Bidirectional Learning: The Impact of Mentorship on Mentors

There have been several discussions regarding the significance and necessity of mentorship. The benefits to mentees has also been widely acknowledged and there is multiple literature available to prove it. However, there are few who recognise that mentorship is indeed bidirectional and goes both ways.  This literature review of 5 research studies is primarily focused on voluntary mentorship and specifically, its benefits to the mentors themselves. 

In a research study conducted by Caldarella et al. (2009), volunteer mentors within a school setting were surveyed to try and gauge insight into their motivations- what is it that keeps them going despite the challenges that, inevitably, as with any other venture, may come up? The results showed that volunteers tended to be motivated to mentor in order to express important values (such as humanitarian concern and altruism)  or gain greater understanding (which addresses the need for individuals to seek learning experiences that will help them better understand themselves and others). It is interesting to note that although volunteers in this study rated understanding as a high motivation, they reported understanding as the lowest benefit they received from mentoring. Higher levels of benefits from mentoring as experienced by volunteers related to enhancement, social, values, and protective functions. Enhancement helps the individual to feel useful, to increase self-esteem, or to maintain positive emotions. The social function suggests that volunteering allows an individual to be with one’s friends and engage in activities viewed favorably by important others. Protective function enables the individual to reduce negative feelings such as anxiety, loneliness, and guilt. Values function as indicated earlier allows individuals to express values such as humanitarian concern.   Caldarella et al. (2009) also establishes that when mentors undergo such “satisfying experience[s]” and find pleasure in their job, it is likely to translate better into their relationship with their mentees as well.