Advice for Designing A Mentoring Job Description
by Barry Sweeny, 2002
INDEX:
I get many requests for help in defining a mentor job description, as well
as designing a mentor application, and a mentoring contract or agreement.
These three topics seem so straight forward, but actually, they require
us to become involved in a more complex area than may be apparent at first.
This is the first of three articles which address each of these three
related topics and how to use these as effective strategies to improve
the quality and impact of mentoring.
There are three aspects to working on these three related topics:
1. The conceptual framework which guides your creation and use of
mentor statements
2. Statements mentors might need to make BEFORE becoming a mentor,
like
* a mentor application
3. Statements mentors might make as they BECOME a mentor which
clarify the commitment they are making. Examples of these statements might
be:
* A mentorís oath
* A mentoring contract
* Acceptance of a job description
Before we can look at each of these four mentor statements (#ís 2
and 3), we need to discuss (#1) the conceptual relationships between effective
mentor characteristics, roles, and tasks. Then we can use that framework
to consider how best to design and use applications and any other statements
we might ask mentors to make.
THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Before we can design a mentoring job description, the first question we
must answer is îwhat are the relationships among the characteristics,
roles, and tasks of effective mentors?î Here is a diagram that can
help clarify these terms.
|
Characteristics & Mentor Roles |
Mentor Tasks |
| ï The most global
& intangible | ï More specific & concrete |
| ï The hardest to use objectively |
ï Easiest to use objectively |
In actual practice, I find that the lists of ìcharacteristicsî
of effective mentors which many programs develop are actually pretty
useless.
I feel these characteristics are useless because they intermix the ìrolesî
and the ìtasksî of effective mentors. Unfortunately, people
use these two terms interchangeably when they actually mean different things.
Roles describe what
a mentor should BE or BE LIKE, and so are more subjective and
abstract. This is what makes it so tricky and maybe useless when we use
them for something like mentor selection, the frequent purpose of a mentor
job description and application system.
If the roles of effective mentors are used to develop a mentoring application
that will help you select effective mentors, the selection process will
become pretty subjective too. For example, one mentor role is that the mentor
serves as a ìfriendî.
My question is, ìWhat mentor, on filling in an application, will
state that they are not friendly?î
How can I say whether you are or are not someone elseís friend? Yet
truly, some mentors do not ACT like friends of their protege.
This is why I feel roles are not too helpful. I do feel that all mentoring
and induction programs need to define ìThe Roles of Ideal Mentorsî.
However, in order to make roles even more useful, such as for guiding decisions
or mentoring behaviors, we also need to make those roles more concrete and
observable by defining their equivalent TASKS. Doing so will make using
them easier because they will be more specific and objective.
(See a list of Proposed Roles of Effective
Mentors)
TASKS are those things
which effective mentors must DO. They are observable behaviors
and so, it is much easier to be objective about whether they are present
or not in any mentor.
For example, the tasks that relate to the role of a friendly
mentor might be stated as follows:
* Effective mentors demonstrate friendship to their proteges by:
- A. ADVOCATING for their protege
B. LISTENING to the protegeís ideas, dreams, needs, &
concerns
C. PROTECTING CONFIDENCE, by establishing & maintaining the mutual
respect and trust needed for the risk-taking necessary for learning, maturing,
& professional growth
D. REACHING OUT, as in helping a protege feel less a guest &
more a peer & team member
E. CELEBRATING by recognizing accomplishments, affirming growth,
& building professional self confidence.
This is why in my own mentor training materials I present both the ideal
roles and ideal tasks done by effective mentors. That way mentors and proteges
can see the more abstract attitudes and dispositions behind the concrete
ways which mentors behave.
(See a list of Proposed Tasks of Effective
Mentors)
USING MENTORING TASKS
AS A GUIDE FOR DECISIONS
Before we can select someoneís mentoring application to use or we
design our own, we must have clarified the characteristics or mentoring
roles that we want our mentors to assume (to BE) and then have translated
those roles into more tangible mentoring tasks (to DO). Once we have defined
what we want to see mentors DO, then we can consider the application, contract,
or other statementís language to make them descriptive of those tangible
behaviors.
Now we can turn our attention to the selection or development of effective
mentor statements, such as applications. If you do not already have a ìCharacteristics
of Effective Mentorsî or other such page on which to build, you may
need to review documents you can find from other programs to SELECT one
that can meet your programís needs. (see links above.)
If you do already have such a document, you may need to revise it to make
it a more effective description of the mentor's work before it can also
serve as a guide for mentor selection and matching by the program and the
behaviors of the mentors.
WHAT TO INCLUDE IN A
MENTOR JOB DESCRIPTION
A mentor application should at least contain a list of mentoring tasks,
or it should be accompanied by the mentor tasks list. However, ideally a
mentoring job description should contain BOTH a list of the ideal mentoring
ROLES and the TASKS that effective mentors do.
Be sure that these contain language that defines these roles and tasks as
IDEALS toward which mentors should work. Also state that the
best mentors are those who adapt what they do to fit the unique needs of
their specific protege.
That means:
ï Mentors may NOT need to be some roles or do some tasks with
all proteges, because the strengths of a specific protege may not require
all the things which are on the ideal lists.
ï Mentors WILL need to be and do all the things on the ideal
list as they serve a range of different
proteges across an extended time
What follows is a job description I found on the Internet.
I provide it here to give readers the opportunity to use the ideas I have
presented in this paper to evaluate an example job description for its
usefulness, consider whether it is focused on general roles (BE) or
on specific tasks (DO), or both. As you consider these issues, you will
increase your ability to develop an effective mentor job description for
yourself.
A SAMPLE MENTOR JOB DESCRIPTION TO CRITIQUE
The Mentoring Program is provided through the selection of master veteran
employees for two years of release from their work assignments to be full-time
mentors for novice employees. Four and 1/2 days a week, each mentor orients
and guides up to ten beginning employees toward more effective practice.
Specifically, a mentor coaches novices in self-identified areas of growth,
using collected data on the protege's performance relative to the professional
standards. Mentor responsibilities include planning, training, providing
consultation and problem solving, demonstrating, collaborative support,
positive and non evaluative feedback, and emotional support.
The other 1/2 day each week is spent:
- working with and supporting fellow mentors
- working with the mentor program coordinator who is the district ìMentor
of Mentorsî, and ...
- working on their own professional development goals and plan.
|
Is this a good job description? Do you think that the author of this
article would like this job description?
ï If you were a mentor candidate, would you know what to consider to
help you decide if you should apply to be a mentor?
ï If you already were a mentor in this program, would you know what
was expected of you?
If you concluded that I believe such a job description is a good one, you
are right. It is specific and task-focused enough that a candidate could
envision exactly what they must do as a mentor, yet it is not so specific
as to be a ìlaundry listî that is overly prescriptive.
While this sample job description is a ìgoodî one, the problem
I find is that it does not ALSO help me decide as a mentor candidate if
I am the kind of person that an effective mentor must be.
If I am already a mentor, this job description does not ALSO help me self-assess
whether I am demonstrating the kinds of attitudes I should to be an effective
mentor. In other words, this sample job description is useful in that it
is focused on the specific TASKS, but would be even more helpful if it also
defined mentoring ROLES.
(See the next article on THE MENTOR APPLICATION)
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