Mentoring at Work: Developmental Relationships in Organizational Life

by Kathy E. Kram

A close look at relationships in the work place that enhance an individual's performance, development and career potential during the early, middle and late career years. The author targets three distinct audiences: individuals at every career stage, practicing managers and employees in all occupations and finally, human resource specialists, organizational researchers and psychologists. Originally published in 1985 by Scott, Foresman and Company.

Genres: Business, Psychology

252 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Victoria Roe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting introduction to mentoring in the workplace, although the focus was largely on informal methods. The chapter on cross-gender mentoring relationships was very interesting. Despite the fact it's a little dated, it's a really good introduction to the subject.

[Abiir]

please i need this book. help me to download

[Mark Oppenlander · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first started working with a formal mentoring program some 15 years ago, I read some really bad books about mentoring. I began to wonder if anyone really knew anything about the topic or if it was all just a lot of hot air. But then I started to explore the academic literature on mentoring, journal articles, papers, research studies, and conference proceedings. I realized that mentoring was actually a regular subject of study, especially among industrial/organizational psychologists. I also noticed that Kathy Kram's name was often invoked in the references and literature reviews and that this book particularly was mentioned as one of the seminal books in the field. So, I felt compelled to finally read it.

Fortunately, despite its age, the book does not disappoint. In the late 1970's and early 1980's, Kram did several research studies, conducting in-depth interviews with numerous mentor/mentee pairs in a corporate environment about their mentoring relationships. From those interviews, she extrapolates some core data on mentoring, including defining the basic functions of mentoring, describing the lifecycle of mentoring, and exploring how people find workplace mentors.

Some of the material may feel dated, as the workplace has certainly changed a bit in the last 30 years. Kram's thoughts on topics such as how people feel about mentoring at various stages of their careers for example, would probably need to be updated for Gen X and Millennials, not to mention Gen Z. The section on cross-gender mentoring could be supplemented with ideas about other types of identity pairings (e.g. cross-racial mentoring).

Nonetheless, the basic ideas are here, and as a foundational tome on what mentoring is and means, it's extremely helpful. It's written using more academic language, but Kram frequently inserts sample quotes from her interviews to flesh out the concepts with real world examples. From here, there is much more to explore about mentoring, but this book can give the reader a good vocabulary from which to start their understanding of mentoring.