Mentoring as leadership and career development in Swedish companies : An exploratory study

Abstract: The aim for this study is to investigate what mentees find positive the process of their mentorship as well as what skills they consider them to have gained. It should all be seen from the mentee perspective. Hence, the research question is; what are the crucial factors for a successful mentorship in Swedish companies and what are the key benefits from the mentee perspective? There are few up to date Swedish studies in the field and for persons considering to participate in a mentor program or engage in an informal mentorship this information is of great value. Since the goal is to profoundly understand how the mentees perceive their mentoring experience the study is done in a qualitative manner to receive personal and non-abbreviated narratives. Through twelve in-depth interviews large amounts of information was collected. These interviews were performed with employees from four different Swedish companies; Axis Communications, IKEA, Alfa Laval and ST-Ericsson. The data was processed through a data analysis methodology referred to as grounded theory. This includes several steps of reduction of the raw data to extract the essence of the information received. The study resulted in five propositions that we consider to mirror the most important aspects of mentorship as well as the mentoring model which gives a clear overview of the mentoring process as well as mentoring’s effect on the leadership development. Except for the twelve mentee interviews two further expert interviews with two mentoring experts were carried out. The data received from these interviews were compared with our propositions to check how our investigation isrelated to their expert knowledge. The main conclusions of the propositions are that the focus of the mentees is personal development through reflection and discussions and not career climbing. The mentoring sessions often have a relaxed atmosphere which benefits the trust building and with that the openness in the discussions. Most mentees have the ambition to become mentors themselves one day since they consider the relationship to be beneficial for both parties. Data bits constructing the propositions were found in the mentee interviews and were also confirmed by the information received from the expert interviews. Due to the nature of qualitative studies with a low number of sample data sources compared to the relevant population the study cannot be considered to be statistically significant. We do therefore welcome a survey to confirm or disprove our propositions as a suggestion for a further study.