Touchstone Mentoring: A multiple mentor model that mirrors women's career development needs

The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze aspects of a mentoring program (hereafter, Touchstone Mentoring Program) conducted outside of the workplace in a women's network for an exclusive female audience. A redefinition of typical functions of mentoring relationships for females was achieved through the use of principal components analysis and was extended to include the construct of empowerment. Sources of empowerment were compared to the Touchstone Mentoring Program to determine if females were empowered as a result of a constellation of mentoring relationships which mirrored the literature regarding models of female development. A multiple mentor model, also consistent with models of female development, was determined to be a preferred method of programmatic design for the majority of the proteges in this study. Over seventy-five percent of the respondents agreed that the Touchstone Mentoring Program afforded them greater opportunities for mentoring than in-the-workplace mentoring relationships. Results from t-tests showed a significant difference in satisfaction with mentoring relationships by mean career function ratings of mentoring, such as coaching, sponsorship and challenging assignments for African-American female proteges in comparison to all other ethnic groups. Caucasian female proteges reported more satisfaction with the provision of psychosocial functions, such as counseling, role modeling, acceptance and confirmation, and empowerment than all other ethnic groups surveyed. Recommendations garnered from this survey encourage the use of a multiple-mentor program design and mentoring program policies that facilitate empowerment for females to enhance their personal and career development. The implications for cross-gender mentoring relationships include attention to empowerment for males and females in their roles as mentors and proteges in and out of the workplace.