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Mentor behaviours: a field study of good practice mentoring

behaviours in Australian aviation

Jose M Anca Jr

Master of Engineering

2020

DR TOMMY CHEUNG

Thesis Supervisor

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Abstract

Belle Rose Ragins and Kathy Kram (2007) published their seminal work about their

etymological explanation of both word and history of Mentor-Protégé1 relationships which

ushered in a new way of approaching the mentoring space. Their description of the

original context of and the Greek sage Mentor and the Mentee, Telemachus presents the

contemporary and apropos use of mentoring relationships.

The aviation context has a goodness-of-fit in respect of the mentoring process. The dyadic

nature of flying a commercial aircraft— indeed, the activity and relationship between a

captain and first officer is the corpus of mentoring, so to speak.

As it happens, empirical research on the dyadic nature of aviation mentoring, ironically

was not a partaker of mentoring research—the very construct of which involves the safety-

critical operation of an aircraft by a two-person crew (Bates & O'Brien, 2013; Flin &

Maran, 2004). It was only after World War II, where the migration of military pilots into

commercial flight decks ushered in the value of investigating the dyadic relationship of

crews and the need for good mentoring techniques as a countermeasure to aircraft

accidents. Here, we see the causal factor of poor coordination between captain and first

officer in otherwise, avoidable aircraft accidents.

The purpose of this thesis is to determine what are good practice mentoring behaviours in

Australian aviation and determine if there are certain demographic characterisations such

as gender, flying time, training phase (ground, flight or simulator) effects, that significantly

influence fifteen (15) subject matter experts-selected behaviours of aviation Mentors.

The thesis then hypothesises that good practice behaviours positively augment and

proposes that the demonstration of such good practice behaviours by pilot mentors in

Australia facilitate better and efficacious learning for pilot trainees. Results of the survey

show significant relationships of good Mentor behaviours as applied in the Ground School

phase of pilot training and less in the Simulator/ Check and Assessment phases of training.

These conclusions support recommendations towards better use of Mentor behaviours in

1 The word protégé is used interchangeably with “mentee” in this thesis.

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mentoring cells should an aviation organisation opt to establish mentoring programs for its

pilots.

The pre-selected subject matter expert behaviours were identified in previous

investigations in 2007, on what was deemed as ‘descriptions of good mentors’ from among

a cohort of Australian pilots (Anca, 2007) from thirty-six (36) expert mentors assembled

by Swinburne University of Technology (SUT) and the Aviation Safety Foundation of

Australia (ASFA), to inform the construction of the good practice mentor behaviours. The

thirty-six expert mentors were CEOs and General Managers of Australia’s flying schools

(Anca, 2007), p.7. Swinburne University of Technology at that time, received a grant from

the ASFA to examine expert mentor attitudes in Australian general aviation.

The expert mentors completed the Mentor Attitude Questionnaire (MAQ) consisting of a

set of twenty, “desired” mentor attitudes derived from best practice mentor behaviours as

recommended by the United States Federal Aviation Administration (Adams, 2005).

The MAQ consists of a set of variables:

Fifteen (15) independent variables- consisting of good practice mentor behaviours

cited in Adams (2005); (Anca, 2007).

Essentially, the 2007 study sought to understand the influence of Mentor Behaviours on

Safety Performance as classified into two categories:

Human Error—reporting one’s self when a slip, lapse or a mistake is committed

in flying operations; and

Intentional Non-Compliance (Violations)—reporting one’s self when a violation

is committed or the propensity (willingness or unwillingness) to bend rules

From the incipient 2007 study, this current 2020 thesis utilised the broader population of

pilots 12 years later to (1) validate and understand the sensitivity of a new (and larger)

pilot cohort against the 15 independent variables and, (2) assess either the convergent or

conflicted influence of the dependent variable against the independent variables, using a

larger sample cohort of 288 pilots from the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (ASFA).

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A survey instrument was developed from the set of independent variables based on the

2007 study.

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Acknowledgements

+AMDG.

The candidate expresses deep appreciation to the Australian Federation of Air Pilots

(AFAP) for its support in the development of this thesis, in particular, the assistance

provided by Captains Joe Eakins and Peter Gardiner and the broader AFAP Board.

Special acknowledgement to Dr Tommy Cheung, for without his support and guidance,

this seminal work would not be completed.

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Declaration by Candidate

This thesis is the work of the candidate and contains no material which has been accepted

for the award to the candidate of any other degree or diploma except where due reference

is made in the text of the examinable outcome. To the best of the candidate’s knowledge

this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except

where due reference has been made in the text of the examinable outcome.

JOSE ANCA

DATE: 19 JULY 2020

Melbourne, Australia

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Table of Contents

Abstract ii

Acknowledgements v

Declaration by Candidate vi

Table of Contents vii

List of Figures xi

List of Tables xiii

Abbreviations & Acronyms xv

Chapter One – Introduction 1

1.1 Protégé and mentee—interchangeable terms 1

1.2 The Use of Mentoring in Aviation 1

1.3 Pilot Shortage 2

1.4 Australia’s Growing Presence as a Mentor in the Asian Region 4

1.5 Mentoring in Non-Aviation Domains 5

1.6 Mentor Behaviour Taxonomies in analogous teams 6

1.7 Contribution to Knowledge 7

1.8 Research Questions 8

1.9 Limitations 9

Chapter Two – Review of Relevant Literature 11

2.1 Introduction 11

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2.2 Characterising Mentors 12

2.3 Mentor Behaviour--Impact on Neuropsychological Skills 13

2.4 Mentor Behaviour and the Impact on Emotional Intelligence 14

2.5 Mentor Behaviour: Impact on Pilot Psychological Maladjustment and Screening 15

2.6 Training Mentors 16

2.7 Formal vs. Informal Mentoring Activity 19

2.8 Mentoring- from the Mentor’s Point of View 21

2.9 Culture and Mentor Behaviours 23

Women in Mentoring 24

National Culture 26

Cultural Mix between Mentor and Mentee 28

2.10 Future Research Agenda 30

Mentoring and Technology 31

Mentoring Reinforcement and Organisational Restructuring 32

Chapter Three –Methodology 34

3.1 Examining the 2007 and 2019 Mentor Behaviours 34

3.2 Survey Construction 36

3.3 Research Hypotheses 38

3.4 Statistical Test Selection (Generalised Linear Model, GLM) 38

3.5 Survey Population- Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP) 41

3.6 Survey Procedure 42

3.7 Swinburne University Ethics Committee Compliance 43

3.8 Apparatus and Materials 43

Qualtrics 43

SPSS 44

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3.9 Population and Sample Size 44

Sample Size 44

Defining the dependent variables 44

Omitted Variables Bias (OVB) 46

Treatment of Missing Data. 46

Chapter Four –Results 47

4.1 My Mentor goes out of her/his way beyond our mentoring sessions to get to know me better. 49

4.2 My Mentor sticks to a plan during our mentoring session 52

4.3 My Mentor builds up my self-confidence 55

4.4 My Mentor has an accommodating behaviour towards me. 57

4.5 My Mentor adjusts according to my learning pace. 59

4.6 My Mentor shares her/his flying experience to improve our mentoring session 61

4.7 My Mentor is approachable. 63

4.8 My Mentor actively listens to me when it is my turn to speak. 65

4.9 My Mentor encourages me to learn new things. 67

4.10 My Mentor communicates clearly. 69

4.11 My Mentor gives me a balanced feedback on my performance. 70

4.12 My Mentor is patient with me especially when I am slow to learn a new topic or technique. 72

4.13 My Mentor allows me to try out new flying techniques. 73

4.14 My Mentor is respectful of other’s cultural background. 75

4.15 My Mentor helps me to solve problematic situations. 77

Chapter Five – Conclusions and Recommendations 80

5.1 Recommendations 84

Practicable application of behaviours in Mentor-cells 84

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Further research 85

References 86

Appendix 1 – Mentor Behaviour Survey 98

Appendix 2 – Ethics Approval 100

Appendix 3 – Ethics Application 102

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List of Figures

Figure 4-1: Gender Demographics ...................................................................................... 47

Figure 4-2: Age Demographics ........................................................................................... 48

