Like many For years, the business world has widely believes embraced mentoring. After all, there are sound reasons for it. “We already see the connections between mentoring and increased commitment to organizations, higher career satisfaction, more promotions, and higher salaries for women of color,” says Blake-Beard.
Lois J. Zachary, EdD, president of Phoenix-based Leadership Development Services, LLC, and best-selling author of The Mentor’s Guide and Creating a Mentoring Culture: The Organization’s Guide, contends that the most important challenge today for organizations is to create a mentoring culture. In brief, this is a mindset and practice in which a company deliberately and continuously focuses on fostering mentoring relationships and opportunities within the organization. “Mentoring programs come and go; there’s a lack of sustainability there. But a mentoring culture will be supported and valued within the organization. Then programs within that culture create a standard and consistency of mentoring practice that really works,” she says.
The biggest selling point of a mentoring culture, she adds, is that “everybody owns it. Everybody is responsible for mentoring someone else or running a mentoring group. It’s a cultural expectation in which all protégées have good opportunities to meet their professional and personal goals.”
Despite the increasing numbers of diverse women involved in mentoring, there remains a dearth of multicultural women at the head of our nation’s boardroom tables. That’s because the challenges facing diverse women in business are different, according to Gwen Martin, PhD and research director at the Center for Women’s Business Research in Washington, DC.
“Women of color have a double challenge: gender and race/ethnicity. On top of the fact that, often, they are business owners trying to compete with larger businesses, firms that have been around much longer and may have more credibility in the marketplace,” she says. “Tackling all of these challenges can be overwhelming without some solid advice and mentoring by someone who has met these challenges and surmounted them.”
The difficulty factor goes up again for a woman of color in a male-dominant business. Just ask Joy Gathings, CEO and majority owner of Bloomfield Machine & Welding in Bloomfield, New Mexico. Gathings went into the business with her machinist husband, Mike, when his employer filed for bankruptcy, and hasn’t had any formal mentors. “It would have been nice,” she says. ”But I’ve tried to just learn from everybody I encounter in the course of doing business.”
Over the years, as mentoring has become more established, the rules of the game have changed. “Once, a mentee was a passive receiver, sitting at the feet of her mentor to collect all the jewels as they fell from the mentor’s lips,” Zachary says. “The passive receiver has changed to a self-directed learner responsible for her own growth and advancement.”
Likewise, the mentor’s role has changed from that of “authority” to that of “facilitator,” Zachary adds. “The mentor is no longer a sage but a guide-on-the-side.” Claudia Mirza, CEO of Akorbi Language Consulting, a Dallas-based provider of language services, has experienced this change firsthand. Having a mentor is about learning, not following orders, she says. “Even though my mentors gave me advice, it was up to me and my management team to make the decision that was most appropriate for the business at a specific time,” she says.
Roni Briggs, born a member of the Cherokee nation in Oklahoma, is on a campaign to improve mentoring opportunities for women of color. A former vice president at Diageo PLC, a large global beer, wine, and spirits business, she has leveraged her corporate expertise (including involvement in Diageo’s worldwide mentoring program) into her own company with another Native American woman, Leigh Ann McGee.
The majority of Osiyo Consulting’s clientele are Native American leaders and tribal governments—many of whom are women, Briggs says. “There’s strong, matriarchal leadership in most tribes, and a phenomenal number of women are stepping out and leading in tribal businesses—not just in small companies but in businesses worth millions of dollars.”
She believes that mentoring is a natural activity for most women of color. “Women of color shine at networking; they are really good at ciphering out all the chaff and getting quickly to what they need. And they are more accepting of how a person needs to receive mentoring and learning, as opposed to how they need to deliver it,” she says.
Briggs notes that the business world needs to provide more high-performance coaching for women of color. “If this mentoring is not a part of the fabric of a company and valued almost equally to profit, a company won’t grow good leaders or improve retention.” DW
Debbie Selinsky, an award-winning writer and editor of Native American background, is based in North Carolina and has written about business, travel, religion, and education for newspapers and magazines for more than 25 years.
On looking for mentoring partners, expert Lois Zachary (www.mentoringculture.com) offers some cautionary advice. “What’s really important in selecting a mentoring partner is to get the right learning fit. Focus on what you want to learn. If you’re simpatico with somebody, that’s great, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily have the expertise and experience you need to draw from.”
Zachary doesn’t believe that common race or gender is essential to a successful mentoring experience. “However, the fact that women are there [in executive leadership positions]—even if they are not personally mentoring us—is important,” she says.
Gina Wilkerson, chief veterinary officer at AstraZeneca pharmaceuticals, says that, not surprisingly, her first mentor when she entered the male-dominant field of science was a man. And that worked just fine; it’s all about the connection, she says. “I believe there are some things that are better communicated and fostered if you have a connection with a person. If something aligns you with them—background, scientific interests, color, gender, religion—and makes you comfortable and allows you to open up and absorb or exchange, take advantage of it.”
When you’re all set with the mentors you need, Simmons College professor Stacy Blake-Beard reminds us that there’s also joy in being a mentor to others. “What I really like about those relationships is that I get as much from them as they do. It’s wonderful to have access to beautifully brilliant minds to help with my work, and to other professors who give me alternative perspectives.”—D.S.
If you would like to learn more about mentoring, check out the following
organizations and their websites.
Alliance of Business Women International
Alliance of Technology & Women
American Business Women’s Association
Asian Women in Business
Association of Women’s Business Center
Black Career Women
Business Women’s Network
Committee of 200
Forum for Women Entrepreneurs & Executives
Latinas Unidas
National Association for Female Executives
National Association of Professional Asian American Women
National Association of Women Business Owners
National Black MBA Association
National Institute for Women in Trades, Technology & Science
National Women’s Business Council
Service Corps of Retired Executives (offer volunteer mentoring)
Women Employed
Women Entrepreneurs Inc.
Women Presidents Organization