Aspire - Leadership for the future

Think Gender Diversity Through Mentoring

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
-Voltaire, French Enlightenment writer and philosopher

Gender diversity is no longer a nice-to-have in the worlds of business and politics. It is a must-have. According to Aspire’s latest research, “Tearing Up the Rule Book: A New Generation of Leaders for 2010”, 300 global leaders agreed that a more “female” style of leadership—thinking longer term, teamwork, empowerment and effective communicating—is what’s needed in leadership for the future. If we agree about the need for a more “female” approach to leadership, why are we still failing to get more women into leadership positions? Women occupy around 20% of the leadership positions in business, journalism, politics and law firms according to The White House Project, a non-partisan organization set up to promote women in politics in the US. They occupy even fewer in Fortune 500 and FTSE firms.

How can we make our gender-diversity initiatives more effective?

“Junior women need something to aspire to”. Time and again in Aspire’s work with organizations, we hear that mentors are an essential part of any gender diversity initiative. It would seem then that mentoring is a golden opportunity to support junior women and, at the same time, drive change within our organizations by helping to enable these women to reach senior positions and to stay there.

According to Dr. Lillian Eby, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Georgia and an authority on corporate mentoring, "A key benefit of mentoring is retention. Turnover costs can be staggering. That's one reason why organizations include mentoring programs as part of their business objectives.” (www.newswise.com)

Why is current mentoring not succeeding in advancing women?

Sounds simple, so what’s the problem? In a lot of organizations, it’s primarily the senior men who are doing the mentoring. I suppose this is the obvious choice as there are more men than women around and it’s primarily a more masculine approach running our organizations. Men are often great mentors but focus heavily on work and performance based skills and how to navigate your way up. This is of course useful stuff but the main reason women are not in our boardrooms, is not because they can’t do it, it’s because they don’t want to. They often feel that “life is too short” and that a more balanced life is what they would prefer.

This is why the inclusion of senior women in our mentoring programs is so important—because only they can give junior women a complete picture of both the work and personal side of things. Our junior women need to know how the women who came before them managed both sides of the work/life coin—and it doesn’t have to be a recipe for perfectly-balanced living.

“A number of my female colleagues, I really, really look up to because, they’re not perfect, but they get it right enough. And I think that is very hard to achieve. But you need to see people’s little foibles and traits.” (Respondent, Aspire Research)

Why are senior women so reluctant to take part?

Senior women don’t want to appear imperfect. Most likely, they have had to make special arrangements and sacrifices with regard to their personal lives to get where they are professionally and they don’t want to be judged about having done so. To many of them, revealing details about their personal lives in a work context is no small request. Also, they may still be working on getting the balance right for themselves. Their challenges haven’t disappeared with their board-level position and they can be reluctant to want to talk about it.

Also, in order to “go where no women has gone before”, many senior women had to adopt a more masculine style in order to be accepted and appear credible with their male colleagues. They fought hard and the idea of offering any kind of special help to women below them seems unfair to them.

Stereotypes abound when it comes to senior women

“There is a bit of a perception problem about the women partners here…and the stereotypes don’t help. I sat in on a diversity lunch, and heard people talking about what women partners are like, and stereotyping them, I thought, in rather a shocking way, I knew some of the people they were talking about and they had got them completely wrong.” (Respondent, Aspire Research)

As is human nature, rumors, stereotypes and false information can result when people don’t share information. Junior women may look at what the senior women are doing and make their own, often unfair, judgments about their style, approach or family life. Senior women can get a bad rap before the junior women really have the whole story.

Stereotypes I’ve heard include:

“There are no female role models.”
“The senior women act like men.”
“It is impossible to be a senior leader and to have balance here.”
“All the senior women have stay-at-home husbands and full-time nannies.”

These sweeping generalizations are damaging, and although they may be true in some cases, in many they are not.

