Defying the glass ceiling with mentorship
Mentoring relationships may be the key to changing the culture of the workplace, moving away from the historical shadow of patriarchy in the business world.
BY REBECCA THOMAS COLE
Once upon a time, I wrote a paper for my Bachelor’s Thesis titled, Mentoring: The Hammer to Break the Glass Ceiling. Now, ten years later, I still strongly believe mentoring is one of the top three things you can do for your life and your career.
Nowadays, there are life coaches, therapists, and organizations that offer services that do a lot to fulfill this need. However, not all mentoring needs to be a service you pay for. Sometimes they aren’t even formal, yet the value of these relationships can be monumental for women who find themselves on the precipice of shattering their glass ceiling.
The concept of the glass ceiling is somewhat complex and cannot be whittled down to any one factor. Essentially, it is built through a combination of socialized gender norms, business legacy (homosocial reproduction), stereotypes, and all sorts of unconscious biases. It has certainly gotten better, but it still exists.
The good news is we all have a tool at our disposal that is immediately available to us, which can impact both the short-term goal of individual achievements, as well as the long-term goal of shifting the culture inside the boardroom and beyond.
Limiting factors
I think we all understand socialized gender norms and stereotypes. These ideas include the assignment of domestic duties such as homemaking and childcare to a woman based on her gender. We’ve all seen how drastically this has impacted professional women since the onset of the pandemic. Since the start of 2020, the gap in gender parity in business has increased from 99.5 years to 135.6. This means the length of time it will take to reach true gender equality has increased by more than a generation!
A more sinister contributing factor is the concept of business legacy, or the term I prefer – homosocial reproduction. It underpins the long-held belief that the business world is a man’s domain. While I could discuss the underlying attitudes toward women and where they come from, I think it is more important to understand how the culture is creating and replicating these attitudes without much effort.
Business is historically a patriarchal culture, meaning that it is led by men; men are the ones in power, making the decisions, leading the troops (so to speak). Homosocial reproduction is the concept that men naturally choose other men as protégés in an attempt to reconstruct the patriarchal system already in place. It is often a move taken to avoid the perceived chaos of changing the system. While not overtly women-denying, the outcome is the same. Men in positions of power work to reconstruct this system because it is familiar to them. Men have consistently been in the power seat in business, so they continue to reproduce this model by selecting male employees, readying them to become their potential successors to the power seats of business.
Men are not as likely to give their power positions to women, as a matter of tradition and homosocial reproduction. Therefore, it is imperative that women go against their inherent norms and seek out positions as protégés that will open new doors to the power seats within the corporate world.
If there is anything we know, as strong, boundary breaking women, it’s that there is always a way! While we may not always have power over a situation, I strongly believe, and studies show, that mentoring has a significant impact on both a woman’s ability to achieve her career goals. As well, mentorship can change the culture of the workplace, moving away from the historical shadow of patriarchy in the business world.
Why mentoring?
It is through mentoring that changed behaviors, ideas, and new knowledge can be achieved. Since we know what we already know, we must seek someone out who knows more than we do if we want to grow and increase our knowledge and skills.
A mentor provides coaching, teaching, sponsorship, and also social support such as advice, friendship, and feedback. These functions can develop a sense of competence, confidence, and effectiveness within the protégé. There is also evidence that a strong mentoring relationship can positively impact the often present “imposter syndrome” that many professional women experience. A mentoring relationship involves teaching related to business and is often specific to an organization. Because of this, it can be a developmentally important step for anyone seeking to gain knowledge, skills, and behaviors that will bring about success and career growth.
Mentoring can also change the culture of an organization by shifting power dynamics. The attitudes and perceptions towards and about women in management can be altered so the biases that have existed can be broken and replaced. These biases are rooted deep within the subconscious mind in many cases. In fact, many men don’t even realize they have these biases until they are challenged and confronted either by new experiences or situations. Mentoring is a great way to challenge and confront unknown beliefs and bring about a change in the minds of managers and supervisors.
Women mentoring men in the workplace also contributes to eliminating biases and recreating the culture to remove the attitudes created by our patriarchal systems. Men will benefit from the significant and meaningful contributions women make, while also undoing their own unconscious biases.
Finding a mentor
Mentoring has the potential to provide much of what a professional woman needs to reach previously unattainable goals. When seeking a mentor, it’s important to first begin with some idea of what you are hoping to achieve. This will help determine what kind of mentor you should get for yourself.
Some great starter questions:
- What is your goal?
- Are you trying to improve or change something specific?
- Are you hoping to increase your knowledge in a specific area?
- Do you want a formal mentoring relationship, or is informal more your speed?
Once you have some of these ideas laid out, you can begin to narrow down what type of person might be the best fit for you. There are many avenues to finding a mentor, such as professional networking, senior-level colleagues, trusted friends, etc. For skills and knowledge related to your specific career, looking internally in your organization is a great place to start. Mentors can be found everywhere – just look for someone that has what you want in regards to career development and growth. Choice Media has some great tips about how to find the right mentor in a recent blog post.
Pay it forward
Once you’ve had the opportunity to learn from a mentor and have reaped the benefits, consider being a mentor to someone else. A great thing to note is that you can be mentored and be a mentor at the same time, lending to ongoing growth and development beyond yourself.
To this day I continue to pursue mentors among my colleagues and in my personal life. If I ever find myself without a mentor, I try to do what I can to change that quickly because I have tangibly realized the benefits of making mentorship a priority. My own experience has been evidence enough for me that mentorship is mission critical when it comes to improving myself and moving forward in my career path. DEFY
Rebecca Thomas Cole
Rebecca Thomas Cole holds an MA in Organizational Leadership, and is a Leadership Coach and an accredited Enneagram Practitioner. Rebecca helps corporate leaders dismantle unconscious bias, while empowering women to venture their own meaningful paths.