Connecting: The Mentoring Relationships You Need To Succeed In Life | Book Review

Reviewed by Thomas Scarborough

Paul D. Stanley and J. Robert Clinton begin their book with a simple statement: “Research on mid-career, contemporary leaders led to [the]

conclusion – few leaders finish well”. Further, in the case where leaders did finish well, “their relationship to another person significantly enhanced their development”. Thus the stage is set for the subject of mentoring, which the authors describe as (the concise definition):

a relational experience

through which one person empowers another

by sharing God-given resources.

Stanley and Clinton are well respected authorities in the field of leadership development. Stanley, as International Vice-President of the Navigators, has been involved in leadership development for over thirty years, while Clinton serves as Professor of Leadership of the School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary.

This book represents a popular and “lightweight” version of far larger tomes written by the authors, so providing easy access to their ideas. I shall begin by summarising the contents of the book (the less exciting part), then consider some of the issues it raises.

THE CONTENTS OF THE BOOK

In this book, Stanley and Clinton have made a fairly focused selection of subject matter from their broader writings – homing in mainly on the types of mentor who may enrich our lives, and how. In the opening chapters, they describe three broad mentoring types:

* Intensive (deliberate mentoring, with depth and awareness of effort)

* Occasional (mentoring over short periods of time, for special developmental needs)

* Passive (little deliberate involvement, where guidance is taken from “model mentors”)

They follow up by describing three basic dynamics which need to be in place for mentoring best to succeed (the interplay of these dynamics may vary according to the mentoring type):

* Attraction (the mentor and mentoree need to be drawn to each other)

* Responsiveness (the mentoree needs to exhibit a responsive and receiving spirit)

* Accountability (the mentor needs to initiate and maintain accountability with the mentoree)

The rest of the book expands on these categories, exploring nine mentor types, and “ten commandments” required for successful mentoring. Two further types of mentoring receive special attention, namely The Constellation Model (a relational network of upward, downward, and lateral mentoring), and Peer Co-Mentoring (mutual mentoring with a close friend).

The book closes by picking up again on its opening statements, describing just how a mentoring relationship to another person may enhance one’s development.

EXPANDED DEFINITION OF MENTORING

Stanley and Clinton’s expanded definition of mentoring follows:

a relational process

in which a mentor, who knows or has experienced something,

transfers that something

(resources of wisdom, information, experience,

confidence, insight, relationships, status, etc.)

to a mentoree,

at an appropriate time and manner,

so that it facilitates development or empowerment.

Far from being an isolated definition, this sets the tone for the rest of the book. It will be seen that this and the previous definition place a heavy emphasis on the “relational process” – and this is arguably both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of the book.

On the positive side, such a relational process offers a person – in the words of the publishers – “access to the wisdom, experience, vision, and direction of those who have gone before”. This can “put you way ahead of where you’d otherwise be”. Mentoring of all types can be a rich and rewarding experience that can become a blessing for a lifetime.

On the other hand, there are aspects of this same emphasis that I found wanting:

There is much emphasis on the values, skills, etc. which are transferred, yet limited appreciation of how mentoring might point to God. The authors hardly touch on the type of mentoring which focuses on personal inability, and the sovereign grace (and awareness of it) required for a Christian leader to succeed and survive.

This leads to a second reservation, namely that the types of mentoring described, while they do imbue mentorees with “that something” they need to develop into accomplished leaders, blur the distinction between natural and spiritual advancement. Would not such a distinction be more fundamental, or prior to, the distinctions which the book employs?

FURTHER STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

An obvious strength of the book is that it is based on case studies of more than 600 past and present leaders. It has a strong foundation both in research and experience, and for this reason alone it deserves attention.

Simplicity and ease of reading are further strengths – although the subject matter is simply too vast for one to get an adequate grip on it through such a short book. The book makes excellent use of diagrams, tables, and real-life illustrations to present the material in a readable and approachable way.

However, it is with regard to the interpretation of the data where I did not find the book to be wholly satisfactory – particularly in two respects. Not much is said either about the book’s theological approach to mentoring, or about its statistical foundations.

With regard to its theological approach, it would have been worthwhile if the authors had given some background as to the theological or historical approaches to mentoring, or to make their own approach more deliberately known. In the event, Stanley and Clinton would seem to lean towards a so-called “Latin” theology of mentoring.

With regard to statistical findings, the book largely assumes the benefits of mentoring – and while more than 600 case studies would seem an impressive foundation, it gives one virtually no idea of how mentoring differed in the lives of those who did finish well and those who did not, or what kinds of mentoring proved to be the most effective in leadership survival.

SYNTHESIS

On the whole, the book gives one a good grounding in some of the more practical aspects of mentoring and being mentored, and describes well the different types of mentoring influences one might encounter. It is an educational read, and may well encourage some readers to advance to the more “serious” works of Stanley and Clinton.

CITATION OF REFERENCE

Paul D. Stanley & J. Robert Clinton. Connecting: The Mentoring Relationships You Need To Succeed In Life. Colorado Springs, Colorado: Navpress, 1992. ISBN 08910-96388. Publisher Price U.S.$14. The book may be purchased on-line from the publishers at http://www.navpress.com/Store/Product/0891096388.html

Thomas Scarborough is the minister of an Evangelical Congregational Church in Sea Point, Cape Town – Africa’s most densely populated suburb. He has served as national chairman of the Evangelical Congregational Churches in Southern Africa, and is currently studying for a Master’s degree through Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena.