Trusting Vulnerability

Abstract

Across professions, across fields of study, for students, and for new employees, mentors play critical roles in helping to foster professional and personal advancement. As a practice, however, mentoring is often implicitly understood as a unidirectional dynamic. This unidirectional conceptualization of mentoring has literary roots that can be traced back, in part, to Homer’s Odyssey, since “Mentor” is the man whom Odysseus leaves in charge of guiding his only son, Telemachus. In the story, Odysseus, the consummate traveler and hero, entrusts his only male heir to the care of Mentor, an act of faith that speaks volumes about the importance of Mentor as a figure inspired in the idea of committed, focused guidance. The literal way that Mentor guides Telemachus physically and emotionally provides the metaphor for the symbolic way that mentors are understood today as guides toward professional and personal development.