With National Mentoring Month in full swing, many managers have likely made it their New Year’s resolution to devote more time to mentoring the next generation of leaders. After all, mentorship is valuable to employees. In one large-scale survey, 91% of employees who had a mentor stated that they were satisfied or very satisfied with their jobs. Moreover, employees who have at least one mentor experience more learning and skill development, which improves their job satisfaction and decreases turnover.
Given the importance of mentorship, everyone reading this must have a mentor and be incredibly satisfied with their job—right? The harsh reality of the situation is that many people who want a mentor do not actually have one. There are certainly a multitude of reasons for this mismatch between dream and reality, but it can be at least partially explained by a simple fact: managers are too busy. A 2011 survey of executives by McKinsey & Company found that only 9% of leaders were very satisfied with how they spend their time day-to-day, in large part because they have too many competing priorities. Naturally, the inherently rewarding task of mentoring falls by the wayside.
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This puts employees in a difficult spot. They can remain unhappy with the status quo and hope that at some point a perfect mentor serendipitously walks into their life; they can proactively hound their mentor of choice, hoping that he or she will eventually relent and agree to a monthly coffee catch-up; or they can try to find a different kind of mentor—perhaps someone who has more time and willingness to chat, like a peer or a friend who is always there for you.
Wait, but can a peer really serve as a mentor? According to the famed Kathy Kram, Professor Emeritus of Management & Organizations at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, the answer is a resounding, “Yes.” In one of her more famous and well-cited papers, Kathy conducted in-depth interviews on 25 different pairs of peer relationships among employees at various stages of their careers working at a large manufacturing company, with the goal of better understanding peer relationships at work (if you’re wondering how interviews can classify as “science,” it is because the authors follow a very rigorous process).
The study shows, first off, that peer relationships exist along a spectrum ranging from “information peers,” those who you primarily have a transactional relationship with, to “special peers,” those who you go to for support, to share hopes and dreams, or (God forbid) to complain about your boss. Especially for peers with whom you have stronger relationships, the tangible outcomes of this relationship often overlap with the same outcomes employees tend to seek in a mentor-mentee relationship—that is, information, assistance, feedback, and support.
Even better, in peer relationships there is the added benefit that you are not always just in the position of fortunate beneficiary, but you also get practice in the role of benevolent benefactor. By having this “mutuality,” you not only gain helpful feedback and advice from a trusted comrade, but you also get practice developing your identity as a competent expert in the workplace. In contrast, while a more senior mentor in the organization may provide sage wisdom that a peer could not possibly fathom, the one-way nature of the relationship—not to mention the shorter 3-6 year lifespan of a typical mentor relationship—is limiting.
Peers have always been known to have an outsized impact on employee and organizational outcomes. Indeed, an analysis of over 161 studies demonstrated that the impact of peer support on one’s psychological identification with one’s job is 450% greater than that of leader support. What is less well known is how two peers can grow up in an organization together and effectively “mentor” one another, sometimes for several decades. So, the next time your boss cancels your monthly mentorship chat at the last minute, perhaps a chat with your work bestie can fill the void.
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