I noticed this the other day when I was talking to one of my team on the phone. They asked me how I was coping. (I have two young sons.) When I replied that everything was going very well, she seemed surprised. I had sent her an email late at night after the kids had gone to bed, and she had assumed that because of this, I was somehow ‘out of balance’. When in fact, I had been at the beach all afternoon with my family and that evening was the time I had chosen to catch up on emails. I discovered, through this conversation, that I need to communicate better with the people I work with or else they will come up with their own ideas about how my life is.

Mentoring is a powerful tool. Use it wisely.

Nothing is so infectious as example. -Francois de La Rochefoucauld, French author

The need for mentoring is clear, but how you go about it depends on your organization. It is thought that informal mentoring programs can be more effective as those who take part are doing so voluntarily and therefore may be more enthusiastic about the process. However, formal mentoring programs should not be discounted too soon as they can give organizations a great opportunity to nurture their female talent—rather than losing them to the competition or from the workplace altogether.

For organizations wanting to implement formal mentoring programs, Dr. Eby recommends the following tips:

• Formal mentoring programs should have senior management backing.
• Training needs to be part of the mentoring package, for both mentors and mentees.
• Expectations and requirements should be clearly outlined at the start.
• Programs must be monitored to make sure that results are being achieved.
• Participants should be given a voice in selecting who they work with.

We would add that there should be both a personal and professional focus as well as a balance of both male and female mentors from both customer- and non-customer-facing positions.

Here are some key tips for your senior women to keep in mind should they decide to participate in your organization’s mentoring program:

• Commit the time and find a regular structure that works, e.g., lunch once a month.
• Care. Be authentic and human. Share who you are, not just what you do.
• Ensure confidentiality. You will most likely be discussing some personal issues and both parties should feel confident that the information will not be shared outside of the relationship. Your mentee should be able to say “I’m not sure if the boardroom is for me” without fear of repercussions.
• Be focused. Ask mentees what they need help and support with – it is not just a nice conversation.
• Agree safe areas. What’s ok to talk about and what’s off limits. Be open, but respectful of each other’s no-go areas.
• Have patience. Remember what it was like when you were coming through. Would you have benefited from the kind of relationship you are having with your mentor?
• Listen first and then don’t be afraid to share. You may end up getting as much out of this relationship as you put in.
• Share what you enjoy and are good at. Be proud of your achievements and your organization.
• Share what you don’t do so well. Focus on how you try to overcome these obstacles instead of complaining or blaming.
• Just because a certain strategy worked for you, does not mean it will work for your mentee’s particular circumstances. Offer advice and then coach to help them find their own solution. Everyone has to reach their own individual recipe for success.
• Allow the mentoring relationship to evolve and change over time if need be.
• Find opportunities to advocate for your mentees.
• Challenge your mentees to take on new responsibilities and ask for what they want.
• Finally, set an example. Your junior colleagues look to you as their compass.

Mentoring doesn’t have to start or end at work

If you are having difficulties with take-up within your organization, you might suggest that people have a go at mentoring outside of work first. Once they’ve realized the benefits, it may be easier to convince them to participate at work. There are loads of opportunities to get involved in mentoring, and they can be found through local colleges and universities, local government, and from mentoring websites like www.horsesmouth.co.uk on which you can be a mentor or receive mentoring advice.

At Aspire, we believe very strongly in the power of mentoring, so much so that we created a not-for-profit foundation devoted to it. Through the Aspire Foundation, we offer mentoring and coaching services pro bono to women working in charities, social enterprises and community projects. The women we work with work for organizations that assist women suffering from injustice across the world. To join us in our efforts, visit the Aspire Foundation website.

To find out more about mentoring, visit the Aspire website's latest thinking page at: http://www.aspirecompanies.com/index.php/latest_thinking/aspiration_blog/

To learn more about the work we do with regard to mentoring programs, get in touch with us: http://www.aspirecompanies.com/index.php/contact_us/

Posted by Dr Samantha Collins, CEO and founder of Aspire on Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tags: female stereotypes, mentoring