Behind every successful person, there is one elementary truth: somewhere, somehow, someone cared about their growth and development. This person was their mentor.” Dr. Beverley Kaye, Up is Not the Only Way, 2004
Mentoring is a relationship between a senior person and a junior person that enhances the junior person’s personal learning on the job and career development. Research on mentoring in organizations dates back to the late seventies to early eighties. In 1985, Kathy Kram at Boston University published a book entitled, “Mentoring at work: Developmental relationships in organizational life” that proved to be a catalyst for much research on mentoring in the management literature. In recent years, the emphasis on mentoring relationships at work has shifted to what mentee’s learn on the job – both job- related skills as well as political acumen.
Often, much of what is learned is difficult to impart through books or even formal training program. Impactful learning occurs through the transmission of best practices from senior people who have been there to juniors who are eager to learn to navigate the complex organizational world. Mentoring roles include the career function – skill development and provision of opportunities for visibility such as the mentor having the mentee make a presentation of his or her ideas to upper management. Mentors also provide social support, serving as a sounding board during stressful career transitions or organizational change. Mentors also serve as positive role models – someone that the mentee aspires to be like in the future. In some cases, the mentee may not personally know the role model, but such models may have an important influence on the mentee.
For example, Michelle Obama may be an influence on young women as a model of a successful female professional. Understanding this tripartite approach to mentoring roles is important, particularly when one considers that most successful people have had multiple mentors over the course of their careers and some at the same time. Different mentors may play different roles in one’s personal and professional development. For example, one mentor may be a technical guru, another is your source of social support, perhaps a peer mentor. And yet another may be someone you don’t even know – a person that is high-ranking in your organization that you emulate. All of these roles are important in a person’s professional development. We don’t have to accept all advice that a mentor provides. Education is the just that – it is the acceptance or rejection of influence. Mentoring provides the vehicle for exposure to such influences. Mentoring is not cloning; a mentee develops their own special brand of leading which is likely an amalgamation of the positive influences that have been accepted over the course of time.
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Terri Scandura
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