Figure 4-3: Flying Hours Demographics ............................................................................. 48

Figure 4-4: Training Phase Selection Demographics .......................................................... 49

Figure 4-5: My Mentor goes out of her/his way beyond our mentoring sessions to get to

know me. ..................................................................................................................... 50

Figure 4-6: My Mentor sticks to a plan during our mentoring sessions. ............................. 52

Figure 4-7: My Mentor builds up my self-confidence. ....................................................... 56

Figure 4-8: My Mentor has an accommodating behaviour towards me. ............................. 58

Figure 4-9: My Mentor adjusts according to my learning pace. ......................................... 60

Figure 4-10: My Mentor shares her/his flying experience to improve our mentoring session

..................................................................................................................................... 61

Figure 4-11: My Mentor is approachable. ........................................................................... 63

Figure 4-12: My Mentor actively listens to me when it is my turn to speak. ...................... 65

Figure 4-13: My Mentor encourages me to learn new things. ............................................ 67

Figure 4-14: My Mentor communicates clearly. ................................................................. 69

Figure 4-15: My Mentor gives me a balanced feedback on my performance. .................... 71

Figure 4-16: My Mentor is patient with me especially when I am slow to learn a new topic

or technique. ................................................................................................................ 72

Figure 4-17: My Mentor allows me to try out new flying techniques................................. 74

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Figure 4-18: My Mentor is respectful of other’s cultural background. ............................... 75

Figure 4-19: My Mentor helps me to solve problematic situations..................................... 78

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List of Tables

Table 3-1 Comparison of the 2007 vs. 2019 Mentor Behaviours ....................................... 34

Table 3-2 : Mentor Behaviour Definitions (2007 ASFA-SUT Grant Study) ...................... 36

Table 4-1: My Mentor goes out of her/his way beyond our mentoring sessions to get to

know me. ..................................................................................................................... 51

Table 4-2: My Mentor sticks to a plan during our mentoring sessions. .............................. 54

Table 4-3: My Mentor builds up my self-confidence. ......................................................... 56

Table 4-4: My Mentor has an accommodating behaviour towards me. .............................. 59

Table 4-5: My Mentor adjusts according to my learning pace. ........................................... 60

Table 4-6: My Mentor shares her/his flying experience to improve our mentoring session

..................................................................................................................................... 62

Table 4-7: My Mentor is approachable. .............................................................................. 64

Table 4-8: My Mentor actively listens to me when it is my turn to speak. ......................... 66

Table 4-9: My Mentor encourages me to learn new things. ................................................ 68

Table 4-10: My Mentor communicates clearly. .................................................................. 70

Table 4-11: My Mentor gives me a balanced feedback on my performance. ..................... 71

Table 4-12: My Mentor is patient with me especially when I am slow to learn a new topic

or technique. ................................................................................................................ 73

Table 4-13: My Mentor allows me to try out new flying techniques. ................................. 74

Table 4-14: My Mentor is respectful of other’s cultural background. ................................ 76

Table 4-15: My Mentor helps me to solve problematic situations. ..................................... 78

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Table 5-1 Summary Results ................................................................................................ 80

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Abbreviations & Acronyms

AFAP Australian Federation of Air Pilots

AIPA Australian & International Pilots Association

ASFA Aviation Safety Foundation of Australia

CASA Civil Aviation Safety Authority, Australia

FMAQ Flight Management Attitudes Questionnaire

HSOPS Hospital Survey on Patient Safety

ICAO International Civil Aviation Organisation

RAeS The Royal Aeronautical Society

RAF The Royal Air Force

SEM Structural Equation Modelling

SFAIRP So Far As Is Reasonably Possible

SUT Swinburne University of Technology

USFAA United States Federal Aviation Administration

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Chapter One – Introduction

1.1 Protégé and mentee—interchangeable terms

Where used in this thesis, the words protégé and mentee are the same and are used

interchangeably. This is due to the varied use of the term by different authors, references,

domains and schools of thought.

1.2 The Use of Mentoring in Aviation

Empirical research (Dougherty Thomas W. & Dreher, 2007) exists noting a preponderance

of mentoring as an potent aid to career progression. It is widely known (and used) in

human resource literature that mentoring is an important tool in mapping out one’s career

path. We see this in non-aviation domains most of all. However, is mentoring purveyed as

valuable in aviation? And if so, what are good mentor behaviours that pilots deem as

having significant influence in their performance?

It is important to note that the available literature that pervades human resource

management (Kim, 2007), surgeons (Jackson, 2006; Sockeel et al., 2009) and a number of

other professions, the positive impact of good mentoring results in the benefits of its social

value such that mentoring is foremost used in gaining ‘network ties’ (Bozeman & Feeney,

2016). This thesis suggests that mentoring is indeed valuable and useful in the aviation

domain.

Whilst positive and extrinsic value of securing good mentors is important, this is further

supported by vicarious experience of aviation students who show greater need for attention

such as what as Bates (2013) suggests pilots today require as ‘having more than just stick

and rudder skills’. Buckingham as cited in Sampson (2012) even goes further in that

corporate leadership has the accountability to provide opportunities to new (and young)

pilots in order establish personal mentoring investments, much like what Southwest

Airlines (Sampson, 2012) has invested in its staff.

Bates and O'Brien (2013) assert that aviation students for instance are wanting in terms of

being prepared for key, though generic attributes that help in transitioning from academia

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into the airline workforce. The assertion is that these key skills include communication,

problem solving, interactional skills & initiative and efficiency, which normally the

technical training of flying will not provide.

Yet regardless of the attempts by universities at both the national and international levels

to embed both discipline and generic attributes into their degree programmes, external

stakeholders express concern regarding the employability of graduates (Bates & O'Brien,

2013). A similar theme is captured in a non-aviation domain to extol ‘valuing student

‘voices’ when it comes to planning their career future (Buzwell, 2016). The literature

suggests that a better and more attuned connection between what is taught in universities

are carried on into industry, so to speak, via a mentoring process within the airline to

which the trainee pilot is about to join.

To further state a point, Dougherty and Dreher (2007) published a meta-analysis consisting

of forty-seven (47) of conceptual and methodological mentoring issues in emerging

literature—not a single outcome or investigation involved an aviation organisation.

1.3 Pilot Shortage

As far back as 2001, Dr Tim Brady (2001), Dean of Embry Riddle University’s School of

Aviation forecasted that there will be a shortage of U.S. pilots in the order of 58,000 pilots

up to 2021. Sensitivity to pilot enrolment for instance is overshadowed by significant

imbalance of students enrolling in the university for pilot careers (Brady, 2001): Aircraft

Maintenance programs--2,700; Aviation Management--1,980; Aviation Studies--2,880;

Avionics—600; Flight Education--7,380; Airway Science--1,620; and lastly, Piloting—

150.

Lutte and Lovelace (2016), from a more recent research suggest that the dull sensitivity to

pilot jobs, particularly entry first officers is because in the era following the First Officer

Qualification (FOQ) rule change in the FAA, regional airlines impacted and are struggling

to meet hiring needs. Prior to the rule change, pilots were willing to fly for regional airlines

at low pay as a stepping-stone to a career at major airlines. Since the rule change where

higher minimum qualifications require a greater investment for aspiring pilots appear to

have impacted the appeal of this career path.

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Yu, Chi, Xu, and Qi (2008) on the other hand reported that with fast development of airline

industry in China, many airline companies face the problem of pilot shortage. To share

more market, Chinese airline companies have to settle the matter of how many flight tasks

can be finished by current crew of pilots. The responses considered without including the

intervention of mentoring applications were to develop and use optimization models to

estimate maximum flight tasks based on flight tasks dependencies and pilot utilisation.

The situation in Australia is similar to current and predictive states of the pilot shortage

problem as taken from a press release by the Virgin Australia Pilots Association, aptly

describing the ‘worrisome’ status of the shortage ((VIPA), 2017):

Dateline: 29 December 2017

“VIPA, the union representing more than half the pilots in the Virgin

Australia Group of airlines, strongly supports the call by their colleagues

at Qantas, through their union AIPA, in the call for a government white

paper on the serious and growing shortage of pilots.

