Mentoring Misconceptions

The construction represented in most traditional mentoring practices generally recognizes two participants: Mentor and Protégé. This typical pairing portrays mentoring as a rigid one-to-one relationship between a single Mentor and a sole Protégé, generally to the exclusion of any other influences. Here a superior Mentor is almost always considered the authoritative figure that helps an inferior Protégé in need. Within this arrangement, the Mentor is the primary focus as the dominant driver and the Protégé is the subservient recipient as passive beneficiary of the assistance. Found in most organizationally prescribed programs, such limited mentoring systems mandate mentoring by appointing Mentors to Protégés. UIF identifies this restrictive type as Closed System Mentoring. Indicative of most premeditated programs, these initiatives often lack both the understanding and the advantages of naturally occurring mentoring. In the context of the Iliad and the Odysssey (see The Odyssey Influence) , this Closed System Mentoring context is represented by Odysseus leaving his infant son Telemachus in the control and care of family friend Mentor. It is in this context that most organizational programs are designed and implemented.

UIF identifies Open System Mentoring as being most robust in a Natural Mentoring context. Open System Natural Mentoring is represented in the Odyssey when Telemachus develops a dream, the passion to pursue it and accepts the leadership necessary to resolve his father’s whereabouts. He then leads the effort, engages and accepts Mentor, Athena (in a variety of disguises) and other mentoring resources he deems necessary to pursue Odysseus’ whereabouts. In an Open System Mentoring context, it’s the creator of the Dream that leads the effort, develops the passion and engages multiple mentoring resources to pursue it.

Mentor Misconceptions

The name “Mentor” was first coined within Western literature and a working description of the term is first explored within Homer’s Odyssey. Yet as explained here, the functional meaning of Mentor is not necessarily obvious. As illustrated throughout the Odyssey in which the goddess Athena assumes human form as Mentor and other disguises, it is difficult to know what the description of Mentor really is as well as tricky to decipher how the agent of Mentor actually operates. Understandably, most contemporary interpretations of Mentor stop short in identifying only one individual, considering only a first glance into Homer’s complex narrative. This limited view seems to be based only on the beginning of Homer’s tale – wherein during Odysseus’ absence an elder comrade named Mentor is placed in charge of Odysseus’ infant son – Mentor is thus conceived as a superior senior authority dictating to a subordinate younger person.