Why is mutual mentoring generally essential to lecturers in generally higher education,

which is explicitly quite significant? What typically are the downsides of it and thus solutions
for the very negative aspects? The term means a mentoring relationship where parties act as
mentors and mentees, recognizing that there is something to learn from each other, contrary
to popular belief. It generates learning and growth possibilities for everyone when people
may participate in mentoring relationships with equity and share their abilities and
knowledge. Although the studies successfully emphasize the importance of mutual mentoring
for lecturers for all intents and purposes of higher education, they essentially miss the
importance of providing solutions for resolving conflicts during the cooperation process.
Mutual mentoring is bound to strengthen the lecturer’s capacity. Firstly, reciprocal
mentoring relationships boost retention and engagement as in a one-on-one situation, a
mentor guiding a new lecturer through their career offers the mentor the opportunity to share
her own experiences and lessons acquired while educating the mentee to make sensible
decisions and take responsibility of her job. Secondly, an expanded professional network can
be gained from these relationships with research, showing interactions between parties create
links of lecturers, therefore help to grow their network. Thus, it can assist lecturers in
improving their knowledge. By improving, creating lesson plans, lectures, and mentor new
teachers to help instructors with many years of expertise refresh their knowledge. At the same
time, it enables younger teachers to gain a solid foundation and understanding of their role.
Not to mention, because they are colleagues, it is simpler for them to share and listen to one
other, which improves the efficiency and efficacy of the mentoring relationship. Findings
found that group mentoring is a form of mentorship "in which the mentoring function is
supplied by a more or less tightly constructed group of professional colleagues" (Ann
Ritchie, Paul Genoni, 2002, ‘Group mentoring and professionalism: a programme
evaluation’, p. 69). Research has shown that successful mentoring relationships can assist
individuals in "learning the ropes" at the workplace (Goodyear, 2006, ‘Mentoring: A
Learning Collaboration’). Throughout all points above, we can state that mutual mentorship
for lecturers assists not only novice academics but also senior instructors.
Though we have acknowledged its importance, we, who are up to a high academic
standard, can not neglect the fact that there exist downsides of mutual mentoring. During the
cooperation process, conflicts and rivalry may emerge. Although mentees indicated that their
mentors helped them through confidence building and career guidance, mentees who had a
less than successful mentoring relationship cited reasons clustered into several themes -
mentor & mentee relationship does not help mentees as expected. A study conducted by two
professors at the University of California displays successful and failed mentoring
relationships; in terms of failure, participants mentioned many contributing reasons to poor
mentoring relationships after reflecting on their own experiences, including poor
communication, a lack of commitment, personality differences, perceived (or actual)
competition, and conflicts of interest. The majority of those participating admitting of an
unsuccessful mentoring link had either witnessed or been a part of a failed mentoring
relationship. People of that category were separated into several distinct themes and quoted;
thus, one particular theme is participants perceived competition, which we are attempting to
manifest, shows mentors and mentees shares the same interests can cause competitive
environments or failing to realize that a mentee's achievement is a positive reflection of his or
her mentor. Mainly, it stands out that some are incapable of acknowledging a mentee’s
achievement reflect their mentor and lacking clarification on intellectual assets. According to
a lecturer who joined the study: “You have interest areas that overlap, and then once you
have interest areas that overlap, it’s conceivable that you might be seen as or see each other
as competitors.” (Mallory O'Neill Johnson and Mitchell D Feldman, 2010, ‘Characteristics of
Successful and Failed Mentoring Relationships: A Qualitative Study Across Two Academic
Health Centers’, table 3). Another pointed out: “Stealing somebody’s work, that could be a
disaster, stealing someone’s intellectual property … that’s a disaster … you know there’s a
lot of that out there.” (Mallory O'Neill Johnson and Mitchell D Feldman, 2010,
‘Characteristics of Successful and Failed Mentoring Relationships: A Qualitative Study
Across Two Academic Health Centers’, table 3). Taking credits for what someone has
tirelessly achieved and committing plagiarism are severe issues and will never be taken
lightly to the academic community, let alone bringing conflicts among lecturers. Conflicts can
occur simply because of the knowledge gap between two parties, provided that the mentor
with a shortage of knowledge is on par with their counterpart. It goes as well with mentees
having an insufficient capability to comprehend what mentors are trying to pass on; for
instance, one lecturer conducted the study said: “It failed because of the mentor’s lack of
knowledge base to be able to provide advice” (Mallory O'Neill Johnson and Mitchell D
Feldman, 2010, ‘Characteristics of Successful and Failed Mentoring Relationships: A
Qualitative Study Across Two Academic Health Centers’, table 3). Moreover, uncommon
causes for opposing views appear to be unmanageable agendas and schedules; others display
differences in personalities. The contrast is far too massive for both mentors and mentees to
make mostly do and for all time cooperate. There specifically are several generally possible
conflicts between lecturers during the mutual mentoring process, which can make explicitly
this mentoring method counter-productive, or so they for the most part.
This way of mentoring now does not seem very viable to us, provide the fact that it might
develop issues during the process. However, if those issues are solved, mutual mentorship
will be a profoundly advantageous mentoring approach. Solving these issues would maximize
the effectiveness of the mutual mentoring technique, which is a mentoring and a way of
maintaining good connections among lecturers. Because it is a 1 to 1 interaction, just by