VIPA President, John Lyons said yesterday that “the problem is systemic

in that the traditional sources of recruitment for airlines has dried up.

General aviation has been forced into decline largely because of an over

regulated, punitive system enforced by CASA and the flow of experienced

RAAF pilots has dwindled,” Captain Lyons said.

VIPA maintains that the implementation of costly regulatory changes such

as Part 61, Part 141 and Part 142 of the Regulations, which have not

contributed to better standards or safety, have really hurt the training

organizations.

“Thirty years ago, the general aviation industry was thriving. It employed

a lot of pilots and licenced engineers which provided an experienced

source of recruitment for the airlines. Stifling regulatory changes and

prohibitive costs have forced many general aviation operators and flying

schools out of business,” Captain Lyons said.

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VIPA acknowledges that recruitment of experienced pilots has had an

impact but does not believe that it is the prime cause of the pilot shortage.

Captain Lyons said young people entering the work force today are not

attracted to a flying career because of the availability of alternative high-

income careers which do not require an investment of over $100,000 to

gain basic qualifications.

VIPA calls for a joint approach by the three main unions, VIPA, AIPA and

the AFAP together with the major and regional airlines.

The illustration above suggests that the known and tested strategies of sustaining a healthy

number of pilots to supply Australian airlines demands is insufficient. However, in such a

state of insufficiency, the primordial value of shaping the current cohort of pilots by

engaging the pronounced transfer of knowledge, skills and values, is largely determined by

the presence and importance of mentoring activity during a pilot’s entire aviation training.

1.4 Australia’s Growing Presence as a Mentor in the Asian Region

Mentoring assistance from Australia to the region, have not been wanting. As early as

2008, Australia has been extending mentoring assistance to Indonesia in an effort to

improve its air safety programs (Flight Safety Foundation, AeroSafety World, 2008):

“Officials from Australia and Indonesia have signed a three-year co- operative agreement

to improve transport safety in Indonesia, including training for up to 40 Indonesian air-

worthiness inspectors each year.

The agreement also calls for Australia to provide mentoring and training for personnel in

Indonesian air traffic management services, as well as guidance in the conduct of

transport safety investigations. These measures were among several that were identified by

the Indonesian government as key safety priorities.

“It is essential the traveling public of both countries [has] confidence that transport safety

is a priority and that lessons from previous transport accidents are being acted upon,”

(then Transport Minister) Albanese said: “Australia’s assistance will complement the

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substantial efforts that the government of the Republic of Indonesia has already taken to

improve the safety of their transport services.”

1.5 Mentoring in Non-Aviation Domains

As it were, the lack of mentoring opportunities especially in industries that rely on

continued conservation and handover of unique and highly specialised skills (�zkalp,

2008) is not localised to pilots. It is, however, more pronounced where the lack of

mentoring opportunity rests in the requirement for higher level technical skills.

For instance, allusions to pilots is posited to be experienced in Singapore, in a highly

technological-culture. Singapore considers individuals with highly specialised technical

skills as ‘technopreneurs’. Lan See (2010) writes that technopreneurship is an activity

promoted by the Singapore Government. Many programs are in place to boost the growth

of technopreneurs. In an effort to understand the development of technopreneurs in

Singapore, the country invests considerable amounts of resources and time to engender

mentoring cells.

These so called “soft skills” also pervade non-aviation and at the same time safety critical

domains where non-technical (soft skills) are required in addition to technical competency,

such as that proffered by Loiselle, Komljenovic, and Kumral (2016):

“...the next level of safety performance will have to consider a transition from coping

solely with workplace dangers, to a more systemic model taking organizational risks

into consideration, including non-technical skills. In this particular aspect, lessons

learned from the nuclear industry may be useful, as organizational learning

processes are more universal than the technology in which they are used. With the

notable exception of major accidents, organizational performance has not received

all the attention it deserves. A key element for reaching the next level of performance

is to include organizational factors in low level events analyses, and approach

management as a risk control system. These factors will then appear not only in

event analysis, but also in supervision activities, mentoring interventions, audits,

change management and the like.”

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In Chikudate (2009), a case is made about the opportunity that in the learning process of

driving a train, a major accident may have been avoided, had the training given to train

drivers consisted of transfer of non-technical skills though good mentoring opportunities.

Chikudate analysed the commuter train incident that involved the West Japan Railway

Company (JR West) which occurred on 25 April 2005 and claimed 107 lives (passengers

and the train driver) and injured 562 passengers. The delay in using the brake and the train

driver's inattention generated confusion and serious errors. The train driver's

inattentiveness may be attributed to his grave concern over reporting personal mistakes to

company authorities as it is mandatory for erring JR West crew members to go through

‘learning practices’, imbued with punitive measures rather than espousing the

accommodation of good mentoring practice. The phenomenological analyses showed how

the unintended consequences of such learning practices played a key role in the train

incident. Further, this study explores the ‘collective myopia’ of JR West’s senior managers

which obviated the use of mentoring as one of the modes of transferring and avoiding the

negative elements (such as surfacing countermeasures to inattentiveness) experienced by

the company’s train drivers.

1.6 Mentor Behaviour Taxonomies in analogous teams

To a great extent, the retention of valuable knowledge from highly skilled experts is not

restricted to pilots. Flin and Maran (2004) for instance, drawing from the aviation domain,

used analogous arguments for the value of mentoring that are found in teams engaged in

acute medical interventions than industrial or aviation teamwork. Mentoring and Crew

Resource Management (CRM) training have been recognised to have beneficial influences

in medicine, especially for teams in the operating theatres and intensive care units. The

work of Dr Rhona Flin of the University of Aberdeen and much later on experiments in

healthcare by Ward et al. (2017), the latter of which brought together university-based

educators responsible for teaching health professional students and health service-based

practitioners who supervise students in the field to arrive at evidence-based conclusions

about the positive influence and value propositions of good mentoring techniques to

promote professional socialisation, provide extant evidence that mentoring is significantly

important as a learning intervention.

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Both researchers drew from cognitive frameworks a type of taxonomy of behaviours, now

popularly known as the behavioural marker system, NOTECHS or non-technical skills.

Whilst originating from the interactions of crews in the flight deck, migrating by assessing

human dynamics in the operating theatre using patient-simulators, Flin and later Robertson

(2014) in her modification of NOTECHS behavioural scoring for operating theatre teams,

explored deeply the use of behavioural taxonomies to explain what ‘good teams’ look like

and how mentored groups maximise performance.

1.7 Contribution to Knowledge

There are two contributions of this study to augment the broader corpus of knowledge

around mentor behaviours particularly in Australian aviation:

1. Understand the relationships of good Mentor behaviours against the variables of Age, Gender, Flying Hours & Training Phase—by using good mentor

behaviours derived from extant literature on aviation mentoring as mentioned in

Spigener (2017) and Anca (2007). Identifying the categorical classifications of

pilots throughout their flying career resonate with these four (4) variables:

a. Age- refers to biological age, indicating chronological characteristics from

cadetship into levels of flight instructorship;

b. Gender- indicating gender membership which in the piloting profession is

still male-dominated;

c. Flying Hours- the standard manner by which experience in flying is

universally gauged which triggers the progressive acquisition of pilot

licences (from private, PPL to airline transport pilot licence, or ATPL);

and,

d. Training Phase- these are the classification of training phases that all pilots

within civil aviation go through their entire aviation careers from solo flight

to retirement.

2. Test the efficacy and sensitivity of these mentor behaviours against a large group of Australian pilots—through a survey of commercial and airline transport

pilots within the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP).

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1.8 Research Questions

This thesis addresses two research questions:

1. Is there a relationship between a pilot’s preference for a Mentor Behaviour and a

pilot’s gender, age, training phase or number of hours flown in their career?

2. What conclusions can be made if a significant difference is established between a

pilot’s preference for a Mentor Behaviour and their gender, age, training phase or

hours flown?

