Mentors and Proteges

CDR Dennis L. Hufford, MC, USN

Faculty Development Fellowship

Madigan Army Medical Center

(revised 03 April 1999)

The Concept

Mentors help their proteges on a transitional journey. The central concept for proteges is growth. Mentors can appear at any stage of life; they can be younger or older; of either gender. Mentors' primary attribute is that they have already, in some sense, gone where the protégé wishes to go.

Listening may be the mentors most powerful intervention. Listening includes helping the protege to voice ideas, concerns, assumptions, etc., and to engage in reflecting, selecting, reinforcing, and mirroring. This helps the protege articulate a new image of him/herself and a new set of tasks to be assumed. Mentors enlarge the protégé’s perspective by "tilting the mirror."

Mentors serve three functions: Support, challenge, and vision.

Support

Support affirms the validity of the protege's present experience. Helping a protege through a major transition requires that the protege trust the mentor in order to have the courage to make a leap into the dark. Kinds of support a mentor can provide:

Challenge

Mentors sometimes assign "mysterious" tasks, introduce contradictory ideas, question tacit assumptions, or refuse to answer questions. The purpose of these kinds of ploys is to "open a gap" between a protégé and the environment, which the protégé will feel compelled to close. Ways in which a mentor might introduce new challenges include:

Vision

Mentors help protégés apprehend a different reality, either current or to come. They help provide a bridge between the protégé’s old self and the new. They help protégés cross the gap by providing a sense of continuity. Ways in which a mentor might provide vision include:

The Hierarchy of Mentoring
 

Level

Mentoring Activity

Protégé Benefit

Mentor Investment

I

Teaching

Instruction: organizational skills, social graces, inside information

Time

II

Psychological Counseling/Support

Enhanced sense of self, confidence, personal life

Emotion/Self

III

Organizational Intervention

Mentor intercedes on protégé's behalf, runs interference

Organizational relationships, reputation

IV

Sponsoring

Mentor recommends protégé for promotion, responsibility

Reputation, career


 

Level I-Teaching

The mentor imparts a feel for the job, a knowledge of the skills needed to perform it and information on trends in the field. The mentor also shows the protégé the best methods for managing people in the organization and the importance of support from below.

The mentor transfers information about non-skill aspects of organizational life: Politics, the personalities of corporate managers and the correct presentation of self. In general the mentor transmits "state secrets" to the prot6g6-information about corporate finances and other classified data.

The mentor provides the protégé with a picture of the career paths available inside and outside the corporation. This often involves redirecting the protégé from his chosen specialty into a field more suited to the protégé’s skills.

Techniques Utilized in Teaching the Protégé their Job

Level II- Personal Support

Mentor helps protege overcome pressures and strains accompanying transition to positions of greater responsibility. Accentuates positive factors or new position. Imparts a sense of perspective.

Through various attitudinal and behavioral mechanisms, mentor builds protege's sense of confidence. If in a position to do so, allows protege to assume greater responsibility.

Mentor helps protege deal with family pressures, personal dilemmas, and conflicts that interfere with job performance.

Level III-Organizational Intervention

Mentor provides support environment around protege by intervening in conflicts and situations that endanger protege's organizational advancement. Protégé’s careers are often negatively affected by weak or threatened supervisors requiring mentor intervention. Mentor can also mitigate negative career effects of merger, reorganizations.

Mentor advertises protégé’s good qualities to senior management. Helps protege gain visibility at in-house interfaces and outside meetings. Protege does not seem self-aggrandizing or self-promoting.

Mentor utilizes his position to make available to prot6g6 money, resources, and supply and communication lines that would ordinarily be unavailable to a junior member.

Level IV-Sponsoring

Increase of title

Expansion of function

Manipulation of political factors

Getting- protege admission into in-house training, programs

Helping- protege gain admission into key management programs

Helping protege obtain prestige appointments on trade periodicals, professional

journals, boards

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Comparison of Mentored versus Unmentored Groups
 

Category

Mentored

Unmentored

Managerial Position

More likely to have an authority position and be closer to position of central control

Few vice presidents, lack of control over personnel, budget, resources

Awareness of organization

High recognition or requirements to climb the ladder

Mystified about promotion method, rationale behind advancement

Knowledge of organization

Knows org. structure well, dynamics, personalities too. 

Lower awareness of operations and intricacies of organization

Commitment

Feels closer to product and org. goals. Career-minded

Lacks connectedness to org culture. High turnover

Job satisfaction

Richer work experience. Job is more enjoyable

Low profile, nonreturn on good performance, lower satisfaction

Career planning

Clear objectives and goals

No career map, vague goals

Optimism

High

Lower career expectations


 

Is the mentor good at what he does?

Is the mentor getting support?

How does the organization judge the mentor?

Is the mentor a good teacher?

Is the mentor a good motivator?

What are the protege's needs and goals?

What are the needs and goals of the prospective mentor?

How powerful is the mentor?

Is the mentor secure in his own position?

Possessing and demonstrating competence

Achieving visibility

Getting key assignments

Showing a desire to learn

Taking advantage of key interfaces

Showing a willingness to help the potential mentor accomplish his goals

Taking the initiative

Making self accessible

Intelligence

Ambition

Desire and ability to accept power and risk

Ability to perform the mentor's job

Loyalty

Similar perceptions of work and organization

Commitment to organization

Organizational savvy

Positive perception of the prot6gd by the organization

Ability to establish alliances

 Sources and Suggested Reading

1. Whitman, Neal. Creative Medical Teaching. Provo: University of Utah Press, 1991, P.96-7.

Short treatise on mindset of mentoring in medical education

2. Bruack, JH, et al. A Study of Medical Students’ Specialty-choice Pathways: Trying on Possible Selves. Academic Medicine 72(6), June 97, 534-41.
Our idol, Irby, co-authors, need I say more?

3. Daloz, Laurent a. Effective Teaching and Mentoring: Realizing the Transformational Power of Adult Learning Experiences. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987. The adult learning perspective on mentoring.

4. Dewitt, DE, JR Curtis, and W Burke. What Influences Career Choices Among Graduates of a Primary Care Training Program? J Gen Intern Med, 13, Apr 98, 257-61.
Why, mentoring does, of course! At least, in an internal medicine program…

5. Wright, S. Examining What Residents Look for in Their Role Models. Academic Medicine, 71(3), 1996, 290-2.
Interesting account of what really makes role models stand out, and what doesn’t!

6. Zey, Michael. The Mentor Connection: Strategic Alliances in Corporate Life. New Brunswick ME: Transaction Publishers, 1991.
Classic, comprehensive, business oriented approach.


 

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