LAUSR

Diversity is ever present in today’s organizations and hence, is a part and parcel of mentoring relationships (Chandler and Ellis 2011). Diversified mentoring relationships include mentors and mentees who differ on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, cultural background or other group memberships associated with power in organizations (Ragins 2007). As these different group memberships are not equally weighed or visible in organizations, mentoring across the boundaries of these groups ‘is an especially delicate dance that juxtaposes group norms and societal pressures and expectations with individual personality characteristics’ (Johnson-Bailey and Cervero 2004, 7). The prospect of a diversified mentoring relationship can bring one to ask questions such as: Will a male mentor mentoring a female mentee recognize the fact that the organization he faces as a man is different from the organization she faces as a woman? Will a white heterosexual mentor recognize that his gay Latino mentee may not have the power associated with his position because of his race or sexual orientation or that he may face a daily battle to be perceived as competent by his colleagues? The mentor may pride himself/herself to be gender/race/culture blind in the relationship, but is he/she doing a disservice if he/ she is blind to the fact that the career strategies that may work for his mentees from the dominant group are likely not to work for his mentees from the minority group? While these questions are difficult to grapple with, the opportunity of confronting the fact that people live different realities based on their backgrounds and characteristics makes diversified relationships a contested, but, a rich site for learning. As noted by Ragins in her interview on diversity and mentoring, ‘in diversified mentoring relationships, when people are open to learning, there is a tremendous potential for them to learn about diversity....this learning can be more effective than diversity training – because it happens in a relationship where people can have dialogue, ask questions and really learn about diversity firsthand’ (Chandler and Ellis 2011, 491). Nonetheless, learning in diversified mentoring relationships is likely to be challenged by lack of personal identification between the mentor and mentee. Personal identification is defined as ‘a process by which individuals realize cognitive overlap between the self and the other over time in a relationship’ (Humberd and Rouse 2016, 435). A key implication of such identification is that the mentor and mentee can vicariously experience each other’s successes and failures and thus, personal identification prompts empathetic connection between two individuals. As mentors and mentees in diversified mentoring relationships differ from each other in terms of characteristics (e.g. gender, race etc.) that affiliates them with different power-related groups, they lack shared experiences and common social identities which in turn restricts the extent to which they can identify with each other (Ragins 1997). HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT INTERNATIONAL, 2018 VOL. 21, NO. 3, 159–162 https://doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2018.1465670