As previously mentioned, a 2007 Swinburne University of Technology (SUT) and

Aviation Safety Foundation of Australia (ASFA) concluded twenty (20) aviation

mentor behaviours influence positive pilot performance. These mentor behaviours are:

Communicates Clearly

Builds Confidence

Exhibits Non-threatening behaviour

Easy to Approach

Spends time to review performance

Actively listens

Sets protégé objectives

Stimulates learning

Assesses performance accurately

Adjusts learning pace

Patient

Has tolerance for errors

Empowers protégés

Coaches slow learners

Shares experience

Systematically organised

Culturally aware

Sticks to lesson plan

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Exudes warmth

Gets to know the protégé beyond mentoring/coaching engagement

The above behaviours were then updated to form the Survey of Mentor Behaviours in this

2019 thesis (see Chapter 0: Mentor Behaviour Survey). The Survey consists of the

following questions about the respondent’s selected mentor:

My Mentor goes out of her/his way beyond our mentoring sessions to get to know

me better.

My Mentor sticks to her/his lesson plan during our mentoring session.

My Mentor builds up my self-confidence.

My Mentor has an accommodating and non-threatening behaviour towards me.

My Mentor adjusts according to my learning pace.

My Mentor shares her/his piloting experience to improve our mentoring session.

My Mentor is approachable.

My Mentor actively listens to me when it is my turn to speak.

My Mentor encourages me to learn new things.

My Mentor communicates clearly.

My Mentor reviews my performance and gives me feedback.

My Mentor is patient with me especially when I am slow to learn a new topic or

technique.

My Mentor allows me to try out new flying techniques.

My Mentor is respectful of other’s cultural background.

My Mentor helps me to solve problematic situations.

1.9 Limitations

The total respondent population to which the Mentor Behaviour Survey (conducted via

Qualtrics®) was sent out is 3,800. Table 3 in Section 0 (Sample Size) informs on the

study’s validity parameter for sample size. It is acknowledged, as would a survey-based

research undertaking and field work that bias may occur in respect of the survey

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instrument, survey implementation and analysis strategy. Efforts were taken to

consciously minimise such potential biases by:

Basing 15 Question elements (Mentor Behaviours) from a subject matter expert

group in Australian aviation;

Using the largest pilot union in Australia, to offer diverse responses to the survey

questions; and,

Applying the Generalised Linear Model to test for significance and variability

across the variables.

The original population contemplated in the research was to test mentor behaviour validity

with a low-cost carrier. Due to changes in researcher employment and membership, a

larger cohort was selected in the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP).

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Chapter Two – Review of Relevant Literature

2.1 Introduction

The application of mentoring as a strong non-formal training activity is increasingly

gaining foothold in many industries (Allen & T., 2003; T. D. Allen, Eby, & Lentz, 2006).

However, the variability of its modality (the manner and sequencing of application) and

instrumentality (the artefacts used within the mentoring relations) appear to have promoted

a wider gap between its utility against its effectiveness in organisations (Kearns & Sutton,

2013) and (Dignen & Cracknell, 2006).

In Jones (2013), citing the work of Wanberg, Welsh, and Hezlett (2003), it appears that

there is a ‘striking dearth of research on formal mentoring’ and recognized there were

some ‘black box’ gaps in relation to formal mentoring and specifically learning. Over the

last 10 years, there has been some research on factors which affect the mentoring process

generally, i.e. similarity in the learning goal orientation (Egan, 2005), the quality of the

learning environment (Kilcullen 2007), and interpersonal factors (Huang and Weng, 2012).

However, there are still only a limited number of articles about formal mentoring and the

process of learning (Hezlett and Gibson 2005; Lankau and Scandura, 2007). There have

been some studies in relation to the factors which affect learning (Hale 2000; Hezlett 2005;

Kilcullen, 2007), but no studies of how this may change throughout the stages of the

mentoring process.

It also appears that studies are mostly aimed at mentees (Jones, 2013) and that research

from a mentor’s perspective is still considered to be in an immature stage of development

(T.D. Allen, 2007). Mentoring is inherently a dyadic process whereby the relationship is

dependent on both parties interacting and learning from each other and a ‘neglect of the

issues unique to the role of the mentor leaves a critical gap in our understanding of the

overall mentorship process and hampers theoretical development of the field’ (Allen

2007).

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2.2 Characterising Mentors

Noe (1988) asserts that a number of testimonials, case studies, and descriptive research

studies suggest that mentors can facilitate personal development and advancement of their

protégés in the organization by providing challenging assignments, guidance and

counselling, and increased exposure and visibility with top management and by serving as

role models. This is not too distant an etymology from where the origins of ‘Mentor’—one

learned Greek sage who was entrusted the young lad, Telemachus to learn and be shaped

like his ‘mentor’. As the ancient story goes, cited in (Anca, 2007): “Mentor, is in fact the

name of a person. He was the trusted friend of Odysseus the king who whilst on a quest to

capture the city of Troy, left his young son Telemachus (the protégé, from the French

protéger, which means ‘to protect’) under Mentor’s care and protection. The job of

Mentor was to make sure Telemachus is brought up through a well-rounded program of

honing the best of the youth’s mind and body. Reading the myth deeply, Mentor being the

‘superman’ at behest of the Greek king, was directed to ‘clone’ himself into the youthful

Telemachus, the protégé.”

According to Jones (2013) the study of Kilcullen (2007) of mentoring activities with

student nurses, there is a positive influence of mentors in protégé learning in respect of

certain activity clusters: (1) support/offering feedback, (2) acting as role models, (3)

performing socialisation roles/helping to settle in, and (4) acting as assessors. Indeed, later

on emulated in the set of Mentor Attitudes Questionnaire (MAQ) as a particular validation

study in this research (Anca, 2007). The study was based on mentee perceptions only, at

one point in time, in the final year of their studies (Jones, 2013). Interestingly, these

findings only show a connection with Hale and Hezlett in relation to socialisation

(connected with sharing information) and role modelling (connected with observation).

And how about differences and efficacy of ‘styles’ of mentoring? Does one style of

mentoring command a stronger influence in shaping protégés? Smith (2017) suggests for

mentors to be mindful of their styles. She avers that a ‘pure’ style of mentoring is one that

supports a specific kind of interpersonal intervention, that which encourages listening so

that the protégé can get in touch with their own values and beliefs. This style entails

questioning and listening, to surface the protégé’s own intelligence.

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A ‘blended’ style on the other hand would be a style which included a mixture of different

styles experienced by the protégé throughout a mentoring session. The value of such a

blended style augurs well for mentors who are part of and are bestowed as senior members

of the same organisation as their protégés (Smith, 2017). To support Smith’s suggestion,

Johnson (2018) even suggests that the best mentors are “much like Michelangelo,”

commanding a retinue of different skillset in different domains to adjust to a shifting

landscape.

Of note, literature interchangeably uses ‘mentor’ and ‘coach’ to a wide variety of contexts

and applications. Although there are some commonalities, mentoring is seen quite

differently to coaching. Perhaps to clearly distinguish these two often interchangeable

terms, Megginson (2010) wrote that mentoring ‘relates primarily to the identification and

nurturing of potential for the whole person’. Unlike coaching, mentoring is perceived as a

relationship where the mentor is often seen as a role model who leads by example and is

more senior and certainly more experienced than the person being mentored. Mentoring is

perceived as a sharing of knowledge, experience and advice, sometimes by example and

usually with the focus around development for future roles.

Such delineation augurs well, especially in the aviation context where a First Officer,

notionally seen as the novice, is being ‘shaped’ behaviourally through the structured layer

of authority, especially in the case of being subordinate to Captains.

2.3 Mentor Behaviour--Impact on Neuropsychological Skills

Mentor behaviours are non-selective of the mentee’s competency requirements. In fact, it

would be careless if pilots were only mentored on their “stick and rudder” or psychomotor

skills. The Mentor approaches the mentoring event imbued with the task of developing

both cognition and skills of the mentee. It can also be argued that good Mentor behaviour

goes beyond competency development but also nurturing the emotional intelligence of the

pilot trainee—their complete neuropsychological consistency.

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For instance, in a 2018 study (Arikan, Ertemir, & Keskinkilic, 2018), a test battery that

assesses: a) working memory, b) information processing rate, c) mental flexibility, d)

reaction time, e) set switching, f) inhibiting cognitive interference, g) parameters of

short/long term visual memory, and h) spatial comprehension were administered to 147

healthy commercial airline pilots, of whom 144 were men and 3 women. Respondents

were divided into four age groups: 20-29 years, 30-39 years, 40-49 years, and 50 years and

above.

