Personalizing the relationship in mentoring should be understood as the willingness of mentors to reveal aspects of their own private struggles to obtain educational and career goals. These stories, which clearly require a more intimate type of self-disclosure, however, are carefully selective and primarily directed at the objective of allowing mentees to recognize that success is achieved by normal human beings who must deal with their own personal vulnerabilities, not superhuman figures who float ever confident above the fray.
In forging a relationship in which the interpersonal bonds are definite and positive, the mentor is not trying to duplicate the intimate type of contact that is characteristic of more reciprocal types of involvement, such as that of romantic, close friendship, or family. Instead, the assumption underlying the mentoring model of learning is that the mentor is primarily responsible for investing time and energy in promoting the mentee’s educational and career growth, rather than the reverse. The “needs” of the mentor are considered to be a secondary, and in some cases, inappropriate focus of their mutual professional interaction.
It is the mentee who is rightfully the proper beneficiary of the mentoring experience—whose individual needs are of paramount importance rather than those of the mentor. In addressing the mentee’s specific developmental concerns, mentors therefore attempt to be of direct help by disclosing important details of their own relevant private histories. Such assistance is often valuable to the mentee in two related and important ways, because it allows the mentee:
(1) to gain insight into the often hidden “behind the scenes” strategies individuals must develop in managing real-world conditions
(2) to formulate coping skills appropriate for their own unique personalities and individual lifestyle, career, and workplace situations
Certainly, with careful attention to the motivational value of the personal story that is shared, the mentor model dimension can be a profoundly influential experience for the mentee, often with subtle and long-lasting inspirational significance.