Although mentoring has been practiced for generations on both informal and formal bases, the practice has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years as a means to encourage gender, racial, and socio-economic diversity in leadership of all types of organizations. In Bridging Differences for Better Mentoring , Lisa Z. Fain and Lois J. Zachary offer a three-part model for taking advantage of this process to develop leaders in contemporary settings: Part One: Learn Forward into Differences Part Two: Learn from Differences Part Three: Leverage Differences There are three key foundational ideas for this model. First, differences can be leveraged to build successful mentoring relationships. Second, mentoring takes intentional planning, hard work, and commitment to effective communication. Third, the learning that comes from mentoring is a two-way street--it benefits the mentor as well as the protégé, providing learning for both. Embedded in the book are three narratives of me
In her book Leadership Revolution: The Future of Developing Dynamic Leaders , Lori Mazan takes a rather critical approach to mentoring. She sees it as helpful but only when matched with coaching and of lesser value than coaching: “In a sense, mentoring can encourage looking back, emulating what was previously successful. Coaching is a methodology for looking out ahead and figuring out what's going to be successful next.” She goes on to say, “Mentoring just can't take the place of the kind of transformative development employees can get from coaching.” Just for clarity, let’s define terms here. In mentoring, someone (usually an experienced person in the field) shares their knowledge, skills, and experience with another person to help them to progress. The person being mentored is identified by terms such as “mentee” or “protégé.” Coaching is a partnership between coach and client . They are “thought partners.” The coach helps the client to achieve their personal best