They were given the following tests: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-

R) Digit Span, Rey Complex Figure Test (RCFT), Continuous Performance Test (CPT),

Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT), Reaction Time Test (RTT), d2 Test of

Attention (d2TA), Stroop Test (ST), Trail Making Test (TMT), Visual Elevator Test

(VET), and Judgement of Line Orientation Test (JLO).

The study found that there was a relation between age and military vs. civilian background,

type of bachelor's degree, and flight experience, but no relation was found between age and

hand dominance (psychomotor skills). It was concluded that commercial airline pilots'

neuropsychological test scores differ according to age but not by psychomotor skills. The

importance of pilot norms and the necessity of comparing pilots according to professional

norms was highlighted. The significance of this conclusion is that the importance of

instilling professional pilot norms is better conveyed and maintained by good Mentor

behaviours –whether it be in ground or flight training phases.

2.4 Mentor Behaviour and the Impact on Emotional Intelligence

Further investigation on the positive effect of good Mentor behaviours on the development

emotional intelligence (EI) first officers is cited in the work of Bramble, Hfes, Hfes, and

Hfes (1998), which also has been observed in positively reinforcing EI in healthcare teams

(Barach & Ieee, 2016).

According to Bramble et al. (1998) emotional intelligence elements measured in their

study of first officers consisted of examining elements such as: general ability,

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conscientiousness, and stability. These three EI elements were assessed as predictive of

good job performance. Predictive variables were measured during a pre-employment

screening process. Job performance was assessed later, using behaviourally-anchored

rating scales. Ratings were made by fellow crewmembers (airline captains). The analysis

of the rating data yielded two orthogonal factors, a “proficiency” and an “interpersonal”

factor. The study concluded that first officers who were more emotionally stable achieved

higher scores on the proficiency measure (r = .33, p = .006). The correlation between

general ability and the interpersonal performance measure approached significance (r =

.22, p = .071) but did not exceed the traditional criterion (p < .05).

Therefore, while the technical proficiency of flying an aeroplane is important, the value of

reinforcing (and treating) emotional intelligence presents greater and perhaps more

significant importance through good mentoring behaviours.

2.5 Mentor Behaviour: Impact on Pilot Psychological Maladjustment and

Screening

The importance of mentoring good EI and to a significant extent, neuropsychological

health is exemplified in a recent(Butcher), 2015 accident of Germanwings, a low-cost

subsidiary of Lufthansa GmbH. A known (to the airline) but untreated and mismanaged

mental issue of the first officer in Flight 9525 which was an A320-211 bound to

Dusseldorf from Barcelona resulted in a crash on an area near Digne-les-Baines in

Southern France. The crash was intentionally caused by the first officer, 27-year old

Andreas Lubitz who was suffering from “severe depression”. There were 150 fatalities in

the Germanwings crash which raises questions about the need for more incisive metal

health approaches, including early detection of mental health issues by an established

mentoring program within an airline.

As early as 2002, research by (Butcher) and the work of Lin and Sci Res (2010) much

layer, already raised the issue of supporting personality and emotional issues to learn and

provide adequate controls on its impact on job performance. However, as Butcher found,

most airlines do little in the way of psychological assessment at the initial hiring stage or

provide mentoring support throughout the pilot's career to detect and care for potential

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personality problems or emotional disorders. Much is known about the personality and

mental health factors that could affect performance of pilots but little of this information

has been incorporated in pilot screening programs. Butcher surveyed a number of potential

problem areas that can lead to performance decrements.

The same findings were surfaced in research around triage trauma teams which can

resonate with Butcher’s study.

Cole and Crichton (2006) for instance, collected and analysed subjective data from

transcripts of the observation field notes and interviews using open coding, followed by

formation of categories resulting in the emergence of six central categories. The

researchers found that that leadership, role competence, conflict, communication, the

environment and the status of the patient all influence the behaviour of the trauma team.

Analogous to the findings of Butcher (2002) harmonise with Cole and Crichton in that

these categories suggests that trauma team education and centrally a robust mentoring

program should include human factor considerations such as leadership skills, team

management, inter-professional teamwork, conflict resolution and communication

strategies. The findings also further suggested that support systems for role development of

junior team leaders (as would occur in a Mentoring Program) should be formalized. The

proven airline industry techniques of Crew Resource Management, focusing on teamwork

and effective communication, could be implemented into continuing professional

development for trauma teams to engender collaboration and inter-professional practice.

2.6 Training Mentors

Grant (2012), Allen and T. (2003) and Phipps (2012) construe that there are indeed lapses

and inconsistencies in the training and continuing development of mentors—that more is to

be desired in regularly reinforcing mentor skills through theory and practice.

For instance, Grant (2012) conducted a survey of Australian mentors and coaches and

found that Australian mentors have relatively a sophisticated approach to supervision, as

might be expected from a group of experienced mentors. Australian mentors appear to be

engaging in a positive and professional manner with the practice and challenges of

supervision (when descriptively weighing-in with their British & German counterparts).

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Grant indicates that the findings from the Australian study echo those findings from the

UK in that it suggests that coaches are intrinsically motivated to engage in supervision—

that is to actively participate in actually supervising. On the other hand, as a matter of

relational design, mentors per se do not appear to take supervision because their mentees

engage willingly in the often-challenging process of facilitated reflection that lies at the

heart of good supervision (Grant, 2012).

An aspect of the Australian study that has not received much attention in the literature

involves negative experience of supervision. Although this group of respondents were

overwhelmingly in favour of supervision, 30% reported negative experiences of

supervision, and there are some important lessons to be learnt from these negative

experiences. Two key areas were unsatisfactory experiences in peer group supervision and

poor supervisor skills (Grant, 2012), further evidencing the need to have greater rigour in

establishing good mentor behavioural markers.

However, as variation in supervision across different cultures exist, there is a need to

develop mentors who are attuned to and reflect the influence of varying cultures with their

mentees as seen in the investigation of different influences of mentors and facilitators of

Crew Resource Management (CRM) programs (Cookson, 2017). He states that “…CRM

has been criticized for being implicitly biased towards Western culture, and there have

been calls for the development of different versions “culturally calibrated” to meet the

needs of target participants. Research into national cultural differences, as well as airline

organizational culture and pilot professional culture, need to be examined surrounding the

implications for CRM training, especially those involving mixed-nationality crews”.

According to Grima, Paillé, H. Mejia, and Prud'homme (2014) who further dwells in

boldly suggesting the development of mentors through deeper actions towards ‘mentoring

for mentors’, the suggestion is that if the benefits of the mentoring relationship are well

documented for the mentee, this is not the case for the mentor (Noe, 1988).

According to Kram (1983), a number of empirical research have attempted to validate,

even refine, instinctual actions of mentors by means of typologies. Based on a series of

conversations with 27 mentors, T. D. P. Allen, M/L.; & Burroughs, S.M. (1997) suggest a

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typology in four categories (builds support network, self-satisfaction, job-related self-

focused, job-related other-focused) summarising the preceding contributions. The same

applies to the studies by Scandura (1992) and Ragins and Scandura (1999), who puts

forward five types of benefits: rewarding experience, improved job performance, loyal

base of support, recognition by others and generativity. Pursuing the instrumental benefit

of being a mentor, Eby (2008) shows that mentors in one study reported that they benefit in

terms of “enhanced managerial skill”. This is because mentors improve their understanding

of the organisation and their ability to understand others (Lankau & Scandura, 2002). They

are able to better comprehend the points of view of colleagues, which increases his power

of influence over their team (Dobrow, Chandler, Murphy, & Kram, 2012).

Perhaps an appreciation of a deeper understanding of mentoring as “more than just a

relationship” will help in setting a stronger training program for Mentors. In the early ‘90s,

Chao, Walz, and Gardner (1992) proposed that mentorship is theorized to evolve through

several stages over time (Kram, 1985). Results from 178 mentors supported Kram's

sequence of four mentoring phases: Initiation, Cultivation, Separation, and Redefinition.

