**6.2 Effects of mentoring experiences on faculty and staff [RQ2]**

Results also informed the second research question by showing that most participants believed that these mentoring experiences had both positive and negative effects. Ninety-seven percent of participants believed that mentoring was important to be more effective in their positions, and 93% believed that mentoring improved their work performance. In addition, 86% believed that their mentoring relationships improved the emotional and psychological health and the same amount believed that it increased their self-esteem and self-confidence. Additionally, 32% percent of participants reported that they believed that they had been passed over for a promotion because of their gender, and 57% believed that they have experienced barriers which have kept them from reaching their full potential in the workplace. Finally, 87% of participants reported that they have experienced an interaction in which they felt as though someone was not being genuine with them at work. For the majority, these disingenuous interactions included both men and women (57%). There were also significant differences regarding the gender of the positive and negative mentoring experiences by role, *F* (2, 69) = 8.00, *p* < .01 and *F* (2, 47) = 5.31, *p* < .01 respectively. Post-hoc tests showed that staff were more likely to report that their positive mentoring experience involved a male, while faculty were more likely to report that their positive mentoring experience involved a female (p < .01). Staff were significantly more likely to report that their negative mentoring experience involved a female (*p* < .05.).

The second open-response question asked respondents to "describe one positive mentoring experience." Five broad themes were identified: professional activities, organizational activities, communication activities, networking activities, and emotional support. The professional activities' theme was then broken into four sub-categories that included teaching, promotion, education/training, and scholarship. Thirty-nine percent of the comments related to professional activities. These include comments about teaching, such as, "She helped me design and teach my first ever college course," and comments about scholarship, such as, "co-presenting at a conference." Other comments related to furthering their education or participating in

**Figure 1.** *Most important thing learned from mentor word cloud.*

## *Relational Leadership: Advancing Leaders in Higher Education through Mentoring DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107700*

professional development. One respondent wrote, "I was encouraged to pursue additional training to improve my leadership ability and position," and another shared, "I probably wouldn't have gotten my Ph.D. without her encouragement." Comments related to promotion are represented by one respondent who wrote, "sharing application for promotion." Five percent of the comments represented organizational activities, such as one which said, "assistance with opportunities in governance." Another 27% of comments mentioned communication activities with many writing about talks and discussions. "Some of the best mentorship moments occur during chats over lunch," one related. Networking activities were mentioned in 8% of the comments, exemplified by one comment, which read, "My mentor has invited other faculty to join our lunches, resulting in mentoring from others that I've not interacted with previously." Finally, 21% of the comments referred to emotional support they received from a mentor. "I have been mentored by multiple women leaders who have always been encouraging, supportive, and fair," one respondent wrote. A word cloud of the positive mentoring experiences described in the qualitative comments is presented below (**Figure 2**).

Participants also described their negative experiences with mentoring. These included five main themes: conflict, mentor qualities, accessibility, toxic communication, and destructive behaviors. Eleven percent of comments described conflict situations, with one writing, "It turned into psychological and verbal abuse, and I had to leave that position." Another 17% of comments referred to specific mentor qualities, as one wrote, "manipulative, underhanded, dishonest." Still others (21%) shared a lack of accessibility to quality mentors, including mentors who were largely "absent" or "burned out." Twenty-eight percent of comments discussed incidents of toxic communication. "A previous supervisor made me cry every time I was in their office, always focusing on the negative and never the positive," one respondent explained. Finally, 23% of comments mentioned destructive behaviors, such as sabotage, gossip, and external pressure. One respondent wrote, "An administrator thought that I didn't like her, and she sabotaged everything that was under her control that was associated with me and nearly killed an entire program." Below is a word cloud that represents the comments about negative mentoring incidents (**Figure 3**):

**Figure 2.**

*Positive mentoring experience word cloud.*

**Figure 3.** *Negative mentoring experience word cloud.*
