual harassment, verbal abuse, controlling behavior, and jealousy; or the mentor using the protege as a lackey. And, what effect does a dysfunctional mentoring relationship have on a protege? How can these serious negative behaviors be avoided? This discussion paper looks at the risks of mentoring as a way to develop leaders in LIS and provides suggestions for improving mentoring relationships so that it can be an even more effective tool for developing leadership in LIS. It is time to look at mentorships in a more critical and reflective light for the benefit of mentors, proteges, and the profession at large.