Mapping a Mentoring Roadmap and Developing a Supportive Network for Strategic Career Advancement

This article presents a proactive, individual-centered mentoring model which meets a recognized need for defined, practical methods for supporting comprehensive career planning and strategic development grounded in personal career aspirations. The developed model consists of a mentoring roadmap charting process and construction of a developmental mentoring network based on an integrative literature review of successful mentoring practices and adaptation of tested methods for retrospective analyses of effective mentoring. The mentoring roadmap concept encompasses the following steps: (a) self-reflection, (b) establishment of mentor–mentee relationship(s), (c) maintenance of mentoring relationships, and (d) advancing in mentoring relationship(s). To support strategic advancement along a defined mentoring roadmap and toward attainment of individual goals, the identification and cultivation of a broad collection of mentoring resources or mentors (i.e., nodes) and the relationships (i.e., edges) which connect these nodes in an effective mentoring network topology are discussed. The mentoring roadmap and network model is proposed as complementary to top-down or formal organizational mentoring interventions and as effective for short- and long-term career development planning as a self-guided assessment or mentor-engaged tool to support individuals seeking mentoring.