A mentor is a senior employee who sponsors and supports a less-experienced employee, a protégé. Successful mentors are good teachers. They present ideas clearly, listen well, and empathize with protégés’ problems. Mentoring relationships serve career and psychosocial functions. In formal mentoring relationships, protégé candidates are identified according to assessments of leadership potential and then matched with leaders in corresponding organizational functions.

Informal mentoring relationships develop when leaders identify a less experienced, lower-level employee who appears to have potential for future development. Not all employees in an organization likely to participate in a mentoring relationship. However, research continues to indicate that employers should establish mentoring programs because they benefit both mentors and protégés. Although started with the best intentions, formal relationships are not as effective as informal ones, perhaps due to poor planning, design, and communication.

Mentors must see the relationship as beneficial to themselves and the protégé, and the protégé must have input into the relationship. Mentors may be effective not because of the functions they provide but because of the resources they can obtain; a mentor connected to a powerful network can build relationships that will help the protégé advance. While mentoring can have an impact on career success, ability and personality are more important.