Mentoring: A Cultural Perspective Of A Mentee

Criminologist James Fox of Northeastern University predicts that murders committed by teens will skyrocket as the population of kids 10 and under is higher than population of 21st century teens by 20%. (Stephens) Mentoring is the act of helping out someone that isn't as knowledgeable or experienced in different areas. The goal is to make them leaders. (Patterson)

Workplace culture is the way your company operates and the personality it possesses. A Forbes article stated three ways to

The Closing Bell Speaker Series “Iron Sharpens Iron”: Why Mentoring Matters So Much was presented by Forest Harper. Forest Harper is the current Chief Executive Officer and President of INROADS Inc. Harper grew up in a poor neighborhood in Fort Pierce, Florida. In high school, Harper was a star athlete in his high school’s Army ROTC program. He attended Morgan State University on a football scholarship. His plan was to become a professional football player. He suffered two knee injuries that ended his football career. He graduated from Morgan State University with a Bachelors of Arts in Social Work. After graduation, he joined the Army and served as a Lieutenant. He spent six years in the Army and rose up to the position of Captain. After the Army, Harper participated in the Executive Leadership Training program at Harvard University. Before becoming the president of INROADS, Harper worked at Pfizer for twenty-eight years. He started as a pharmaceutical sales representative and later became the Vice President of Capability Development in Worldwide Public Affairs and Policy. He was the only African American in his division. This fact inspired him to join INROADS and become a mentor to minority college student. His goal is to help get as many minority college students into the industry they choose. Harper’s own mentor is his uncle Walter Crenshaw, the oldest documented Tuskegee Airman.

In women and minority there are challenges in training effectiveness. Women and minority needs mentor in order to be effective, because they needs some that can lead them in their career. Mentoring is a big part of women and minority, because mentoring can help with their promising career. Women and minority has limited of mentoring to assist them with their career, some mentoring want you to be on the same level. Women and minority needs some counseling and career programs which will help accelerate them and keep them employed in the same organization. According to Harvard Business Essential (2004), “ the fact remains that people generally seek out and maintain mentoring relationships with people who are like interns of race, gender,

When the mentee understands that the mentoring process is not a long term process but one that will enable and empower them to be independent in the

Matz shows that mentoring programs were first instituted in the U.S. in the late 19th century as an alternative to incarceration to be used in Juvenile Courts under the supervision of probation officers (2014). According to Matz, these sentencing policies were inspired by the progressive era’s focus on alleviating the mass poverty that was caused by industrialization, immigration, and urbanization (2014). Blakeslee and Keller state that “The highly renowned Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBS) mentoring program, for example, began in 1904 in New York City and today consists of over 375 agencies serving more than 210,000 youth across the United States” (2012).

The goal of mentoring in military organizations is to help junior personnel reach their full potential by having senior personnel help develop them, and pass on their practical expertise and professional knowledge to personnel who are committed to advancement and success (United States, 1995). A thriving mentoring program will enhance our overall professionalism and help meet the future needs of our organization. In my current job, I am charged with implementing a mentoring program where officers, enlisted personnel, and civilian employees can pass on not only career development guidance to junior personnel, but also the principles, traditions, shared values, and lessons of our profession.

Get M.A.D. Global is exactly how we at Get M.A.D. intend to be, global. As we are intending to be established outside of South Carolina as the leader in mentoring solutions for all, we will be planning to extend our services globally. Our overall focus is mentoring! What is mentoring and why is it important? By understanding mentoring and why it’s important we will be able to formulate a mentoring methodology for our mentoring development program. This is important because, not only is mentoring important here in the United States, it’s equally important in other parts of the world.

Five months ago a group of randoms entered a classroom on the third floor of Schneider at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire on a Tuesday at about 11 AM. All of us probably thinking the same thing, “Do we have to mentor right away?”, “Who are these professors?”, “Oh thank god, I know someone in this class.” There were feelings of nervousness, excitement, and confusion swirling about the class but it was not long before the class jelled and became almost like a family. Five months later we are coming to the close of the Mentoring Youth with Differing Abilities course and it has been one wild ride. There were good times, bad times, awkward times, and everything in between, all occurring while we learned and experienced new things.

Mentor: __________________now that you have crossed over, you are not fully a man…you are a young man. You have still a lot to learn and experience, but today you put away childish and immature ways. Today is the first day where you be looked at and treated like a young man worthy of the respect of a man.

The intention of this project was to study the effectiveness of mentoring young people. I did this by analysing whether mentoring effected different aspects of young people’s lives and look at the importance of meaningful relationships between a young person and their mentor.

The next step is to embed this process encouraging the mentee to bring together their perceptions, reasoning, emotions and aligning this to their goals. This is itself can pose a trap (Kets de Vries and Korotov 2007) for mentees if they have not integrated a critical learning approach to their complex problem solving situations. If they have not, then the outcome is nothing better than surface learning characterised by double loop learning where they become puzzled and wedged between different viewpoints, assumptions and conflict. Things become “undiscussible” (that is not up for discussion either implicitly or explicitly) enforcing one or other to suppress their voice, to silence them and to feel intimidated. The mentor through the mentoring process assists mentees question their repeated thoughts and actions so that they can untangle themselves from this self-defeating spiral. Avoiding or ignoring it will not resolve this problem. A dynamic reflective process between mentee and mentor establishes a framework for deep learning, assisting the mentee to making sense of their challenges, which ultimately provides greater insights regarding their intra and interpersonal conflicts.

Mentorship is very important in the workplace especially in the area of training and development. The mentor-protégé relationship is a much needed relationship that begins in the early career stage and this relationship involves the current or new employees and the supervisor or other colleagues that provide work-related guidance. The relationship itself is comprehensive and involves “educational, occupational, physical, social, and spiritual development” (Greenhaus,, Callanan, & Godshalk, 2010, p 211). One of the initial task of the early career the establishment of the career field which involves the gaining of the workplace competence, learn what is needed to excel in the organization, and to gain acceptance in the workplace to be recognized as the valued employee. There are many ways of achieving the above mentioned advantages in the workplace which one main method is through the use of the mentorship program.

With the development of the more organic and less formal organisational structures the role of mentors has shifted with these changes. Unlike previously where mentors where seen as formal trainers who taught newcomers the processes and got them acquainted with the cultures and the systems within the organisation. Which required good interpersonal skills and a good knowledge of the activity or tasks the mentee would have to undertake, and be able to effectively relay or demonstrate the tasks or activities to the mentee. As opposed to more recently where a mentor would have to be more of an emotional counselor and demonstrate more skills than were traditionally required from

Tanner (1989) helped to define the role of the mentor into 3 main sections; teacher, advocate and friend. A more detailed table of this is provided in appendix 1. Tanner discussed in his research that the nature of the role as a mentor depended upon a number of factors. These factors included time spent with the student, organisation of a workplace, skills and experience of the mentor, and needs and interests of the student. Tanner believed that that these factors could have a great impact, both positively and negatively, upon the student and the placement. Neary (2000) added to this, categorising the role as teacher to include responsibility for identifying achievements and progress, as well as identifying needs and areas for development with the student/mentee. Neary goes on to explain that as an advocate, it is the mentors role to promote confidence and self esteem, and as a friend they are there to listen and advise, working on their morale if this is required. Finally, as a facilitator, or teacher, the students' mentor is required to work in partnership alongside the student to define boundaries and targets to assist in the