Mentors, Mentor Substitutes, or Virtual Mentors? Alternative Mentoring Approaches for the Military

Abstract

This report provides an overview of mentoring: the career enhancing and psychosocial functions, the stages of development in the mentoring relationship, and a selective review of the research literature. The authors argue that the traditional mentoring relationship is difficult to establish and maintain in a military environment for a number of reasons including the rank structure and job environment. Therefore, a number of mentoring alternatives are presented: peer mentors, team mentoring, mentor circles, networking, specialty leaders, retirees, and virtual mentors. Several suggestions for implementing these alternatives in the military follow.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 1998
Accession Number
ADA360845

Entities

People

  • Schuyler C. Webb
  • Stephen B. Knouse

Organizations

  • Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Applied Psychology
  • Business Administration
  • Commerce
  • Education
  • Electronic Mail
  • Ethnic Groups
  • Families (Human)
  • Mentoring
  • Mentors
  • Minority Groups
  • Personnel Management
  • Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • Students
  • Training
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Military Mobilization and Reserve Forces Studies.
  • Organizational Psychology.
  • Systems Analysis and Design