3 Reasons Why Traditional Mentorship Doesn’t Work

Traditional mentorship is defined as a mentoring relationship between 2 people where one person who has more experience, status, or age is mentoring somebody with less.

This article is about why this type of mentoring relationship, alone, is not effective for facilitating mentor relationships that are long-lasting, productive and quality.

Before we jump into why this doesn’t work, let’s look at the statistics. When mentoring relationships are facilitated based on the traditional mentoring criteria alone (e.g. matched on experience, status, or age), there is an 18% likelihood that the relationship will last for 6 months and be considered productive and quality by both participants.

Another point to bring up is that mentorship is not the same thing as training. Can people learn skills from each other via a mentoring relationship? Absolutely! But mentorship is about building a relationship between two employees so then they can better understand what the other person does, the obstacles they face, and how their role plays into the larger picture of the company. Mentorship builds empathy and breaks through communication barriers at work – which has a direct correlation to productivity and engagement.

But mentorship is not training and expectations from mentorship should not be that people get trained on a skill that they don’t already have.

With that pointed out, let’s review why traditional, vertical mentoring relationships don’t work.

1.     Traditional mentorship creates a power imbalance

The best mentoring relationships are ones where there is a mutual benefit between one person and another person. Traditional mentorship creates a power imbalance that conveys that the “mentor” is only giving advice and that the “mentee” is only gaining advice. This is a problem because it insinuates that the “mentee” needs the “mentor”. This power imbalance is unhealthy for a mentoring relationship because it belittles the “mentee” for no reason, puts the onus completely on the “mentee” to be prepared, and justifies the “mentor” to be completely unprepared for mentor meetings for the sake of being a “reactive mentor”.

I am putting “mentor” and “mentee” in quotes because I want to convey that the best mentoring relationships are mutual where two people are mentoring each other. Both people should be the mentor and there shouldn’t be a “mentee” as it further exacerbates the power imbalance.

2.     Traditional mentorship becomes transactional in nature

In a traditional mentoring relationship, a “mentee” is only in the relationship to gain the experience or status of the mentor so then he can more quickly get to where he is going. If the focus for a mentoring relationship is transactional, not only is the relationship unlikely to last long (either the “mentee” will lose patience with getting where he wants to go with the “mentor” or he gets what he wants and dumps the “mentor” because he doesn’t need her anymore), but it often ends in disappointment on both sides.

Essentially, traditional mentorship creates an expectation that the skills or prestige is going to get passed from the “mentor” to the “mentee”. The relationship loses its ability to be mutually beneficial when these types of expectations exist.

3.     Traditional mentorship creates egos and expectations

This leads to the final point which is that traditional mentoring relationships create unhealthy egos and expectations. One common thing some older, more experienced professionals will say is “I am more than happy to be a mentor, but I am not interested in getting a mentor.” This essentially translates to “I am more than happy to share my advice, but my ego can’t handle being open to the idea of learning from another person.” On the other side, one common thing some younger, less experienced professionals will ask is “What is the point of continuing the mentor relationship once I land the job offer/promotion?” This essentially conveys that they are only here for their transactional expectations and not to build a relationship.

This lack of desire to being open to learning from somebody else (ego) and lack of desire to build a rapport with somebody even after a positive outcome has occurred from the mentoring relationship (expectations) is the ultimate cripple to a mentor relationship lasting longer and being considered productive and quality.

But does this mean that people can’t be matched across ages, status in the company, or area of expertise?

No.

It just means that this shouldn’t be the primary criterion for matching people together for employee mentoring relationships.

The primary criteria should be Work Orientation as Work Orientation aligns the value system one holds at work which is a much better indicator of mentorship longevity, productivity, and quality. However, once Work Orientation is aligned, mentor participants can be matched across age, status, or experience as a secondary factor for mentor matching.

Mentorship can also be successful when matching two people on the same level as Work Orientation has shown to be successful as a matching criterion regardless of age, experience, or status.