Mentees in the Initiation phase reported lower levels of mentoring functions than other

mentees; however, no significant differences across these phases were found for a variety

of job/career outcomes. Data from 82 current mentees (in the study at the time) and 69

former mentees were compared with those from 93 individuals who reported never having

a mentor. The three groups were compared on career outcomes, job satisfaction,

organizational socialization, and income measures across a 5-year period. Results showed

consistent differences between mentored and non-mentored individuals, proving the value

of having good mentors in the course of the learning process of mentees.

However, the concept of purely relational mentoring that is, without the benefit of formal

mentor training can be dismissed; and indeed, exemplified by the work of by Belle Rose

Ragins (2012) suggests that through mentoring, the mentor enters into a dynamic state that

facilitates their contact with others. This approach emphasises that mentoring should be

thought of as an exchange relationship that is much more balanced and aids in exploring

aspects of defining mentor behaviours by validating mentor behaviours.

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2.7 Formal vs. Informal Mentoring Activity

T. D. Allen et al. (2006), sheds light (and perhaps invites debate around perceptions about

the effectiveness of formal against informal mentoring approaches. To distinguish, formal

mentoring approaches usually are deliberately designed programs with a pre-requisite that

participants in the mentoring activities have undergone mentoring training (B. R. Ragins,

Kram, Kathy E., 2007). The selection and matching of protégé and mentor are usually

done by a third party, which introduces the risk of less optimal relationship between

mentor and protégé (B. R. Ragins, Cotton, & Miller, 2000).

In contrast, informal mentoring approaches are do not have relational constraints; are more

spontaneous in addition to both mentor and protégé exhibiting a greater goodness of fit in

the mentoring relationship which has a positive effect on the longevity of the mentoring

relationship (Eby, 2008); and (B. R. Ragins et al., 2000). Empirical research is not

conclusive as to the effectiveness of each of these approaches due to the fact that there is

limited information as to the efficacy and longevity of both approaches—very scant

experiments have been conducted to examine the differences between the approaches,

from the point of view of the protégés (Allen & T., 2003); (Lentz & Allen, 2009) and

(T.D. Allen, 2007).

What insight can be drawn from this debate in terms of flight crew situations? The research

evidence suggests in this case, in distal flight crews, there may exist a blend of formal and

informal mentoring approaches accruing to the design structure of crew formation: the

basic crew is composed of a captain and first officer, who (depending on scale and route

structure) fly in virtually confined space (the flight deck) for a considerable period of low-

workload time (cruise phase of flight). Where an airline elects to utilise that time within a

mentoring program (formal), could demonstrate and repeat the success in formalised

mentoring engagements; on the other hand, an airline can utilise the adverse condition of a

formal approach, i.e. allow crews to spontaneously select mentor-protégé arrangements to

maximise the benefits of an informal approach.

In a related experiment, formal Crew Resource Management interventions including the

use of good mentoring principles such as communication and empathy showed greater

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positive impact that would informal mentoring activity. In Haerkens et al. (2015), it was

determined whether implementation of formal CRM including mentoring techniques

impacts outcome in critically ill patients. A prospective 3-year cohort study was performed

in a 32-bed ICU (admitting 2500-3000 patients yearly). At the end of the baseline year, all

personnel received CRM training, followed by one year of implementation. The third year

was defined as the clinical effect year. All 7271 patients admitted to the ICU in the study

period were included. The primary outcome measure was ICU complication rate.

Secondary outcome measures were ICU and hospital length of stay, and standardized

mortality ratio. The results confirmed the following:

occurrence of serious complications was 67.1/1000 patients and 66.4/1000 patients

during the baseline and implementation year respectively, decreasing to 50.9/1000

patients in the post-implementation year (p=0.03).

adjusted odds ratios for occurrence of complications were 0.92 (95% CI 0.71-1.19,

p=0.52) and 0.66 (95% CI 0.51-0.87, p=0.003) in the implementation and post-

implementation year.

incidence of cardiac arrests was 9.2/1000 patients and 8.3/1000 patients during the

baseline and implementation year, decreasing to 3.5/1000 patients (p=0.04) in the

post-implementation year, while cardiopulmonary resuscitation success rate

increased from 19% to 55% and 67% (P=0.02).

standardized mortality ratio decreased from 0.72 (95% CI 0.63-0.81) in the baseline

year to 0.60 (95% CI 0.53-0.67) in the post-implementation year (p=0.04).

The study (Haerkens et al., 2015) suggests a positive association between formal CRM and

mentoring implementation and reduction in serious complications and lower mortality in

critically ill patients

It appears that longitudinal research suggest that is differentiation between formal

mentoring activities against informal ones (where mentor-mentee are not guided by

methodical activities during the mentoring engagement). Citing the previous 1992 study of

(Chao et al.), 212 mentees who were involved in informally developed mentorships, 53

mentees involved in formal mentorship programs, and 284 individuals who did not have

mentors were compared. Informal and formal mentorships were compared along two

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mentoring dimensions: psychosocial and career-related functions. All groups were

compared on three outcome measures: organizational socialization, job satisfaction, and

salary. The results showed that informal mentorships reported more career-related support

from their mentors and higher salaries than mentees in formal mentorships. For all

outcome variables, mentees in informal mentorships also reported more favourable

outcomes than non-mentored individuals. Similar findings were reported in the positive

effects of formal mentoring approaches in respect of female airline transport pilots who

have undergone formal mentoring interventions (Cline, 2018)

2.8 Mentoring- from the Mentor’s Point of View

Appreciating mentoring from the Mentor’s point of view has been widely shared in the

contemporary works of researchers as Banerjee-Batist and Reio (2016) and T.D. Allen

(2007) who have pioneered in discovering the untapped benefits of mentor-mentee

relationships. Associated research by (Adams, 2005); Best (2010) produced a Leadership

Readiness Index (LRI). The index offers two theoretical contributions:

First, the complementation of existing knowledge about what exactly the mentor can gain

from his role for each of his mentoring activity (Dobrow et al., 2012), by clarifying the

links between different mentoring activities and specific benefits. In doing so, it also

invites the scientific community to consider mentoring from the perception of the mentor.

Second, by examining the influence of contextual characteristics such as the nature of the

mentoring relationship and homogeneity in terms of the gender of the dyad, it also

proposes a more detailed explanatory framework for the benefits of mentoring for the

mentor. At the managerial level, this research calls upon organisations to rethink the

characteristics of mentoring programmes, taking into account the benefits of the latter for

both parties, in order to ensure that expected outcomes are met (Lankau & Scandura, 2002;

Weinberg & Lankau, 2010).

Particular to Mentors is the role they occupy as ‘caretakers’ or the ‘go-to’ in respect of

mentee development. In so doing, they can appreciate from their unique vantage point, the

experiences, learnings, and to a great extent the emotions involved especially during the

course of a mentee’s pilot career. Examination of the mentor-mentee relationship has

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better promise of sustainability if such a relationship is characterised by the Mentor’s

ability to conduct themselves with humility and the concern for the mentee’s progressive

development. Evidence of this is seen from the manner in which a Mentor ‘under’ or

‘over’ estimate themselves in the course of the mentoring relationship (Godshalk & Sosik,

2000). This study examined whether mentor-mentee agreement regarding mentor

transformational leadership behaviour would influence the quality of mentoring

relationships. Mentors in 199 mentor-mentee dyads were classified as over-estimators or

under-estimators based on the difference between the Mentor's self-rating and mentee’s

rating of the Mentor's transformational leadership behaviours. Results from a multivariate

analysis of variance indicated that under-estimator dyads experience the highest quality of

mentoring relationships in terms of psychosocial support received, career development,

and perceived mentoring effectiveness.

It is also crucial that from the Mentor’s point of view that they are equipped to respond to

the levels of stress surrounding their mentee’s development. Lempereur and Lauri (2006)

conducted a study to examine the stressor effects that pilot undergo during their years of

training and continuing qualification. The Lempereur study used a phenomenological

methodology to explore the psychological effects of constant evaluation on airline pilots.

