Developing Effective Mentoring Relationships: Strategies From the Mentor's Viewpoint
✍ Scribed by Tammy D. Allen; Mark L. Poteet
- Publisher
- American Counseling Association
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 932 KB
- Volume
- 48
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0889-4019
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Mentoring is being increasingly used by companies as a means of fostering employee learning and development. Limited research exists from the perspective of the mentor on these relationships. This article presents the results of a qualitative study that investigated the characteristics that the ideal mentor should possess and ways that both mentors and proteges can make mentoring relationships most effective. Findings from the study are used to frame sug- gestions for future research and practice.
The topic of mentoring has received much research attention in the career development literature in recent years. Mentoring reflects a relationship between two individuals, usually a senior and junior employee, whereby the senior employee takes the junior employee "under his or her wing" to teach the junior employee about his or her job, introduce the junior employee to contacts, orient the employee to the industry and organization, and address social and personal issues that may arise on the job . The mentoring relationship is distinguished from other organizational relationships (e.g., supervisor-subordinate) in that the involved individuals may or may not formally work together, the relationship is typically not sanctioned by the organization, the relationship usually lasts longer than most organizational relationships, the issues addressed during the course of the relationship may and often include nonwork issues, and the bond between the mentor and protbgb is usually closer and stronger than those of other organizational relationships .