A Study of the Mentees’ Perspective of the Informal Mentors’ Characteristics Essential for Mentoring Success

Abstract

Researchers across the world have shown interest in studying organizational mentoring. This article attempts to identify informal mentor characteristics that are considered significant by mentees for the effectiveness of the mentoring experience. Data used for this research comprise 311 managerial-level employees, employed and residing in the city of Mumbai, Delhi and Kochi in India. First, an exploratory factor analysis is done to understand how the items representing the specific categories in the qualitative data would cluster. This results in six factors. A confirmatory factor analysis is then done to test this model, and it comes up with a not so adequate fit. Thereafter, the six factors are reorganized into four factors based on the canonical correlations between the factors. The resultant four-component model shows a good fit compared to the six-component model. The four mentoring characteristics that are identified through this study (in no specific order) are sincerity, commitment, skill and knowledge development and organizational ascendency and impact. The results obtained thus represent an attempt to describe the significant informal mentor characteristics from the mentees’ perspective in a contemporary business environment.