The methodology was to interview 7 male airline pilots. The psychological effects of

constant evaluation are described through the themes elicited from participants’ subjective

experiences as: (a) permanent pressure in pilots' professional and private lives, (b) an

experiential process that changes as pilots age and gain more job experience, and (c)

diminished trust among organizational members. The study recommended the need for

specialised training or coaching for mentors to be equipped in meeting the constraints of

their mentees. Another study was conducted to extend Lempereur and assess the injurious

nature of pilot stress (Lin & Sci Res, 2010). The study showed that as commercial pilots

bear the duty of flight safety, their job stress is higher than other occupations. If the

sources of job stress could not be reduced and drained off, the stress will be accumulated

continually, and injure pilots in aspects of physical, psychological and job satisfaction and

have a critical impact on their flying ability as a result. Therefore, improving the airline

safety through management pilot's job stress is an important issue. Extant research of Zeeb,

Blettner, Hammer, and Langner (2002) also highlight the impact of occupational stress

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among German commercial pilots. These stressors may be ‘balanced out’ however, if

extrinsic reinforcement such as financial rewards are strategically introduced. For

instance, Gamble, Culpepper, and Blubaugh (2002) studied how management approaches

to employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) implementation affects such employee work-

related attitudes as job satisfaction, ESOP satisfaction, and job involvement. The

responses of 321 airline pilots who were employed by one of three major US-based airlines

were assessed. The study found positive linkages between the instrumentally and

extrinsically satisfying aspects of employee ownership and ESOP satisfaction, job

satisfaction, and job involvement.

The good news is that research (T. D. P. Allen, M/L.; & Burroughs, S.M., 1997) suggests

that individuals who have been involved in mentoring activities in the past indicate greater

willingness to mentor others. Whether the past experience is that of a Mentor or a mentee,

indicated the likelihood of the individual to re-engage in mentoring. Recently, several

studies have linked personality variables with willingness to mentor others. For example,

T. D. P. Allen, M/L.; & Burroughs, S.M. (1997) found that internal locus of control and

upward striving were positively associated with intentions to mentor others.

However, scant research (T. D. Allen, Eby, O'Brien, & Lentz, 2008) has been made to

determine the specific reasons why an individual would choose to engage in a mentoring

relationship.

2.9 Culture and Mentor Behaviours

Developmental interventions that often come about with the management of change, such

as establishing formal mentoring programs, significantly involves the management of

culture. Plaister-Ten (2013) proposes that raising culturally-bound awareness and building

culturally-appropriate responsibility constitute the essence of good inter-cultural mentoring

practice. It presents a model that can facilitate the awareness and responsibility-building.

Plaister-Ten (2013) provides a valid argument that if cross-cultural mentoring becomes an

established form of learning and development practice, mentors must be cognisant of the

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dangers of transporting ‘Western’ models that are biased towards their own cultural lens.

He posits that the differing values informing constructs such as ‘responsibility’ can change

over the lifespan due to multiple and prolonged intercultural experiences and which may

require that the work on with ‘unlearning’ as a key intercultural competency. Notably the

classification of mentor behaviours in Anca (2007), includes ‘culturally aware’ as one of

the good-practice mentor behaviours.

Evidence of the effect of good mentor behaviours are further witnessed through the

implementation of mentoring arrangements and indeed the use of CRM as a facility to spur

mentoring activity. A longitudinal study in the medical domain (Hefner et al., 2017)

examined the impact of a systematic CRM and mentoring arrangement implementation

across 8 departments spanning 3 hospitals and 2 campuses. The Hospital Survey on Patient

Safety Culture (HSOPS) was administered electronically to all employees before CRM

implementation and about 2 years after; changes in percent positive composite scores were

compared in pre-post analyses. Across all respondents, there was a statistically significant

increase in composite score for 10 of the 12 HSOPS dimensions (p < .05). These

significant results persisted across the 8 departments studied and among both practitioners

and staff. Consideration of score changes across dimensions reveals that the teamwork and

communication dimensions of patient safety culture may be more highly influenced by

CRM training than supervisor and management dimensions. It could be argued though that

the role of the Mentor was not classified as those within supervisory or management

dimensions.

Following, we look at some contemporary culture issues in mentoring:

Women in Mentoring

Especially in the domain of digital technology, the emerging requirement to refocus

mentoring approaches (Braun, 2008; Germain, Herzog, & Hamilton, 2012; Salami, 2010)

as well as documenting the management of protégé organisational deviance (Chen &

Wen, 2016) were established. As a specific artefact, it is known that aviation remains to be

a male-dominated industry. However, the work of Durbin (2016) documents successes of

women working together in mentor-network groups in the UK to promote career

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improvements which were otherwise difficult in a male-dominated industry such as

aviation. Durbin’s research reports on the work of a group of female activists

(professionals, employers and managers) from a number of public and private sector

organisations across the industry and academics from the University of the West of

England, who came together to address gender inequality in the aviation industry and to

create positive change for women through the design of a mentoring scheme, which will

enable women to seek help from other women in the industry and to build their social

capital through networking. The same emerging findings of women establishing mentor-

network systems are seen in Lopes (2015), Germain et al. (2012) and Guthrie (2017).

As mentioned earlier in the work of Durbin (2016) and Lopes (2015) sheds light on their

refreshing views about women in aviation and the goals of their mentoring programs

(Lopes, 2015):

“These founding partner organisations recognise the need for mentoring support for their

professional female employees. The scheme will initially operate between the Royal

Aeronautical Society (RAeS), The Royal Air Force (RAF) and Airbus, working in

consultation with other key organisations within the industry, including Virgin, BAE

Systems, Rolls Royce, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Augusta Westland, AJW Aviation and

Universal Weather & Aviation. The project will offer the opportunity for professional

women to work with mentors both within and outside of their organisations. The project is

built upon four key objectives:

To create an integrated sector-based approach to the issue of the recruitment,

retention, development and progression of women in aviation and aerospace.

To design, build and review a mentoring scheme, specifically based upon the

identified needs of female professionals (through a survey, face-to-face interviews

and focus groups with female professionals in the industry) and ‘best practice’

interviews with key industry stakeholders.

To design and deliver a training scheme for potential mentors and mentees and

build mentoring into yearly performance reviews for both.

To sustain the mentoring scheme through the partnership built up within the

knowledge exchange programme.

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This mentoring project is built around a project group, comprising the founding

organisations, that meets each month to discuss the progress of the project. The project

was officially launched at the Annual Conference of the RAeS Women in Aviation and

Aerospace Committee, entitled, ‘Flying High in the Aerospace Industry’ and held in

November 2014, attended by eighty female professionals.” (Lopes, 2015).

National Culture

The application of mentoring approaches can perhaps be seen as more pronounced in

situations where a confluence of people come together, such as migration. The research of

Reeves (2017) on the subject of intercultural mentoring provides significant insight in that

the study drew from mentor feedback and reflections and examined the practices of

mentors successful in mentoring immigrant newcomers. Reeves (2017) reports on how

mentors related the competencies they reported as foundational for decoding, absorbing,

and transferring tacit/explicit knowledge holdings. Capturing rich insights, the guidelines

for best practice are presented for mentoring of immigrant newcomer mentees in

smaller/medium cities (SMC) with emerging immigrant populations.

The findings identify seven key themes by mentors: mentees’ culture, mentors’ cultural

self-awareness, building relationality and accessibility, sponsorship, deep learning, racism,

and small city truths as they influence:

knowledge transfer and personal learning within the dyad,

acculturation/adaptation, and

perceived business and network gains on the part of the mentee.

In an incipient work by Dignen and Cracknell (2006), the agenda of how large project

teams managing the intercultural challenges of complex international project environments

was discussed. The study focused on competencies and work practices that ensure

budgetary and scheduling compliance by maximising diversity and minimising cross-

cultural conflict. Dignen’s work presented over five years of experience in working with

European project professionals and a new intercultural blended-learning concept, using

interviews with international managers. His work had a particular and interesting focus on

handling inter-cultural conflicts in small mentoring groups (Dignen & Cracknell, 2006).

