Reluctant Mentors and Resistant Protégés: Welcome to the “Real” World of Mentoring

When I achieved my first job as an assistant professor in a rural southeastern university, my department chair assigned me a mentor, a white male full professor. The first words my mentor said to me were indicative of his feelings concerning being my mentor: "I didn't know I would have to mentor you." In our only meeting in my crucial first year as an assistant professor, my mentor gave me this advice: "In this town, there are only two things to do: have sex or eat. So don't get fat." Needless to say, my experience with my reluctant mentor left much to be desired; I resisted his advice, and sought and found other helpful mentors who have supported me in my career (Hansman, 2002a). The word "mentor" may bring to mind various images of supportive people who have aided us and continue to uphold us in our professional and personal lives. Indeed, Levinson et al. (1978) defined a mentor as a "teacher, advisor, or sponsor," (p. 97) and Daloz (1999) invokes mysticism and tells us that "mentors give us the magic that allows us to enter the darkness; a talisman to protect us from evil spells, a gem of wise advice, a map, and sometimes simply courage" (p. 18). Cohen (1995) describes mentoring as a one-to-one relationship. In order for the relationship to evolve, he prescribes a series of recommended hierarchical steps for the mentoring dyad. In some ways, mentoring seems quite straightforward: mentors guide and assist mentees or proteges, who, as the literature indicates, should be happy to have their help. Mentoring: A Complex Enterprise However, as my story above illustrates, not everyone wants to be a mentor. And to complicate the situation, not everyone wants to be a protege and may resist the advice and "help" of their mentors. For example, in a recent research project concerning a formal mentoring program in a southeastern high-tech organization, my research partner and I found instances where proteges actively resisted the advice and encouragement given to them by mentors. For example, Leigh, a white woman protege, was ambivalent about the program and whether it would be helpful to her; Leigh's ambivalence manifested itself in her reluctance to participate in meetings with her mentor. Dina, another white female protegee, felt that she did not connect with her mentor, and Tania, another white protege, felt her white woman mentor might not truly be interested in her well-being since her mentor had a close relationship with Tania's white male boss. In short, Tania lacked confidence in her mentor, and because of this lack of confidence, felt she could not be open and honest with her. Tricia, a young African-American protege with a white woman mentor, felt that her mentor's suggestions for strategies for Tricia to be more assertive and aggressive in office meetings were not approaches that Tricia felt comfortable trying, particularly when she was the only woman in a room full of white men. In Tricia's mentoring relationship, her mentor failed to recognize the personal and cultural characteristics that made being assertive impossible for Tricia, especially in the political and social culture of this particular organization. In this formal mentoring program, the proteges' resistance to the dominant cultural norm within the organization was perceived by their mentors as the protegees simply not being willing to do "what it takes" to succeed in the organization (Mabry & Hansman, 2003). As helpful as mentoring is meant to be, as the examples above illustrate, mentoring relationships can be difficult enterprises for mentors, proteges, and others involved in mentoring processes or programs. Other researchers have also recognized these complexities of mentoring relationships. For example, in Daloz's first edition of Effective Teaching and Mentoring (1986), he enthusiastically discloses flourishing mentoring relationships that added depth to the lives of all persons involved. However, in the second edition of his book (1999), he includes examples of failed mentoring relationships and the reasons for these failures. …