Mentoring Up:

Pro-actively managing your mentoring relationship by assessing and applying your strengths

Steve Lee, PhDGraduate Diversity Officerfor the STEM Disciplines

What exactly is mentoring?

Traditional Mentoring

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MentorMentee

Instructions, advice, etc

Any other aspects of mentoring?

Peer Mentoring

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Peer Peer Peer

Any other aspects of mentoring?

“Mentoring Up”

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Questions, input, etc

MentorMentee

Based upon original concept of:

“Managing Up”

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Gabarro and Kotter, Harvard Business Review, 1980.

Questions, input, etc

Manager Boss

Mentoring up is:

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Questions, input, etc

MentorMentee

the mentee learning to pro-actively manage their mentoring relationship

Group Discussion #1

� Consider a recent fruitful working

relationship. What made it work out well?

� Consider another difficult working

relationship. Why do you think it became

so challenging?

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A key difficulty is realizing our own communication preferences

� Research shows we don’t self-assess accurately

� Gallup survey: 97% said their leadership skills are at or above average (!)

� National study: rate student’s professional skills from 1-7

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employers

alumni

faculty

students 5.16 (!)

4.41

4.73

4.27

Gabarro and Kotter also stress the importance of assessing

� the relationship involves mutual dependence between fallible persons

� most superiors do not spell out all their expectations explicitly

� ultimately, the subordinate is responsible to discover the superior’s expectations

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Gabarro and Kotter, HBR, 1980.

1. assess yourself and your superior

2. apply this assessment to develop a mutually beneficial relationship

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Main Message

Assess:

Apply:

� Assess yourself & others accurately

� Apply your assessments strategically

How do we assess ourselves?

How do we apply our assessment to “mentor up”?

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� Please refer to the handout

� Complete the individual and group activities

� Spend ~15 min

Group Discussion #2

What principles are important in mentoring relationships?

� Communication

� Aligning expectations

� Assessing understanding

� Ethics

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Handelsman, Pfund, Branchaw, etc at U of WI

Entering Mentoring and Entering Research

� Addressing equity and inclusion

� Fostering independence

� Promoting professional development

What skills are needed in mentoring up?

� Assess yourself and your mentor� Myers-Briggs

� StrengthsFinder

� myIDP website

� seek research-based,

multiple assessments

� Apply the assessment� refer to principles in mentoring relationships & case studies

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� assess your needs:� trust� compassion� hope� stability

Mentoring up includes:

Acting with confidence

� actively engage with your mentor

� seek to understand your mentor’s expectations

� communicate your goals and expectations

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Treating with respect

� actively listen

� practice “follow-ship”

� determine and fulfill your responsibilities

� adapt to your mentor’s needs

&

Mentoring up is NOT

� False-flattery

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� Manipulating your mentor

Resources

� for mentors:� Handelsman, et al; Entering Mentoring

� for mentees:� Branchaw, et al; Entering Research

� Lee, McGee, Pfund, Branchaw� “Mentoring Up” chapter; accepted

� “The Mentoring Continuum”; Glenn Wright, ed

� This workshop’s slides and handouts:� www.slideshare.net

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We always need mentors

in all stages of our lives

As we learn how to mentor up,

we also learn how to mentor others,

and create a supportive community.

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Take-Home Message

Assess:

Apply:

� Assess yourself & others accurately

� Apply your assessments strategically

Thanks for your participation!

Any questions?

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??

?

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Mentoring Up: Pro-actively managing your relationship with your research mentor

by assessing and applying your strengths Steve Lee, PhD - Graduate Diversity Officer for the STEM Disciplines

at University of California, Davis; stnlee@ucdavis.edu

ABRCMS in San Antonio, TX – November 14, 2014

• Individual Activity: adapted Myers-Briggs test for introverts/extroverts < www.humanmetrics.com >

o Select the answer that more accurately reflects your preferred behavior.

Yes No

� You enjoy having a wide circle of acquaintances.

