Proceedings of the 8th World Conference on Qualitative Research

Introduction
This paper briefly outlines a novel dyadic analytical process, as part of a multiperspectival qualitative research design, to better understand the ‘black box’ (Chandler, Kram & Yip, 2011, p.536) of leadership mentoring within an Irish higher education context. To understand the context in which the interplay between mentee and their matched mentor occurs, it is essential to explore the lived experience of both individuals, who together form a mentoring dyad.

Goals and Methods
Positioned at the intersection of mentoring at work (Kram, 1985), relational science (Berscheid, 1999), positive relationships at work (Dutton & Ragins, 2007) and educational leadership (Gunter, 2022), one catalyst for pursuing a dyadic analysis is the revolutionary shift in models of human development from an individualistic autonomous orientation, to a relational interconnected orientation (Bersheid, 1999; Jordan, 2017). Consonant with this shift and intent on exploring the phenomenon of leadership mentoring, the philosophical underpinnings of IPA, a qualitative research methodology, offers a range of theoretical concepts to frame this dyadic analysis, revealing a rich understanding of the lived experience of being in a leadership mentoring relationship. Data was gathered through in-depth semi-structured one-to-one interviews from a purposive sample of twelve participants (six dyads comprising six women mentees and their mentor partner).

Results
Foregrounding, disrupting/shapeshifting (“transformation in state, form or appearance”), one theme made visible through this dyadic analytic process, an iterative, interpretative and inductive effort, reveals one strand of “the tissue” (Berscheid, 1999, p.261) of such a relationship.

Conclusion
Deviating from a classic single perspective IPA study, this paper sets out the dyadic analytical process utilised in this study, illuminating disrupting/shapeshifting as one example of the meaning-making and sense-making of the lived experience of women mentees in leadership mentoring dyads, concurring with the assertion that “a relationship thus does not reside in the individual” (Berscheid, 1999, p.261).