Mapping a Mentoring Roadmap and Developing a Supportive Network for Strategic Career Advancement

Mentors versus advisors

Advisors tell any individual what steps or activities are needed to complete a task, degree, or attain tenure or promotion (Baker & Griffin, 2010; Montgomery et al., 2014; Ramirez, 2012). In this regard, advising is instruction or guidance that would benefit any student pursuing a particular educational course or any individual on a particular career path. Advising, then, centers on providing factual information about the particular activities that must occur to complete an educational course of study or actions pertinent to any individual pursuing a particular career or goal-directed trajectory (Montgomery et al., 2014). Advising, though necessary and highly desirable in many cases, is largely a one-way transfer of information from advisor to advisee in pursuit of an organizationally specific context of success. In this sense, many forms of top-down “mentoring” can appear to more aptly fit a role of advising of individuals toward organizational norms or institutionally driven goals for individual workers and their contextual success.

By contrast, mentoring is positioned as a distinct and deeper engagement that is based on a thorough personal understanding of one’s mentee and that individual’s personal career aspirations. Mentoring very frequently includes some advising, yet transcends advising in its provision of individual-specific information and bilateral engagement and interactions that include the offering of advice based on a deep personal understanding of the mentee’s cadre of prior experiences, strengths and weaknesses, personal aspirations, values, and professional goals (Montgomery et al., 2014). The investment of a mentor in getting to know the personal strengths and weaknesses of an individual—“learning” the person (Montgomery, 2015a)—allows the mentor to address an individual’s unique needs in the mentoring relationship (Baker & Griffin, 2010; Kirchmeyer, 2005; Montgomery et al., 2014; Ramirez, 2012). This learning includes gaining an understanding of the individual’s strengths and weaknesses to the degree that a mentor can suggest and help guide the mentee along a path of action that engages and capitalizes on the mentee’s strengths, while providing opportunities to improve recognized weaknesses for the benefit of personal growth and successful attainment of educational and/or career goals. Effective mentoring may, and perhaps should, also engage personal values of the mentee and mentor. Such a values-based focus provides an opportunity for personalized mentoring with a goal of promoting improved outcomes for individual mentees, yet also addresses the recognition that differing values can lead to conflicts or differences in expectations that can impede or derail mentoring exchanges. Thus, impactful mentoring focuses deeply on personal growth as one recognizes and considers the whole person, and also seeks to support an individual’s values-based personal advancement in a specific domain (Montgomery, 2015b). This individual-centered view of mentoring is distinct from many top-down approaches, which again can very often reflect an advising perspective associated with specific and often time-delimited goals related to instrumental facets of career success (Lewis & Olshansky, 2016), and in fact often meet the needs of a smaller part of one’s comprehensive and career-long mentoring needs.

Multiple roles versus multiple mentors?

Mentors can fill many roles, including the provision of practical advice about careers or a course of study, contributions to professional development, or dissemination of political guidance and strategies (Montgomery et al., 2014). In all of these engagements, there is a need for mentors who understand an individual’s personal commitments, values, and future goals to provide the most efficacious mentoring. To support complex mentoring needs, people often seek a comprehensive mentor. However, the wide range of areas to which mentors can make contributions suggests that mentors either have to serve effectively in multiple roles or alternatively that mentees need to engage multiple mentors, each with specific strengths and/or expertise, to gain the comprehensive mentoring needed. Thus, the focus of mentoring should shift to the goal of assembling comprehensive mentoring, which may—and perhaps should—include input from multiple mentors rather than seeking a single individual to fill multiple roles as a comprehensive “guru” mentor (Chesler & Chesler, 2002; de Janasz & Sullivan, 2004; Ensher et al., 2001; Grant, 2015; Long et al., 2014; Long et al., 2013; R. McGee, Lee, Pfund, & Branchaw, 2015; Packard, 2016; Packard, Kim, Sicley, & Piontkowski, 2009; Rockquemore, 2013; Sorcinelli & Yun, 2007; Wilson et al., 2012; Zambrana et al., 2015). There are many formats for gaining access to comprehensive mentoring, including collective mentoring by a group of preassembled individuals (Blue, 2001; Chesler & Chesler, 2002; Davidson & Foster-Johnson, 2001; Dodson, Montgomery, & Brown, 2009; Eby, 1997; R. McGee, Saran, & Krulwich, 2012; Montgomery et al., 2014; Smith, Cech, Metz, Huntoon, & Moyer, 2014), as well as the alternative of assembling a personal collection of mentors into a mentor network that is strategically constructed to serve the comprehensive needs of any particular mentee (Hetty van Emmerik, 2004; Higgins & Kram, 2001; Long et al., 2013; Sorcinelli & Yun, 2007; Trube & VanDerveer, 2015; Zambrana et al., 2015). Based on longitudinal analyses of mentoring relationships, the engagement of mentoring networks has been associated with long-term career outcomes, whereas top-down approaches more effectively support short-term career goals (Higgins & Thomas, 2001). Despite the recognized value of mentoring networks for supporting long-term career outcomes, practical mechanisms for enacting the building of individual mentoring networks to complement the provision of an organizational mentor are limited. Based on theoretical frameworks introduced in the literature, a model for mapping an individual mentoring roadmap is introduced and followed with a description of the building and sustaining of mentoring networks that support comprehensive career planning and strategic development for individuals. The roadmap charting and network construction processes include both descriptions of specific mentoring types and resources (i.e., nodes of the mentoring network) and the mentoring relationships that connect the individual mentee with identified resources (i.e., edges in the network).

