The Situational Mentor

An International Review of Competences and Capabilities in Mentoring

Gill Lane, David Clutterbuck, David Clutterbuck

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317015932
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Industrial Management
• Index: Business

Because the mentoring process involves a number of distinct stages, a wide range of skills are needed throughout the process and these skills are situational. In other words, a skilled mentor understands the principles of mentoring, but is also able to use appropriate skills according to the person with whom they are working and the stage they have reached in the relationship. In addition, different types of mentoring programme will demand a skills set particular to each. As with many other areas of development, a mix of the theoretical and the practical is needed to ensure that programmes and relationships achieve their potential. In The Situational Mentor: An International Review of Competences and Capabilities in Mentoring, David Clutterbuck and Gill Lane have brought together contributions from leading international academics and practitioners to define the key skills involved in mentoring and explore how these may be tailored to ensure a successful outcome in all instances.

1 Key themes: a literature review

GILL LANE

The elder penguins would take the younger penguins under their wings and coach them on how to be successful

Hateley and Schmidt, 1995

Mentors have a diverse range of roles and thus an equally diverse and complex range of associated activities and underlying competences. Roles and activities of mentors are the first step to uncovering the variety of competences that underlie effectiveness, and much has been written in the literature about roles and activities. It is only more recently that we begin to see attempts at detailing competence. As such this chapter explores:

the roles and activities of mentors from various literature sources

some considered critical success factors through the literature that make for effectiveness as a mentor

suggestions for ways that mentor competence could be measured

the use of different roles and activities (and therefore presumably different competences) for different mentor situations.

ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

Examining the literature, one is struck by the number and variety of roles and activities that mentors perform – the list at first seems endless. Then as you read more it is clear, and not surprising, that the list predominantly includes many helping-type functions together with supporting roles. It is a mixture of functional approaches and characteristics. It includes some organizational knowledge and considerable ability at handling people. All writers on what mentors actually do list a host of activities undertaken and, whilst it is hard to see any key themes emerging within the activities, some do give attempts at a breakdown of key areas of focus.

Julie Hay, in her text Transformational Mentoring (1995), refers to the complex range of activities that mentors may undertake – guiding, being a role model, utilizing experience and knowledge, listening to mentees’ ideas, talking through career issues, together with coaching and counselling. Similar activities are acknowledged by Leeds Metropolitan University (1995) from their research work published in their report Mentoring: the ‘Working for a Degree’project: Final project report Vol 1, Jan 1995 and shown in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 Mentoring activities (Leeds Metropolitan University, 1995)

Clutterbuck (2001) comments that the more recent origins of mentoring lie in the concept of apprenticeship where the mentor is deemed to be the older, more experienced person who passes down his or her knowledge to a more junior person, not necessarily in a direct line relationship. As a role model the mentor acts as a:

guide

tutor

coach

confidant.

Clutterbuck (1998) tells us more about the role model, that in practice this always takes place in any one-to-one learning relationship with the possibility of ‘transference’ from one person to the other.

A survey on women mentors (Vincent and Seymour, 1995) indicates female mentors are a role model for other women. Gender role models are endorsed by Gladstone (1988) with reference to the way that women as mentors can act as a role model for women in business careers. The Arnold and Davidson (1990) study of 30 UK managers indicated that the mentor acting as a role model was important with ‘same gender’ mentors.

Functional activities alone do not constitute the full range of role requirements of a mentor, and personal characteristics are equally important. Hay (1995) indicates such characteristics as trust, respect, ethical approach, coupled with qualities such as self-awareness and self-development, and that attitude is important.

Distinct aspects of the role in both functional approaches and personal characteristics of the mentor are highlighted by Caruso (1992). (This provides a strong link with the competence aspects covered later in this chapter when one talks of functional and behavioural competence as the ‘doing’ and ‘being’ type competence essential for the mentor.) Caruso provides detail of major research undertaken by PA Associates in 1986 at Motorola on a survey of senior managers across eight countries. From a sample size of 2000 with a response rate of 19 per cent, Caruso shows the study highlights the importance of mentoring in terms of career development. In addition, he draws from studies analysed by the International Centre for Mentoring, based in Vancouver, which in turn drew data from 500 published articles, 225 conference papers, 150 doctoral dissertations, 65 books and 150 mentoring programme descriptions. Caruso was thus able to define a mentor as having:

attributes (such as knowledge, experience, power)

roles (coach, counsellor, teacher, guide, sponsor)

functions (teaching, career assistance, counselling).

