Mentors Providing Challenge and Support

Abstract

This article reviews and critiques the literature on mentoring functions and roles in education and business to inform the use of mentoring as a developmental tool in both fields. Specifically, in an effort to expand the current notions of the different mentor roles, this review synthesizes studies exploring teacher mentoring in schools and organizational mentoring in business settings to identify the varied ways in which mentors provide challenge and support to protégés. As the fields of education and business explore mentoring from different lenses, an integrative perspective as offered by this article is required to allow both fields learn from each other and to make mentoring research more inclusive of the diverse perspectives originating from multiple disciplines.