Key pointsMentorship has become transactional—but real mentorship is rooted in human connection.
True mentorship is about Legacy, not ladders—built on trust, empathy, and shared purpose.
Generativity and intrinsic motivation are essential for impactful mentoring Relationships.
Mentorship extends beyond the workplace—it shapes families, cultures, and Innovation across generations.
Mentorship has become one of the most overused—and misunderstood—terms in today’s professional and academic circles. Originally rooted in guidance and care, the word mentorship comes from the character Mentor in Homer’s Odyssey (circa 8th century BCE). In the epic, when Odysseus departs for the Trojan War, he entrusts the care and guidance of his son, Telemachus, to Mentor, a wise and trusted advisor. Personal connection, Growth, and legacy are the foundation of mentorship. However, the term has increasingly become a buzzword, diluted by corporate performance reviews and leadership manuals. While organizations tout “mentorship initiatives” and track engagement metrics, something essential has been lost: the human core of the mentoring relationship. Mentorship wasn’t designed to be performative. It was designed to be transformative, and examples of mentorship can be found concerning religion (passed down for centuries), Family traditions, values, and culture (Heiser, 2024). Work is just one component of our lives where we find mentorship relevant.
The Transactional TrapMany modern mentorship programs are designed around efficiency and output. Employees are “matched” via software, assigned mentors as part of onboarding, or encouraged to log mentoring hours as part of their annual goals. These programs aim to improve retention, productivity, or upward mobility. However, they are not rooted in the intrinsic motivation required to create a solid relational foundation that mentorship requires.
Research supports this concern. As Allen and Eby (2007) argue, while formal mentoring programs are widespread, they often lack the depth and authenticity of informal mentorship, which emerges from mutual interest and emotional connection. There are 5 key components to mentorship (Heiser, 2024): generativity, intrinsic motivation, meaningful connections, trust, and goals. Mentorship is an emotional relationship between two individuals. When mentorship is implemented solely for performance metrics, it becomes an obligation rather than an opportunity for growth.
Mentorship Precedes the Modern WorkplaceMentorship long predates the contemporary workplace. Across cultures and history, mentoring has been a tool for passing down Wisdom, values, and identity—a form of social scaffolding. In psychology, this aligns with Erik Erikson’s (1950) theory of generativity, where adults seek to guide and nurture the next generation as a way of establishing a legacy and meaning. Imagine all of the family traditions and holidays you take part in. The smells, rituals, and expectations from year to year are all passed down from generation to generation. This is a form of mentorship that most of us overlook, but find so powerful that if we didn’t have these traditions, values, and rituals, we might feel off balance, or have our identity challenged. Mentorship stabilizes us.
We see mentorship in every major religion, in the oral traditions of indigenous cultures, and in family systems. Even innovation—from the American Founding Fathers to today’s tech entrepreneurs—has often arisen through lateral mentorship (Heiser, 2024), where individuals of differing expertise guide and advise without hierarchy. In contrast, most workplace models reduce mentorship to a top-down process, limiting its transformative potential.
Moving ForwardLet’s expand our view of mentorship beyond office walls. Let’s invite it into our homes, communities, and schools—not for recognition, but for connection. Mentorship, at its best, is a deeply human act and emotional connection: a commitment to helping others become more fully themselves, while enriching our own lives in the process. Mentorship is NOT a checkbox.
To get more involved in mentorship relationships:
Connect in your community.
Connect with your family.
Recognize the mentorship in your family traditions, your values, holidays and religion.
Connect in your workplace meaningfully.
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References
Allen, T. D., & Eby, L. T. (Eds.). (2007). The Blackwell Handbook of Mentoring: A Multiple Perspectives Approach. Wiley-Blackwell.
Heiser, D. (2024). The mentorship edge: Creating maximum impact through lateral and hierarchical mentoring. Wiley.
Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and Society. Norton.
Originally Published on https://deborahheiserphd.substack.com/
