Mentoring
In the latest in a series of columns dedicated to mentoring, we look at designing mentoring to support women talent. This issue: a women-only programme
Cracking the glass ceiling
Lis Merrick and Paul Stokes
Support your organisation’s female talent by setting up a women-only mentoring programme
In the last issue we looked at how you can flex mentoring approaches to support your organisational talent. Supporting women talent requires a further lens on how you look at your talent mentoring design. So, building on last issue’s ideas, here is some advice for a women-only programme.
In our initial experience of designing mentoring for senior women, outcomes included one wedding, five promotions, several pay increases, cosmetic surgery and a bullied mentor!
Use this checklist with our Mentoring Talent Wheel (see last issue, vol 7, issue 5), when designing your programme.
Mentoring women
Some women’s programmes actually need a positive discrimination angle – that the mentors are sponsors to the women. We maintain that a mixture of developmental and sponsorship mentoring provides the most effective basis to support your female talent across most contexts and cultures. However, in extreme male-dominated cultures, it may be necessary to introduce a sharp jolt to the gender balance at senior levels, and a sponsor may be more suitable than a mentor.
Ensure the mentors and mentees have complete clarity around what you are seeking as outcomes. Is this a programme to support promotion within a certain timescale? Or are you seeking to retain women if there is a trend for them to become disillusioned at lack of prospects and leave the organisation?
Invite all mentors to attend a workshop, briefing or awareness building session. This should not only be about effective mentoring, but also to discuss the issues and challenges found in the internal organisational culture which may create a ‘glass ceiling’ to women’s prospects. It’s helpful to work with the female mentees in a similar way.
Matching can be complicated, with a scarcity of senior women role models and potential mentees apprehensive about male mentors. Often, after the rapport building stage, moving to more virtual communication can develop trust and closeness, removing some of the distracting visual cues that may impede development of a greater intimacy in a mixed-gender relationship.
Have real transparency around the programme to avoid gossip. An attractive junior woman meeting a male senior manager may bring the wrong kind of publicity.
It is critical to obtain a senior, credible organisational stakeholder. Someone who sponsors, promotes and speaks about the programme publicly.
It is also imperative to have mentor and mentee buy in to the programme. Don’t recruit female ‘queen bees’ as mentors, who will simply block their mentee, sometimes in a passive-aggressive way. Or mentees who do not want to engage in a ‘women-only’ programme.
Mentors should be aware of the issues that a woman may have on her agenda. They should be capable and confident of being a sounding board. Topics may include: self-confidence; ambition; work-life balance; building organisational image and reputation; impact and gravitas; understanding and not falling foul of internal politics, and developing an authentic leadership style.
In the next issue: How we have developed our practice as scheme designers to support talent mentoring for women returning from maternity leave
Lis Merrick and Paul Stokes are mentoring consultants and members of the Coaching and Mentoring Research Unit at Sheffield Business School. They welcome correspondence on anything to do with mentoring. Contact: Lismerrick@coach mentoring.co.uk or P.K.Stokes@shu.ac.uk
Volume 7, issue 6