CPM Ethics & Professional Standards in Mentoring 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A mentor is offered a significant gift by a grateful mentee after a promotion. According to professional standards, the mentor should:
- Accept the gift as a token of appreciation
- Decline the gift and explain the professional boundary it would cross (Correct answer)
- Accept only if the gift is under a certain monetary value
- Ask the organization's HR department to decide
Correct answer: Decline the gift and explain the professional boundary it would cross
Accepting gifts can create obligations and compromise objectivity, so professional standards generally require declining them.
Question 2: What is the primary purpose of a CPM's code of ethics?
- To protect the mentor from legal liability
- To establish consistent standards that protect mentees and uphold professional integrity (Correct answer)
- To define the curriculum mentors must follow
- To rank mentors by their level of expertise
Correct answer: To establish consistent standards that protect mentees and uphold professional integrity
A code of ethics sets standards that safeguard mentees and ensure mentors practice with integrity and accountability.
Question 3: A mentee asks their mentor to write a glowing performance review that exaggerates their achievements. The ethical mentor should:
- Write the review as requested to support the mentee's career
- Decline and explain that honest, accurate assessments are a professional obligation (Correct answer)
- Write a neutral review that neither supports nor criticizes the mentee
- Report the request to the mentee's employer
Correct answer: Decline and explain that honest, accurate assessments are a professional obligation
Integrity requires mentors to provide honest assessments; falsifying documents violates professional and ethical standards.
Question 4: In which scenario is it ethically appropriate for a mentor to break confidentiality?
- When the mentee's supervisor asks for a progress update
- When the mentor suspects the mentee is involved in illegal activity that harms others (Correct answer)
- When the mentor wants to share a success story at a conference
- When the mentee misses several scheduled sessions
Correct answer: When the mentor suspects the mentee is involved in illegal activity that harms others
Confidentiality may be broken when there is imminent risk of harm or illegal activity affecting others, consistent with duty-to-warn principles.
Question 5: Professional self-disclosure in mentoring means that a mentor:
- Shares all personal experiences freely to bond with the mentee
- Strategically shares relevant personal experience only when it serves the mentee's growth (Correct answer)
- Never shares personal information under any circumstances
- Discloses personal struggles to make the mentee feel less alone
Correct answer: Strategically shares relevant personal experience only when it serves the mentee's growth
Purposeful self-disclosure is used intentionally and sparingly, only when it directly benefits the mentee.
Question 6: A mentor who consistently promotes their own business services to a mentee is engaging in:
- Legitimate professional networking
- An ethical conflict of interest that exploits the mentoring relationship (Correct answer)
- Acceptable behavior if the services are relevant to the mentee's goals
- Standard practice within the CPM framework
Correct answer: An ethical conflict of interest that exploits the mentoring relationship
Using the mentoring relationship to solicit business exploits the power imbalance and constitutes an unethical conflict of interest.
Question 7: Which of the following best reflects the principle of non-maleficence in mentoring?
- Actively helping the mentee achieve their goals
- Avoiding actions that could cause harm to the mentee (Correct answer)
- Treating all mentees with equal resources and opportunities
- Respecting the mentee's right to make their own decisions
Correct answer: Avoiding actions that could cause harm to the mentee
Non-maleficence means 'do no harm' and requires mentors to avoid actions, advice, or relationships that could hurt the mentee.
CPM Ethics & Professional Standards in Mentoring 3
A mentor is offered a significant gift by a grateful mentee after a promotion.
According to professional standards, the mentor should: