ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some of the research and connections with academic study that reinforce and/or complement the practitioner insights. It also explores the nature and role of generic competence standards in helping mentors and those who employ them to evaluate the individual mentor's preparedness for and ability in the role. The behavioural model suggests that mentoring requires a situational set of competences. Defining mentor competences is also complicated by the fact that all mentoring relationships are both situational and temporal in nature. By contrast, the sponsorship-focused model still predominates in the United States or at least in the literature emanating from North America. In this kind of mentoring relationship, it is the mentor's ability to do things on behalf of someone more junior that drives the relationship. In sponsorship-focused mentoring, the mentor plays a strong role in driving the agenda; in development-focused mentoring, the mentee is the main driver of the process.