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Investigations around the relationship of professional and national culture on medical

doctors and pilots (Helmreich, 2000) also show instrumental effects on the perception of

stress and professional behaviour in these two domains which profusely use mentoring as a

competency development intervention. Survey data from 26 nations on 5 continents show

highly significant national differences regarding appropriate relationships between leaders

and followers, in group vs. individual orientation, and in values regarding adherence to

rules and procedures. These findings replicate earlier research on dimensions of national

culture. While there are no better or worse cultures, these cultural differences have

operational implications for the way crews function in an international space environment.

The positive professional cultures of pilots and physicians exhibit a high enjoyment of the

job and professional pride. However, a negative component was also identified

characterized by a sense of personal invulnerability regarding the effects of stress and

fatigue on performance. This misperception of personal invulnerability has operational

implications such as failures in teamwork and increased probability of error (Helmreich,

2000).

Particular to the professional culture of pilots, which may have potential use in

ascertaining clear communication between Mentor and mentee, the use of language and

discourse from a study by Ashcraft (2007) suggested that contemporary airline pilots

characterise themselves as elite, fatherly professionals to make sense of their work,

explicitly invoking discourse as a rational and emotional warrant for the legitimacy of their

work and, in so doing, implicitly affecting mentoring relationships by articulating

sexuality, race, and class discourses, which may be avoided or modulated through the

facilitation skill of a good pilot Mentor.

Another aspect of research in intercultural mentoring involves ‘unpacking’ of experiences

of executive coaches in Asia:

According to Nangalia and Nangalia (2010), their exposition of mentoring activities

involve an exploratory case study that explores how executive coaches across Asia adapt

coaching, from the conventional (essentially Western) understanding, to make it culturally

congruent for their clients. It presents how coaching is personalized to an Eastern ethos;

thus, constructively challenging coaching concepts and practices that are believed to be

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universally applicable. The findings bring out how the deeply embedded concept of social

hierarchy influences the role and status of the coach in Asian culture. Whether the social

hierarchy draws its strength from Confucianism or the Hindu tradition, it shapes the

expectations that clients have from the coach and coaching.

Worth mentioning here in Nanagalia’s (2010) research is that the conventional

understanding of coaching holds that the client is the expert in her or his life and is

resourceful enough to find the answers to the challenges they may be going through.

Furthermore, the coach is expected to create self-awareness through asking thought

proving questions, and refrain from giving advice or telling the client what she or he must

do. In effect, the coach must not provide the answers but encourage the client to generate

their own solution and strategies. The issue that has not been fully explored is that this

perspective and practice is completely developed on a Western cultural ethos where the

individual is the centre of attention and is in control of her or his life. These principles are

alien to an Asian cultural ethos (Nangalia & Nangalia, 2010).

Cultural Mix between Mentor and Mentee

Another area for considering the effects of culture in the mentoring engagement is the mix

of mentor and mentee who may come from two or more different cultures. This would be

prevalent especially in large multi-cultural flight decks. A late 1990’s study focused on

mentor-mentee cultural diversity revealed that between mentors and mentees on

international internships in a large multinational corporation, a sample of 138 interns on

six-month overseas assignments were examined. The results indicated that interns who are

different in nationality and gender from their mentors are much less likely to receive task-

related, social-related, and career-related support from them. Moreover, this deficit in

mentoring is associated with poorer socialization to internship assignments, lower levels of

learning about international business, lower likelihoods of receiving and accepting job

offers from internship employers, and lower perceived career instrumentality of the

internships. The implications of the results for future research on mentor-mentee diversity

and the design demographic (gender) or national culture differences may have impact on

the manner in which mentor-mentee engagements are designed (Feldman, Folks, &

Turnley, 1999).

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But there are other manifestations of cultural or to be more specific, compensatory and

ethnographic differences that seem to have an influence about the efficacy of mentoring

relationships. In Dreher and Cox (1996), hypothesised about how race, gender, and

mentoring experiences account for compensation outcomes among master of business

administration (MBA) program graduates are considered. African-American and Hispanic

MBAs were less likely than their White counterparts to establish mentoring relationships

with Anglo Saxon men. Women with MBAs were less likely than men with MBAs to form

such relationships. Graduates who had been able to establish mentoring relationships with

Anglo Saxon men displayed an average annual compensation advantage of US$16,840

over those with mentors displaying other demographic profiles. There were no

compensation differences between those who had established mentoring relationships with

women or minority men and those who had not established a mentoring relationship. One

would therefore expect that both ethnography and compensation differences may influence

mentoring relationships. In the case of aviation mentoring, perhaps matching both ethnic

and compensation of pilots should be considered in matching mentor-mentee partnerships.

An operational aspect to consider about positive impact of mentoring interventions in two

different operational cultures is in reference to cockpit (flight deck) and cabin

coordination. According to Zhu and Ma (2015), communication and collaboration between

the cockpit and cabin is one of the important human factors affect flight safety and it is an

important part of crew resource management. In order to better facilitate communication

and collaboration between cockpit and cabin, communication barriers between the cockpit

and cabin from the aspects such as history, nature of work, and culture. Their study then

analysed the various sources of information required that the cabin crew communicate with

the cockpit crew, such as passengers, standard operation procedures, cabin intercom,

catering staff, maintenance staff and the methods to obtain information from the

information sources. It is averred that good Mentor Behaviours can positively influence

communication between the cockpit crew and cabin crew, including briefing, good

information sharing and good crew coordination training. Clarity of communication is

included in one of the Mentor Behaviours being studied in this research.

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Apart from ethnographic and compensatory differences, other elements that account for the

correlation of cultural differences occur in the realm of what the sociologist Geert Hofstede

proposed in the late 1980’s, and this pertains to a positive correlation between Hofstede's

power distance scores, which measure the extent to which those without power defer to

those with it, and aircraft accidents in different countries. A recent investigation from the

Hofstede model (Enomoto & Geisler, 2017) used regression analysis to estimate the effects

of number of flights, GDP, severe weather conditions, and culture on plane crashes in 68

countries. It was found that per-capita GDP and country scores on the cultural dimension

of individualism are inversely related to plane accidents while power distance scores and

number of flights are directly related to plane accidents. Similarly, Harris and Li (2008)

made analogous findings in noting that High power-distance has been implicated in many

aircraft accidents involving Southeast Asian carriers where human error has been identified

as a root cause. Both research suggest that continued training for pilots and co-pilots in

direct cockpit communication can help overcome cultural barriers and reduce aircraft

accidents.

2.10 Future Research Agenda

Perhaps a most targeted (but most authoritative) study about mentoring and its future

agenda is that of a deep focus on the development of the Mentor (T. D. P. Allen, M/L.; &

Burroughs, S.M., 1997). Whilst thought of in 1997, Allen et. al. was able to succinctly

capture key future research areas of importance, arising from a study Allen conducted

about a qualitative inquiry on mentor needs. She found some very interesting areas to

explore (indeed supporting the need for mentor attitude experiments):

Motives or reasons for mentoring others will be related to factors such as mentoring

functions provided, who will be selected as a protégé ́, and the amount of time that

a mentor invests in a mentoring relationship.

Individuals high in other-oriented empathy will be more likely to mentor others

than individuals low in other-oriented empathy.

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A felt sense of responsibility (norm of reciprocity) mediates the relationship

between previous experience as a protégé ́ and willingness to mentor others.

Individuals who have recently experienced or are experiencing an organizational

downsizing will be less willing to mentor others than individuals who have not

experienced an organizational downsizing.

Mentors will be more attracted to junior employees that they perceive have more

talent/ability than junior employees perceived to have less talent/ability.

Protégés perceived by mentors to have a higher degree of motivation and

willingness to learn will be involved in longer, more successful mentoring

relationships than protégés perceived by mentors to be less motivated and less

interested in learning.

Mentors will perceive greater costs to not providing mentoring to junior employees

who appear in need of help and are under their direct supervision than junior

employees who appear in need of help and are not under their direct supervision.

Mentors will perceive that there are greater rewards to providing mentoring to

protégés who are perceived to be similar to themselves than protégés perceived to

be dissimilar to themselves.

Senior employees more interested in personal growth and development will be

more likely to mentor others than senior employees less interested in personal

growth and development.(T. D. P. Allen, M/L.; & Burroughs, S.M., 1997)

Mentoring and Technology

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