What do I need and why do I need it? Self-reflection is a start pointing for individuals to identify mentoring needs related to their personal aspirations

Without a clear understanding of what support is specifically needed to attain self-defined goals or in what specific areas support and mentoring are needed, how can an individual adequately identify the right source(s) or mentors for obtaining what is needed? A role for self-reflection or self-assessment in identifying professional mentoring needs or goals and suggested tools and professional development opportunities for targeted self-assessment have been recommended (R. McGee, Lee, et al., 2015; Sorcinelli & Yun, 2009; Tull & Tull, 2012). Self-reflection is of key importance to facilitate robust self-awareness about one’s individual strengths and weaknesses and to cultivate an ability to receive constructive criticism. These are critical factors in being able to effectively engage in and benefit from robust mentoring relationships. Some tools have emerged which are intended to facilitate strategic self-assessment, including versions of an individual development plan (IDP; Clifford, 2002; Vincent et al., 2015). The use of IDPs in particular has been supported as critical for promoting structured bilateral conversations between mentors and mentees (Faber, 2015; Vincent et al., 2015).

When do I need a resource?

Having identified a core set of needs, another consideration is whether these are all needed simultaneously or whether resources can be engaged in specific phases. This is a critical consideration as it helps mentees identify when particular mentoring resources will need to be identified and engaged. This knowledge facilitates the prioritization of the search for mentor(s) and mentoring resources, which will serve as nodes in the building of a mentoring network (described below). This idea that not all resources are needed at once begins to draw on the idea that mentoring networks are dynamic in nature (Dobrow & Higgins, 2005). Attention to strategic management of the dynamics of one’s access to mentor(s) and mentoring resources can support career success and advancement over time (Dobrow & Higgins, 2005; Uzzi & Dunlap, 2005).

Where or in what areas must the resource be located?

The consideration of the identified areas of mentoring needs and whether these resources need ideally be local or can be engaged from a distance is a vitally important one. Once specific needs are identified, the process of reviewing whether there are already individuals known to the mentee (i.e., known nodes; Figure 2) that can serve in a particular needed capacity can be engaged. If there are areas for which no resources are known, a specific plan for identifying these sources of mentoring can be formulated as discussed in detail below related to construction of mentoring networks (Figure 2). In addition, the availability of access to mentors or mentoring resources online is increasingly possible. Indeed, a growing number of electronic sources are available to aid in the identification of mentors or resources, the actual provision of mentoring that is needed, or to supplement information needed by the mentee in addition to heuristic knowledge needed locally (e.g., Blake-Beard, Bayne, Crosby, & Muller, 2011; Wadia-Fascetti & Leventman, 2000). Engagement of such mentoring resources can become a critical component of developing an individual plan for comprehensive mentoring.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 2.

Identification of mentoring network resource nodes.

What is the framework?

The framework of mentoring relationships should be defined from both the point of view of the mentee and the mentor and overlap or connections between the two should be optimized. Particular points to be addressed in establishing a shared understanding about the framework of a mentoring exchange include the preferred mode of contact, frequency and format of meetings, goals of meetings or planned interactions, and expectations (Cunningham, 1993). It is vitally important to pay attention to the expectations and responsibilities of each party in the mentoring exchange (Grant, 2015; Washington & Cox, 2016) and to be clear and specific about the goals and expectations for both the mentee and mentor. Where possible, it is important to establish measurable outcomes associated with the defined goals and expectations. To enable the reaching of a joint consensus about expectations or to facilitate compromise where individual needs and expectations of the mentee and mentor diverge, it is critical to arrive at a common understanding of both the purpose of the mentoring exchange (Megginson et al., 2006) and type of mentoring relationships that will emerge to support this purpose and to promote effective engagement.

