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Power Mentoring
How Successful Mentors and Protégés
Get the Most Out of Their Relationships
By Ellen A. Ensher and Susan E. Murphy
Published by Jossey-Bass, 2005
ISBN 078797952X
Introduction
If you carefully examine the careers and lives of
successful people, you’ll find that many were for-
tunate enough to have traditional mentors who
helped them along the path to success. In fact,
there’s even a Mentor Hall of Fame website that
identifies celebrities and political and business
leaders, and their respective mentors. Mentor-
protégé pairs include Madonna and Gwyneth Pal-
trow and William Fulbright and Bill Clinton.
But mentoring is changing from that tradition-
al pattern, in which one person helps another in a
monogamous relationship. Interviews with 50 of
America’s most successful mentors and protégés
in leading industries found that, increasingly, indi-
viduals are not relying on a single, traditional
mentor, but instead are supported by a broad
network consisting of a variety of mentors. In
some cases that study revealed a lineage of men-
tors — a group of mentors and protégés who
connect to each other through a relationship with
a “founding” mentor, as in the Jack Welch lineage
at GE or the Lou Gerstner lineage at IBM.
That modern approach can be called power
mentoring, and it provides to both mentor and
protégé mutually beneficial outcomes related to
their personal career growth and development.
Mentors furnish many types of career support
by offering challenges and growth opportunities,
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career advice, and access to learning opportuni-
ties and resources. Mentors also provide emo-
tional support in terms of encouragement, recog-
nition, feedback and coaching. And yes, studies
have shown that those who have mentors make
more money than those who don’t!
What else can mentors do? They can help
you clarify work expectations, give you an oppor-
tunity to do your best, enable you to receive
recognition and praise, make you feel cared
about, encourage your development, make you
feel that your opinions matter, provide you with
friendship at work, talk to you about your
progress, and provide opportunities for you to
learn and grow.
Most career books tout the importance of
having a mentor. However, much of the advice
seems predicated on outdated assumptions
about work. One of those assumptions is that
most professionals want to pursue a hierarchical
career path, when today we’re just as likely to
see horizontal career paths in which profession-
als gain skills in different arenas by moving side-
ways rather than up.
As well, most professionals today are likely
to exhibit greater loyalty to their professions than
to their organizations, so having a mentor in the
same organization — or even just one mentor
anywhere — is no longer enough. Today, be-
© 2006 execuBooks inc.
Power Mentoring
cause knowledge becomes outdated so quickly, hav-
ing access to a diverse group of confidants in the
form of power mentors can help an individual stay
ahead of the game.
Power Mentoring
Power mentoring fits that changing work environment.
It includes traditional mentoring but also expands —
and in some cases radically departs from — what we
consider traditional mentoring:
• Power mentoring is about networks and may in-
volve having access to groups or even an entire lineage
of mentors rather than simply a dyadic relationship.
• It isn’t only about protégés receiving benefits but
also the rewards mentors receive.
• Traditional mentoring tends to be about mentors
and protégés partnering together because “like at-
tracts like.” Power mentoring is often about relation-
ships between people who are dissimilar but have
complementary skills and needs.
• In traditional mentoring, the mentor frequently
chooses the protégé, whereas in power mentoring the
protégé often makes the first advance.
• Instead of being a monogamous, one-on-one re-
lationship, power mentoring involves an open, even
polygamous relationship.
• While the purpose of traditional mentoring is
often related to the planning of organizational succes-
sion and staff development, power mentoring does
this and more, because it’s about developing a talent
pool for an entire profession.
• While traditional mentoring often takes place in
or is bounded by an organization’s corporate mem-
bership or structure, the boundaries of power mentor-
ing relationships are permeable and often defy intu-
itive logic. In some cases, even competitors can be
mentors, because in today’s environment people’s
loyalty may be tied to their profession rather than their
temporary corporate home.
Power mentoring isn’t just a cute term. The word
“power” has several specific implications. First,
power mentoring is unique because it gives those in-
volved the power of choice in terms of relying not just
on one mentor but many. Second, this approach to
mentoring can empower you to make more money,
get more promotions and make your career goals and
dreams come true. Third, power mentoring is em-
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By Ellen A. Ensher and Susan E. Murphy
powering in that it can help you have better profes-
sional relationships and ultimately derive more satis-
faction and meaning from your work.