� You are usually the first to react to a sudden event, such as the telephone ringing or

unexpected question.

� You easily tell new people about yourself.

� You spend your leisure time actively socializing with a group of people, attending

parties, shopping, etc.

� You rapidly get involved in the social life of a new workplace.

� The more people with whom you speak, the better you feel.

� It is easy for you to speak loudly.

� You enjoy being at the center of events in which other people are directly involved.

� You feel at ease in a crowd.

� It is easy for you to communicate in social situations.

Totals

o Scoring: add up the number of statements with which you answered “Yes” and “No”. Extroverts will

tend to answer Yes to most of these statements, and Introverts will tend to answer No.

• Success Types by John Pelley < http://www.ttuhsc.edu/SOM/success/ >

Well-developed skills & Positive perceptions Underdeveloped skills & Negative perceptions Extraversion

Active approach

Bring breadth

Introversion

Reflective approach

Bring depth

Extraversion

Hyperactive

Superficial

Introversion

Withdrawn & secretive

Overly serious

What the Types Can Offer Each Other EXTRAVERTS

• Provide the outwardly directed energy

needed to move into action

• Offer responsiveness to what is going on

in the environment

• Have a natural inclination to converse and

to network

INTROVERTS

• Provide the inwardly directed energy

needed for focused reflection

• Offer stability from attending to deep

ideas, and listening to others

• Have a natural tendency to think and work

alone

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Group Activity: Please read the case study below and answer the following questions.

• Joseph has been feeling intimidated and overwhelmed with his research professor, and isn’t sure how to

improve his communications with her. He had heard many wonderful and positive things about

Professor Mason, and so had wanted to join her lab. She publishes regularly in high impact journals, and

had recently won a couple of prestigious awards for her research and teaching. So when Joseph asked

to join her lab, he was pleasantly surprised when she welcomed him into her large research group.

• But Joseph has been feeling overwhelmed during his weekly individual meetings with her. She is very

friendly and talkative, and even shares personal stories about raising her young kids. But she also gives

him so many ideas, resources, and tasks to complete, that he has trouble writing down everything in his

notes. He’s constantly afraid that he’s forgotten to record important tasks or items to complete. She

also regularly spouts many terms and acronyms that are unfamiliar to him, but he’s afraid to ask

questions because he doesn’t want to look incompetent and because she seems so busy with her own

work and traveling for conferences. He’s thought about asking if he could audio-record their meetings,

but he’s concerned that she might think it would a little awkward, or an invasion of her privacy to record

their individual meetings. He’s also thought about asking for advice from other members of the

research group, but they all seem to have their cliques and is feeling too timid to approach others. His

past research group had felt more comfortable with only 4 members, but his new group has 27

members and feels so big to him.

• Questions:

1) Introduce yourselves in your group, and share your results from the test for introverts and

extroverts. Do you think the test and the tables helped you to determine or confirm your

preference to be an introvert or extrovert?

2) From the case study, do you think Joseph is an introvert or extrovert? Explain your reasoning,

referring to specific details mentioned in the case study.

3) Do you think the professor is an introvert or extrovert? Explain your reasoning.

4) How might Joseph adapt, to work better with his professor? How can he improve his understanding

of her expectations for his research?

a) How might Joseph use his strengths to help resolve his problem?

b) What underdeveloped type skills (see tables for some ideas) might Joseph need to address as

he considers how to improve the communication with his professor?

5) How would this relationship differ if Joseph and his professor had their opposite types? This is a

tough, but important question! Think carefully and hard!

a) How might conflicts and miscommunications arise?

b) How can they effectively address or avoid their conflicts?

6) Have you or someone in your group experienced similar situations, where you had different types?

Please share your situation: how the different preferences impacted the relationship, the

consequences, if the situation changed, how you dealt with the differences, etc.

• Thanks for coming to my workshop! I hope that it was helpful.

• My presentations and handouts are available at < www.slideshare.net >.