“listening” and “talking” brings out the most practical conflict resolving technique, which
was vivid and effective at the same time. After all, in this particular way, chances for teaching
staff to connect, either officially or informally, in order to encourage knowledge-sharing can
be provided. A specialist who utterly approves mutual mentoring said: “As leaders, it is
important that we learn from those who are different from us in age, profession, interests,
and ways of thinking. Cross-generational and cross-dimensional learning is vital to our
growth personally and professionally and is one the best examples I can think of being truly
diverse and totally inclusive – it’s a great way to learn about the many similarities and
differences between us and helps us acknowledge, appreciate and celebrate the uniqueness in
each other” ( Harriet Green, ‘Mutual mentoring: Why it is important for all of us - to teach,
learn and pay it forward’, December 22th, 2019). It could be a lifelong relationship and
learning experience that is genuinely fulfilling if founded on mutual respect, understanding in
diverse environments of personalities, cultures, and an inexhaustible desire to learn. Several
solutions may contribute to getting rid of the problematic conflict; specifically, both persons
must respect the credentials and requirements of the other and collaborate to achieve a shared
objective. Along with a need for mutual respect, mentorship only worked when mentors and
mentees had a common ground, shared comparable views, interests, and values; by then, both
individuals can perform, thriving side by side. Thus, I am inclined toward creating a
rewarding relationship itself; indeed, this must be a two-way exchange; as the mentor would
receive the gratification from your mentee’s accomplishment, and that is an essential aspect
of the result, mentee also does essentially need a sort of reward for their work. They are given
recognition and desire for more. A to-do list for mentors and mentees when they start
building such relationships is to answer these questions: Whose research methodologies are
most similar to yours? Who teaches courses of the same size as yours? Who utilizes a specific
classroom technology that you want to implement? Who appears to be the best all-around
personality match? (Mary Deane Sorcinelli, Jung Yun, Brian Baldi, 2016 ‘Mutual Mentoring
Guide’, p11). We can clearly observe that though it is possible to have hostile rivalry from
this means of gain knowledge for faculty members but provided those problems are feasibly
settled, going this route is legitimate. All mentioned in this part demonstrate the value of
Mutual Mentoring and solutions to its dispute in order to form a much-improved practice.
Nowadays, Mutual mentoring is a fairly traditional method while today’s era definitely is the
age of technology on the rise; This method can entirely actually be replaced by other cutting-
edge teaching methods. E-Mentoring is the term we need to be informed of; this form of
mentoring comes with various titles: telementoring, cybermentoring, virtual mentoring, and
online mentoring. E-Mentorships are usually connections established primarily through
online means between a veteran individual (mentor) or a knowledgeable person and a
relatively competent individual to develop and grow the mentor's skills, expertise, confidence,
and cultural knowledge in order to help him or her succeed, while also aiding in the mentor's
growth. Senior executives get virtually immediate access to information. Administration, for
example, may connect virtually and electronically with other departments and consumers all
over the world via e-mails and multimedia-enabled online systems. These networks, including
video and audio capabilities, help mentoring partners build knowledge-transferable solid
connections at their comfort, henceforth foster knowledge transfer from one mentor to
another. In addition to this, at this rate of technological advancement, every single educator is
now handed the mile-stone creation of mankind-smartphone; with such a device, faculty
members can effortlessly connect to the internet through wireless connectivity. Consequently,
they do not need to find and work personally with a mentor as there is openly available
knowledge by those senior mentors to everyone on platforms, namely Youtube, Google
Scholar,... Also E-Books like "The Mentor’s Toolbox” is a book written to train mentors on
how to successfully mentor and coach their mentees; from start to finish, this book "provides
practical instruction and coaching techniques to support mentors to build a successful
working relationship with their mentees”.
In brief, mutual mentorship is a fantastic approach, but it is essential to understand how
to use the ever-updating methodologies so that it does not become obsolete and ineffective.
Even though the studies successfully stress the necessity of mutual mentorship for
lecturers in higher education, they overlook the relevance of giving methods for resolving
disagreements or competitiveness throughout the collaboration process. In this significant
paper, I have pointed out the invaluable elements a mentoring relationship generates, and
during the cooperation process, there may be conflicts or competition. This way of
transferring knowledge would be exceptionally advantageous, as long as we remove the
“side-effects” by applying the cited solutions. Nevertheless, while focusing primarily on only
mentoring method in a 4.0 revolution can be inviable, we must simultaneously be adaptive to
changes and take advantage of contemporary means of mentoring, thus making the best use of
mutual mentoring.
References

-Tamara Thorpe. 2018. What is Mutual Mentoring? And its benefits ?. [link].

-Angela Lurie. The Empowering and Mutual Benefits of Mentorship [link]

-Ann Ritchie and Paul Genoni. 2002. Group mentoring and professionalism: a programme
evaluation, p. 69. [link]

-Goodyear. 2006. Mentoring: A Learning Collaboration [link]

-Mallory O'Neill Johnson and Mitchell D Feldman. 2010. Characteristics of Successful and
Failed Mentoring Relationships: A Qualitative Study Across Two Academic Health Centers.
[link]

-Harriet Green. December 22th, 2019 . Mutual mentoring: Why it is important for all of us -
to teach, learn and pay it forward. [link]

-Mary Deane Sorcinelli, Jung Yun, Brian Baldi. 2016. Mutual Mentoring Guide’, p11 [link]

-Kimberly Nicole Rowland. 2012. E-Mentoring: An Innovative Twist to Traditional

Mentoring. [link]