Think of power mentoring as serving as an um-
brella under which are gathered a number of different
types of mentors, from traditional mentors to peers
who act as mentors, to younger people who reverse-
mentor older colleagues.
What Power Mentoring Does
There are five unique components of power mentor-
ing, compared to traditional mentoring:
• Organizational purpose. One of the most impor-
tant reasons organizations support traditional mentor-
ing relationships is to facilitate short-term planning for
key positions. Power mentoring goes a step beyond
this limited approach because it also focuses on long-
term succession planning at various levels of the or-
ganization. In addition, power mentoring places a
greater emphasis on diversity than traditional mentor-
ing has done in the past.
• Relationship initiation and maintenance. In
power mentoring relationships, the research found
that protégés tended to initiate the relationships with
the mentors more often than the reverse. Protégés
staked out a claim on a mentor they believed could
help them, and approached that individual with spe-
cific goals and plans. That’s much different from the
traditional form of mentoring, in which the protégé
waits to be tapped by the mentor.
• Tests and challenges. Studies have shown that
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Power Mentoring
in classic mentoring, protégés may sometimes en-
counter tests and challenges as part of the develop-
ment of their relationships with their mentors. For ex-
ample, the mentor may present a difficult work
assignment to the protégé to test his or her abilities.
In the power mentoring relationships examined, tests
and challenges were integral to relationship develop-
ment. Moreover, the testing was often a two-way
street where the protégés tested the mentors and
vice versa. Also, the tests and challenges were more
complex and diverse than those found in studies of
traditional mentoring.
• Reciprocity. Often traditional mentoring is pre-
sented as a fairly altruistic practice, with the mentor
doing most of the giving and the protégé most of the
receiving. But researchers have begun to challenge
this perception, and an interesting line of research is
evolving around what mentors gain from the relation-
ship. In line with this newer thinking, one of power
mentoring’s most intriguing characteristics is its re-
ciprocal nature. What’s exchanged might be different
on each side of the relationship but it’s perceived as
valuable by and to each party.
• Generative nature. One of the final ways power
mentoring differs from traditional mentoring relates to
the stage of life in which one undertakes the role of
mentor. Power mentors recognize that the generativity
(giving back to the next generation of workers) that
comes from mentoring someone should be undertak-
en early in one’s life rather than waiting until later,
which is more typical of traditional mentoring.
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By Ellen A. Ensher and Susan E. Murphy
Types of Power Mentoring
The unique aspects of power mentoring combine to
produce 10 forms of power mentoring relationships
that can be useful:
1. Boss mentor. A boss mentor is one who pro-
vides emotional and career support to the subordinate
protégé within the formal boundaries of the relationship
as well as informally. Many protégés who use their
bosses as mentors do so in a sequential fashion, akin
to serial monogamy. During the period in which the pro-
tégé works for the boss, the protégé’s professional suc-
cess depends to a large degree on the performance of
the boss mentor. Likewise, the boss mentor may feel a
keen sense of loyalty to and trust in the subordinate
protégé, because the boss often shares proprietary and
personal information with the subordinate. However,
often when the protégé moves on to another position,
the mentoring aspect of their relationship either evolves
into a lasting friendship or terminates amicably, since
the time and energy of both parties is rightly transferred
to the new working relationship.
2. Reverse mentoring. At IBM, senior executives
are paired in a reverse mentoring process with the next
generation of leaders. Ideally, both parties involved in
reverse mentoring benefit. The senior executive gains
a fresh perspective and a communication conduit to
junior staffers, while the junior reverse mentor gains
valuable career advice and a positive role model.
3. E-mentoring. Some mentors use technology to
reach out and mentor a wide number of people in an
efficient fashion. E-mentoring involves using comput-
er-mediated communications such as e-mail, instant
messaging and in some cases live chats to initiate
and maintain a mentoring relationship. E-mentoring
makes a range of mentoring relationships possible by
removing the constraints of time and geography that
limit face-to-face mentoring. Moreover, e-mentoring
can remove the markers of status and demographics,
making mentors and protégés more likely to respond
to the content of their messages, rather than being in-
fluenced by superficial characteristics.
