Professor Barbara Allan, Dean of WBS, gave a lecture on trends in current mentoring practices at CIPD Hammersmith and Ealing. Barbara was one of the early adoptors of e-learning and e-mentoring. Barbara previously worked in a variety of roles at the Universities of Birmingham, Hull, Lincoln and Leeds Metropolitan, as well as many years with the Open University. For a number of years, she also ran a successful professional development business with clients across the UK and Europe.
During her lecture, Barbara drew examples from her early career experiences and mentioned how valuable is the role of mentoring in transitional periods of life. She described mentoring
“as a development activity where one person shares their experience and expertise, and provides a space where someone can reflect on and explore different issues to progress in their own lives and careers.”
There are also massive benefits for the mentor as well as the mentee from this process. Through a mentoring process the mentee learns to boost self-confidence, learn how to manage tricky working situations where the mentor feels proud and pleased to give something back. It is a win-win situation for both parties.
Sometimes issues arise in mentoring and this may be the result of unrealistic expectations, lack of a clear focus, or pressures of work leading to time for mentoring being squeezed out. So the pairing has to be set carefully with the right expectations and working practices (including ‘protected time’) for it to be successful.
Barbara’s research indicates that women appear to have different types of relationship with their mentors to men. In addition, people from different cultures appears to have different concepts of mentors. This is an area that Barbara is actively researching and we look forward to her findings.
If you would like to read more about mentoring and role models please read one of the latest Blog post from Barbara Allan on the importance of role models.

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