What Good is Bad Mentorship? Protégé's Perception of Negative Mentoring Experiences

Abstract

Introduction Mentorship dates back to ancient Greek mythology: Ulysses departed for the Trojan War only after entrusting his son Telemachus to his trusted friend Mentor, who was in fact Goddess Athena in disguise (Tickle, 1993). While the practice of mentorship is ancient, the word meaning a trusted counselor or guide, was popularized by Francis Fenelon in his 1699 book, Les Aventures de Telemaque. The predominant focus of contemporary management research on mentoring has been on or criterion (Scandura & Pellegrini, 2007: 7), more specifically as a positive experience for the protege, the mentor, and the organization. For the protege, mentoring is said to induce the feeling of having more power (Fagenson, 1988), greater job satisfaction (Fagenson, 1992), an accelerated learning curve (Eby & Lockwood, 2005), better promotion prospects and salary (Scandura, 1992; Ragins & Scandura, 1999), a reduction in stress (Blake-Beard, 2003), an affirmation of self-worth (Gibson, 2004), and better socialization (Johnson, 2007). Mentorship is also said to be beneficial for the mentor in that he is able to leave behind a legacy to a new generation of employees (Erikson, 1963), he is able to use his knowledge productively in order to assist the protege (Levinson, 1978), he receives gratification from peer recognition and gains loyal supporters (Vincent & Seymour, 1995, Eby & Lockwood, 2005), and that for female mentors, mentorship may facilitate career progress by breaking the glass ceiling (Parker & Kram, 1993). For the organization, the advantages are said to include the transmission of corporate culture and sense-making (Wilson & Elman, 1990), helping to redefine the organizational culture in times of crisis (Wilson & Elman, 1990), the creation of equal opportunity for all executives (Heery, 1994) and improved organizational communication (Singh, Bains & Vinnicombe, 2002). Other advantages include a smoother transition in the merging of two organizational cultures (Forret, Turban & Dougherty, 1996); the transference of knowledge, skills, and political connections (Sosik & Lee, 2002); an enhanced socialization of new employees (Singh et al., 2002); and the early identification of upcoming leaders (Perrone, 2003). So while the scholarship so far had been skewed towards the positive outcome variables of mentoring for the protege, mentor, and the organization, there are fewer studies pertaining to the darker side of mentoring. It was Kram's (1985) pioneering study that raised the possibility of destructiveness in mentoring relationships. Since then, a few studies on the negative and dysfunctional mentoring experiences have emerged, some from the mentor's perspective (Eby et al., 2008) and others from the protege's perspective (Eby & McManus, 2004). There are several reasons why it is imperative for researchers to delve deeper into understanding the darker side of mentoring. First, it is suggested that negative events have more of an impact on an individual than positive events (Baumeister et al., 2001), so much so that with regard to leadership, followers tend to recall negative events more than positive ones (Dasborough, 2006). Also, the consequences of negative mentoring for the protege can be far-reaching leading to personal damage (O'Neill & Sankowsky, 2001). Negative mentoring can lead to a protege cloning himself in the image of the mentor (Ragins & Scandura, 1997), or can lead to ingratiatory behavior (Scandura, 1998), to physical withdrawal in terms of absenteeism or turnover, loss of valuable career time and a sense of betrayal (Feldman, 1999) or can lead to decreased job satisfaction and increase in stress (Scandura, 1998; Eby & Allen, 2002). The scope of this paper is limited to the negative mentoring experiences, which may not necessarily lead to failure of the mentor-protege relationship (Eby et al. …