Bilateral interactions

Mentoring relationships of distinct types and to fulfill defined purposes are all bilateral engagements (Byars-Winston, Branchaw, Pfund, Leverett, & Newton, 2015; Grant, 2015; Greco, 2014; Montgomery et al., 2014). Although the benefits of mentoring for mentees are often highlighted in discussions of mentoring relationships, “mentorship is a bidirectional activity” (Pietro De Camilli in Yammine, 2015), with mentors also being enriched and gaining benefits from engaging with the mentee (Chesler & Chesler, 2002; Lechuga, 2011; McKinsey, 2016). Indeed, these relationships have been described as based on “mutual benefit and mutual responsibility” (R. McGee, Lee, et al., 2015, p. 23), as well as “truth and mutual trust” (Greco, 2014, p. 3252). In addition, the bilateral nature of mentoring relationships includes “reciprocity or mutuality of social exchange” (Long et al., 2013, p. 1). This is important in contributing to the strength (or distance) of connections between an individual mentee and mentors or mentoring resources (depicted as edges in topology of mentoring networks) (Uzzi & Dunlap, 2005). As the relationships have benefits to both engaged parties, it is critical to nurture productive bilateral interactions.

Periodic review of goals

As mentoring relationships develop, it is important for both mentee and mentor to occasionally reassess their continuing goals, and indeed need, for the exchange. It is important periodically to assess whether the framework and bilateral interactions established for maintaining a specific mentee–mentor relationship still work for both parties (Grant, 2015). Such an assessment may result in the realignment of goals and mentoring activities or the identification of new goals.

Reaffirmation or renegotiation

Occasionally, a review of a current mentoring exchange may result in the realization that a particular relationship is complete or no longer serves the needs of one of the involved parties. Even as a good mentor can help you creatively and critically think your way out of a bad “station” along your path, an ill-effective mentor can sink a good opportunity, or lead you astray. Such diversions from identifying and working toward goals represent a time, energy and motivation “sink,” in which efforts are not moving the mentee forward in an individual career timeline. Periodic, intentional assessments of mentoring relationships allow recognition of whether a relationship is working well and should be reaffirmed, or whether a particular mentoring exchange has fulfilled its intended purpose or is no longer working well. This potential transition has been referred to as a “redefinition phase” in Kram’s (1983) phases of mentoring relationships. In the event that a relationship needs to be significantly renegotiated or even concluded, negotiating the way forward requires attention to fully acknowledging the valuable contributions that have been made. It is always advisable to make the transition out of the relationship gracefully and amicably (Grant, 2015).

Are there relationships between nodes directly?

An additional consideration is whether there may be connections between some of the mentoring nodes directly. The interconnectedness of a mentoring network can be described as “network density” (Dobrow & Higgins, p. 570). A low-density network consists of nodes that are largely independent, whereas a high-density network has nodes that have interrelationships or are well known to each other (Dobrow & Higgins, 2005; Uzzi & Dunlap, 2005). Occasionally facilitating connections between nodes or groups of nodes can enable synergistic mentoring outcomes (Uzzi & Dunlap, 2005). Such inter-network connections can also contribute to “access to a diverse array of skill sets” (Uzzi & Dunlap, 2005, p. 2). Notably, low-density networks have been associated with benefits to individuals in the early stages of exploring professional identity (Dobrow & Higgins, 2005). The degree to which network interconnectedness contributes or adds to a mentee’s interaction with each mentoring node should be considered and cultivated, when helpful. Periodic assessment of relationships and current or developing needs may result in the addition or removal of nodes or movement in the position of nodes in the network.

When and how to reposition nodes?

Transitions in one’s network may be critical for movement from one stage to another in one’s career or course of study (Dobrow & Higgins, 2005; Grant, 2015). Mentoring has been described as effective in serving to “support in significant transitions” (Megginson et al., 2006, p. 5). This transitional mentoring (introduced above) likely will require the identification of new nodes (both in service to network diversity and network range) or shuffling of existing nodes, closer or farther away or through facilitating interconnections (to improve network density), as the need for engagement with a particular mentor or mentoring resource changes throughout the course of advancing along an individual roadmap. A concerted effort may be needed to strengthen edges between nodes already in an individual’s network or to alter the distance of edges between nodes. Also, as described above, on occasion it becomes apparent that mentoring relationships are complete and, thus, nodes may need to be removed and/or replaced altogether.