Great expectations: The role of mentoring schemas in protégés' and mentors' sensemaking of formal mentorships

Introduction: Formal mentoring programs are associated with positive effects for protégés, mentors, and organizations. While a good match of the role expectancies of both the mentor and the protégé is crucial for the effectiveness of the relationship, research on this matching process is scarce. Current research has mainly focused on dispositional and demographic variables, while ignoring relational factors. Based on Baldwin’s framework of relational schemas (Baldwin, 1992) and relational identity and identification (Sluss & Ashforth, 2007), this study applied a relational lens to examine how mentoring schemas influence participants’ perceptions and interactions within formal mentoring relationships.

Mentoring schemas were defined as “cognitive maps derived from past experiences and relationships that guide mentor’s and protégé’s perceptions, expectations, and behaviors in mentoring relationships” (Ragins & Verbos, 2007, p. 101). These mentoring schemas include generic mental representations about the general roles of mentors and protégés (i.e., “Mentors are experts”) as well as typical mental representations reflecting mentor and protégé roles in their specific relationship (i.e., “The protégé takes the lead during conversations”).

The aim of this study was to gain understanding in the ways such schemas influence members’ sensemaking processes of the mentoring relationship. Consequently, our research questions were: (a) How do protégés and mentors perceive the role expectations from themselves and the other at the beginning of their relationship? (b) How do these expectations influence the initial evaluation of the relationship? (c) How do these mutual expectations and schemes evolve over time? And (d) What is in retrospect seen as the contribution of these schemas to the impact and quality of the relationship?

Method: Mentors and protégés (n=22) from a formal mentoring program at a Dutch university were interviewed about (a) their perceptions of what constitutes a good mentor, a good protégé, and a good mentoring relationship, (b) their initial expectations from their partner, themselves, and their relationship, (c) the behaviors typically exhibited in the relationship, and (d) their evaluations of the behaviors and quality of the relationship.

Results: First, we sketch out the mental representations that are held by mentors and protégés. While both mentors and protégés are focused at career development for the protégé as primary goal of the relationship, their expectations of behaviors exhibited in the relationship differ. Both mentors and protégés expect the other to take the lead. While mentors and protégés reported clear expectations of their partner, expectations from themselves in the relationship were often unclear. While mentors describe the relationship in terms of communal norms and therefore do not expect anything in return from the protégé, protégés apply an instrumental approach to the relationship and expect the mentor’s efforts to be beneficial for the protégé.

Second, based on reported initial expectations, three types of mentoring schemas were identified: fixed, flexible, and open. Members with fixed schemas reported clear role expectations of both their partner and the expected outcome of the relationship. Members with flexible schemas did have some expectations, but were willing to adapt those to their partner, depending on the situation. Members with open schemas entered without expectations, and decided to “cross that bridge when we get there.”

Third, results show narratives of how mentoring schemas influenced members’ behaviors in the relationship, their satisfaction with the relationship, and their overall evaluation of the relationship’s quality and effectiveness. This was partly due to the initial schemas. For example, while protégés with a fixed initial schema reported being satisfied with the relationship, protégés with open schemas reported being unsatisfied. Moreover, results show how mentors and protégés who have congruent mentoring schemas perceive the relationship as more satisfactory than members whose initial relational schemas did not match (e.g. both considered themselves as reactive party).

Conclusion: This study shows which relational schemas are held by members of a formal mentoring program and how these schemas influence sensemaking processes of relational roles and relational functioning.