BUS603: Managing People

Mentors are defined as persons who have some standing, status and position within the organization, who identify subordinates (proteges) with potential leadership ability to become competent successful managers. They furthermore influence the promotional decisions of such subordinates in significant ways whilst coaching and developing them over a period of time.

In South Africa, as in the United States of America. the business ethic of the manager being responsible for developing talented subordinates is becoming gradually entrenched. There is evidence that one international banking organization is, as from this year, also commencing to assets managers on the amount of time and effort that they individually invest in developing and growing the young management talent under their supervision. Research studies reveal that mentors are seen as crucial tools for training and promoting career success for both males and females and that the male model of mentorship does not appear to be totally applicable to females. There furthermore appears to be a scarcity of female mentors in the traditionally male-dominated organizational environment. Also, most of the research tends to focus predominantly on the sex variable (male/ female). As regards South Africa in particular, therein need to examine more closely the race variable in conjunction with the sex variable as a lot can be learned with regard to the painstakingly slow process of advancing Blacks into the managerial ranks.

Mentor-protege dyadic relations could exist between peers on the same level within organizations or between boss and subordinate. It would not be uncommon to find individuals who have helped either a peer or a subordinate to grow and to develop and now find themselves having such a person as their boss. Whether a mentor must always be older than the protege is debatable despite the fact that Kram (1980) and Levinson et al. (1978) tended to find this characteristic in most instances of their research.