Proteges want mentors 'sympatico,' not paternal

An informal approach to mentoring may be better for students than formal programs, study suggests

By Bruce Beans

Many academics believe that formal programs are the best way to ensure good mentoring programs for junior faculty. But those on the receiving end aren't always so sure. Some think you can't force something as delicate as a good mentoring relationship.

They believe being able to choose your own mentor, whenever and however you want to, is better than having an institution formally match you up with an assigned mentor.

That contention is borne out by a recent study of several nonacademic professions. The study, in the August Journal of Applied Psychology, found that proteges who are informally mentored are more satisfied with their mentors, receive more career help and enjoy more psychosocial benefits in terms of friendship, social support, role modeling and acceptance.

"It's very clear that informal mentoring really provides the most career benefits," says one of the study's authors, Belle Rose Ragins, PhD, a psychologist and professor of human resource management in the School of Business Administration at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee (UWM). "Those with informal mentors reported that their mentors helped them be more visible, buffered them from adversity, coached them and sponsored them into higher-ranking positions, as opposed to formal mentors."

Although many universities now rely on formal mentoring programs, the study also concluded that proteges who have developed an informal relationship with one or more mentors also earn significantly greater compensation during their careers than those who have experienced either formal mentoring or no mentoring.

In their study, she and John L. Cotton, PhD, a psychologist and professor of management at Marquette University, focused on three professions--male-dominated engineering, female-dominated social work and gender-integrated journalism. Based on a survey completed by nearly 1,200 respondents, the mean salary of those in the three professions who had been informally mentored was $56,629. Those who had been formally mentored had a mean salary of $48,107--15 percent less, and not significantly different from the mean salary of $51,389 earned by those who had not been mentored.

Also, the number of promotions the informally mentored professionals had received during the past 10 years was also slightly higher: a mean of 2.55 compared with 2.04.

The least to gain

In analyzing the effects of gender on mentoring relationships, Ragins and Cotton also concluded that female proteges with formal mentors reported less coaching, role-modeling, friendship and social interactions than female proteges with informal mentors.

However, male proteges reported receiving the same amount of these mentoring functions from formal and informal mentors--and actually reported receiving more counseling from formal than informal mentors.

In short, although proteges in formal relationships generally reported receiving less mentoring functions than proteges in informal relationships, this relationship was not equivalent for male and female proteges. As a result, the authors speculate that female proteges might have the least to gain by entering into a formal mentoring relationship. Ironically, at some institutions, including Ragins' UWM, formal mentoring programs have been established specifically to assist young female professors.

In the short term, she concedes that formal mentoring might be quite useful for on-the-job training and the development of early career and performance goals--whether the trainees are young professionals or young professors. But, based on their study, Ragins concludes that the effects of formal mentoring on career outcomes might be quite limited.

"The bottom line," says Ragins, "is that informal mentoring relationships develop on the basis of chemistry. The mentor views the protege as a younger version of him or herself and the protege uses the mentor as a role model, as someone he or she would like to become."

Good citizens

Conversely, says Ragins, some mentors engage in formal mentoring primarily because they have been recruited by their department chair or the head of their institution's mentoring program, or because they want to be perceived as good citizens in their academic community. Their primary focus is job-related--assisting the protege in improving job performance--you and the relationship often lasts for a limited period of time.

It is therefore difficult for formal relationships to duplicate the personal "chemistry" that often develops with informal relationships, Ragins says.

Still, supporters of formal programs note that at institutions that rely solely upon informal mentoring, some young faculty members receive no mentoring.

"When mentoring happens informally and that chemistry exists, it's great," says Puncky Heppner, PhD, a professor of counseling psychology who for eight years was the associate chairman of faculty development in the University of Missouri- Columbia's psychology department. "But we discovered we had people in their second or third year who were operating with a lack of basic knowledge about such things as developing a line of research, focusing on the tenure review process and how to efficiently prepare to teach students."

In response, in 1992 Heppner established a formal one-year mentoring program. To enhance chances of personal relationships developing, Heppner made his matches after asking each mentor for a list of three mentees with whom they would most like to work, and vice versa. The focus of the program, which received good reviews from participants, was on how the department operated.

"We made it clear to them that there might be some issues, such as departmental politics, that they might want to discuss outside of the department," says Heppner, "and we encouraged that."

Too patronizing?

No matter how well intentioned, however, such formal programs might suffer from the unintended consequence of making the proteges feel incompetent, according to an opinion piece that appeared last year in the journal Teaching of Psychology.

"There's a suggestion of paternalism," says one of the authors, Lawrence G. Calhoun, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, "an implicit message that, 'You can't do it on your own.'"

Calhoun says it is ludicrous to imply---as he believes formal mentoring programs do--that PhDs and people with postdoctoral experience don't have the ability to succeed within a psychology department. Or to identify areas where they might need advice and find a colleague who can supply it.

Natural, informal relationships, he contends, work better. For example, he points to a four-year mentoring relationship he had with Marjorie Hardy, PhD, now an assistant professor of psychology at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa.

"I was not imposed upon her," says Calhoun. "She used her own skills to identify somebody with whom she thought she could be sympatico, and even though I was older and tenured, it evolved into a mutual relationship among equals."

The two met as often as once a week. Even though Calhoun also supervised Hardy's clinical training, they primarily discussed academic matters, such as how best to balance teaching and research. The arrangement suited Hardy much more than a formal mentoring relationship would have.

"I would not have wanted to be assigned to someone with whom I didn't have a close working relationship," says Hardy, who was 26 when she came to UNCC. "I never got the sense that Lawrence felt obligated. I felt he wanted to meet as much as I did because he wanted me to succeed."

When Hardy needed information or advice Calhoun couldn't supply, she felt free to contact other professors. Linda L. Black, PhD, a first-year assistant professor of counseling at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, says such freedom to choose your own mentor or mentors is important.

"When I arrived I was given a list of faculty members from whom I was supposed to pick a mentor," says Black, whose dissertation analyzed mentoring in counseling education. "I said I wanted to pick a mentor after I got to know people better."

To date, she has contacted four of the six people in her department for assistance. "Being able to go between different folks has helped because I know I wouldn't have asked some faculty members questions that I've asked of others," she says.

Based on her doctoral work, Black knows that proteges seek mentors who are able to connect them with others in their field and to enhance their respect. For Black, such a person cannot be formally assigned to her--or be rushed.

"For me, selecting a mentor is more of a longer process," she says.

Bruce Beans is a writer in Bucks County, Pa.



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