Mentoring for the Professions : Orienting Toward the Future

A volume in the series: Mentoring Perspectives (formaly listed as Perspectives in Mentoring)Series Editor(s): Frances K. Kochan, Auburn UniversityThis edited volume brings together conceptual and empirical work from various professional fields toinform a perspective on mentoring that goes beyond what is needed for today and orients toward what isneeded for the future in order to promote healthy and productive organizations. This perspective is importantbecause the pace of change in organizations is rapid--and increasingly so. Under conditions of rapidand ongoing change, employees, students, and colleagues all are learners; and the learning needs of theseadults demand meaningful and focused strategies for professional development. A major strategy withdemonstrated value for fostering learning among adults is mentoring, which contributes both relationaland structural support for such learning. This support helps organizations build communities of practicein which colleagues alternate the role of mentor and mentee by sharing different types of expertise and differentperspectives on organizational challenges.Chapters within the book focus on theoretical perspectives on mentoring, the connection between change and mentoring, the character of the leadershipthat mentoring entails, the developmental processes that mentees experience, the transformation of the mentee as a result of mentoring, the valueof matching mentor and mentee styles, and the role of mentoring in organizational team building. Furthermore, some chapters explore the similaritiesand differences in individual versus group mentoring. And some of the contributions elaborate linkages among mentoring concepts and those used inrelated practices such as coaching and distributed leadership.