Clutterbuck (1985), Parsloe (1992), Caruso (1992) and Baird (1993) have drawn similar conclusions on the role of a mentor being that of giving advice and direction, providing support and encouragement, and acting as a critical friend and confidant.

Clutterbuck (2001) defines the role as having three distinct areas, these being:

to encourage and motivate the mentee

to nurture the mentee to develop

to teach the mentee relevant skills and promote their learning potential.

He also places mutual respect as a key ingredient.

The Open University study (Open University Quality Support Centre, 1995) outlined the mentor roles as being befriending; role modelling; coaching; career guidance; supervising; counselling; facilitating; assessing, designing and managing learning; and playing a liaison role. In an article entitled ‘Are you mentor material?’, Dianne Molvig (1995) suggests that a mentor combines the roles of coach, advisor, counsellor, advocate, teacher and friend. She suggests that the exact mix of roles varies from one person to another and that this is dependent on individual style and the situation. She does state that a crucial point is that ‘true’ mentoring should be more than any one of these roles. A ‘true’ mentor is also referred to by Kalpna Parag (1995), who said that ‘a true mentor is an advisor, guide and friend’.

Hoschette (1995) reminds us that the dictionary defines a mentor as a ‘wise and trusted counsellor or teacher’. He considers that one should consult a mentor in ‘difficult times’ in addition to utilizing mentors as sounding boards for new ideas and new approaches to problems that may arise.

Parsloe (1992) agreed with Clutterbuck’s reference (1985, 2001) to the mentor being a guide in addition to other activities, but added activities of advising and counselling. Clutterbuck (1985, 2001) included activities of encouraging, motivating, nurturing and teaching, and in terms of these being ‘helping’ type functions Caruso (1992) refers to activities highlighted by Kram (1988) and Noe (1988), who mention ‘help functions’ being in two district categories of career development activities and personal help activities. In addition, he refers to a third category raised by Alleman (1982) – the ‘teaching help function’. From Caruso’s own review of mentoring literature, the activities or functions that mentors repeatedly performed fell into the three same categories, that is:

teaching

career development

personal help.

He outlined the key activities as being those of coaching, counselling, teaching, guiding and being a sponsor in addition to offering experience and knowledge, and giving career assistance. Mumford (1989) also talks of the sponsor role with his reference to the ‘door opener’ approach providing opportunities for the mentee.

Being a ‘friend’, ‘supportive friend’, ‘critical friend’, ‘wise and trusted friend’ and ‘confidante’ are activities mentioned by Baird (1993), Clutterbuck (1985) and Simosko (1991). Collaboration and acting as a ‘critical friend’ are roles introduced by John Baird in Caldwell and Carter’s text (1993), who see the role as being applied in three ways: that of consultant, co-researcher and friend. Gardner (1997) in her study into ‘professional friendship’ suggests objectivity and safety within the mentoring relationship, with trust and confidentiality being central.

Advisory- and assessing-type activities came forward from Simosko (1991) and Parsloe (1992) with advisory added by Clutterbuck (1985). The counselling activity is endorsed by Clutterbuck (1985), Caruso (1992) and Parsloe (1992), but Simosko (1991) considers counselling to be an inappropriate activity, preferring to keep the relationship on a more professional level, as she considers there may be a tendency for a mentor to become too involved in the mentee’s life. Thus she places emphasis on the mentor as a resource rather than a counsellor. This view is shared by Levinson et al. (1978).

A study of 30 UK managers by Arnold and Davidson (1990) showed that the most important mentor activity was that of encouragement. Within the 30, a total of 20 female managers referred to their lack of confidence, and the help and support provided by their mentor.

The vast range of mentor activities is acknowledged by Shea (1995), who states that the core of mentoring is a developmental, caring, sharing, helping relationship where one person invests their time, knowledge, experience and energy in increasing and improving another person’s growth, knowledge and skills.

The need to draw from one’s own experience as a mentor is endorsed by William Barry (1995). He suggests that the more experienced should be willing to teach or become a mentor to inexperienced colleagues. Utilizing coaching techniques a mentor can help a mentee to develop reflective and problem-solving expertise whilst being able to clarify and probe responses and remain non-judgemental (Barnett, 1995). Marilyn Kennedy (1994) also talks of the coaching approach of the mentor in her paper ‘Good coach, bad coach’ and in particular of the need for ‘objective’ feedback, something that she recognizes a mentor can provide.

With such an exhaustive list of roles and activities, and with the advent of the competence debate across many organizations, it is natural that a number of writers have started to consider the underlying skills, knowledge, functional and personal behaviours that make up competences for mentors.

EFFECTIVENESS

Whether w...