4. Group mentoring. In some cases a senior-level
mentor will provide ongoing coaching to small groups
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Power Mentoring
of junior-level employees. An example is Larry Carter,
Cisco’s chief financial officer, whose time is heavily
booked but fits in “Lunch with Larry” meetings with
groups of 10 to 12 junior executives. “There’s no
agenda, and it’s just me and the people,” he says. The
meetings provide two-way feedback, as he questions
them and they do the same to him. He feels the ses-
sions are a great way to help individuals learn the
ropes in the organization and learn the reasons behind
organizational decisions. Group mentoring, therefore,
can be particularly helpful when access to senior ex-
ecutives is limited and the number of personal pro-
tégés far exceeds available mentors. The downside,
however, can be protégés competing for attention.
5. Mentors for hire. Hiring a mentor sounds like
an appealing form of mentoring for those who can’t
or don’t want to invest resources required in a long-
standing relationship. A mentor primarily provides
job- or career-specific advice or help in exchange for
tangible (usually financial) remuneration. This is espe-
cially common in the technology industry. The rela-
tionship is short-term and oriented towards achieving
a handful of finite goals.
6. Inspirational mentors. An inspirational mentor
is one who provides a model of excellence without
having a direct relationship with the protégé. This may
fly in the face of what we conventionally understand
about mentoring because there’s no real relationship,
but since role modeling is a key function of mentoring,
sometimes an individual can be a role model without
the relationship part. The study found Martin Luther
King Jr. to be an inspirational mentor for several pro-
tégés who chose political careers.
7. Family-member mentors. A family-member
mentor is an immediate or extended family member
who provides emotional, career and role-modeling
support to the protégé from an early age. About 20%
of the participants in the study mentioned specific
family members as being important to them. Often
such a mentor is a person of considerable influence
and accomplishment within the protégé’s own family
circle and/or community. Most participants who men-
tioned family members as important were women or
people of colour, perhaps because few mentors were
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By Ellen A. Ensher and Susan E. Murphy
available for female and minority baby-boomers, as
the top ranks of business were populated by white
males who tended to mentor younger white males like
themselves.
8. Barrier-busting mentors. Many unique mentor-
ing alliances were formed across traditional barriers
such as competitive organizations or political parties.
U.S. Congress Representative Hilda Solis (D-CA), who
is Hispanic, and her protégé Judy Chu, a Chinese-
American member of the California Assembly, provide
a fascinating example of mentoring across the barrier
of ethnicity. Barrier-busting mentoring isn’t without
risk, however, because those who engage in it are vul-
nerable to considerable social censure from their own
group members. Often if they take the risk and it
doesn’t work out for some reason, their reputations
and long-term career prospects can be damaged.
9. Peer and step-ahead mentors. It’s possible to
be mentored by a peer or someone just a step ahead
in his or her career. Barbara Corday was mentored by
her writing partner Barbara Avedon when they created
the highly successful TV show Cagney and Lacey. One
of the greatest benefits of step-ahead and peer men-
tors is that they can effectively empathize with their
protégés because they’ve recently encountered or are
currently encountering the same sorts of career chal-
lenges and issues. Also, because of the equalization
of status, those mentoring relationships can evolve
into longlasting friendships with a high degree of trust
and intimacy.
10. Mentors of the moment. As with situational
friendships, you can be mentored by someone you
have a short-term relationship with, such as a member
of a project team. Although context-specific, these
mentors can have a powerful impact on their protégés.
Conclusion
Different mentors meet different needs at various times
in your career journey. Some will form the nucleus of
your community and stay with you for the long haul.
Others will be part of your community only temporarily
but will have a lasting impact on your thoughts and
work behavior. Just as you can nurture a community of
different friendships, you can do the same for mentors.
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Power Mentoring
When it comes to mentoring, you don’t have to choose
just one — you really can have it all. e Executive Coaches Reveal Their Secrets, by Howard
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Ellen Ensher is an associate pro-
fessor of management at Loyola Marymount University
in Los Angeles. Susan Elaine Murphy is an associate
professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna Col-
lege and the associate dean of the Henry R. Kravis
Leadership Institute in Claremont, Calif.
Related Reading
The Mentoring Advantage: Creating the Next Genera-
tion of Leaders, by Florence Stone, Kaplan Publishing,
2004, ISBN 0793186927.
Formula 2+2: The Simple Solution for Successful
Coaching, by Douglas B. Allen and Dwight W. Allen,
Berrett-Koehler, 2004, ISBN 1576753107.
www.execubooks.com
By Ellen A. Ensher and Susan E. Murphy
The Art and Practice of Leadership Coaching: 50 Top
Morgan, Phil Harkins and Marshall Goldsmith, John
Wiley & Sons, 2004, ISBN 0471705462.
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