A640.8.2.RB - Women in Leadership
This week’s blogger assignment asked to evaluate one of the
methods that Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, discuss but did not focus on her
TEDTalk discussion. And I chose mentoring. And the reason I chose mentoring is
because I am now participating, being mentored, and I am writing my week 8
general assignment about mentoring.
Mentoring is most often defined as a professional relationship in which an experienced person
(the mentor) assists another (the mentoree) in developing specific skills and knowledge that will
enhance the less-experienced person’s professional and personal growth.
Interest in mentoring has varied over time and has been affected by economic and social factors. Organizations recognize that workforce demographics have changed dramatically in recent years, as women and members of different minority groups have joined the workforce in greater numbers. In addition, technology has automated traditional employee functions and continues to affect on-the-job performance, altering the way people see themselves within the corporate structure.
With these changes, organizations are finding it difficult to recruit and retain qualified personnel. As corporate downsizing continues, organizations are also experiencing a flattening of their organizations, challenging them to provide sufficient growth opportunities for employees.
Informal mentoring occurs all the time and is a powerful experience. The problem is that informal mentoring is often accessible only to a few employees and its benefits are limited only to those few who participate. Formal or structured mentoring takes mentoring to the next level and expands its usefulness and corporate value beyond that of a single mentor-mentoree pairing.
Mentoring can be of great value to women and people of color. These are the employees who have often been disenfranchised within organizations and have not been “chosen” by informal mentors. However, if mentoring is to be successful as a tool for empowering employees, it needs to be truly diverse – representing everyone within the organization and not just women and people of color. By including the broadest spectrum of people, mentoring offers everyone the opportunity to grow professionally and personally without regard to gender or race. A successful mentoring program needs to balance the need for inclusion with the need for fair representation.
For many years, some organizations thought of mentoring only as a tool to help women and people of color. Viewed inappropriately as a remedial program, mentoring lacked widespread support within most organizations. These mentoring programs did not provide mentorees with the assistance they really needed. Good intentions gone astray resulted in a misapplication of mentoring.
Diversity is equally important when choosing mentors within organizations. Because many mentoring programs are geared to management levels, today’s mentor population still tends to be made up of white males. As organizations seek to devise mentoring programs, they need to include mentors who are both non-white and non-male. Using the resource-based or group-based models, tied to the one-on-one mentoring model, can help diversify the mentor population.
For example, one of the mentoring goals might be to learn how to navigate effectively through the organization’s culture. Using the group model, an organization might have a panel of diverse employees meeting with the entire mentor-mentoree population to share how they have successfully navigated that culture.
I have found that mentoring in and buy itself can be rewarding and even fun. I am in the process of joining a group that mentors students. But I’ve also mentored young engineers in my department. Watching them grow and flourish within the organization is nice, seeing them from start and though progression.
Mentoring is most often defined as a professional relationship in which an experienced person
(the mentor) assists another (the mentoree) in developing specific skills and knowledge that will
enhance the less-experienced person’s professional and personal growth.
Interest in mentoring has varied over time and has been affected by economic and social factors. Organizations recognize that workforce demographics have changed dramatically in recent years, as women and members of different minority groups have joined the workforce in greater numbers. In addition, technology has automated traditional employee functions and continues to affect on-the-job performance, altering the way people see themselves within the corporate structure.
With these changes, organizations are finding it difficult to recruit and retain qualified personnel. As corporate downsizing continues, organizations are also experiencing a flattening of their organizations, challenging them to provide sufficient growth opportunities for employees.
Informal mentoring occurs all the time and is a powerful experience. The problem is that informal mentoring is often accessible only to a few employees and its benefits are limited only to those few who participate. Formal or structured mentoring takes mentoring to the next level and expands its usefulness and corporate value beyond that of a single mentor-mentoree pairing.
Mentoring can be of great value to women and people of color. These are the employees who have often been disenfranchised within organizations and have not been “chosen” by informal mentors. However, if mentoring is to be successful as a tool for empowering employees, it needs to be truly diverse – representing everyone within the organization and not just women and people of color. By including the broadest spectrum of people, mentoring offers everyone the opportunity to grow professionally and personally without regard to gender or race. A successful mentoring program needs to balance the need for inclusion with the need for fair representation.
For many years, some organizations thought of mentoring only as a tool to help women and people of color. Viewed inappropriately as a remedial program, mentoring lacked widespread support within most organizations. These mentoring programs did not provide mentorees with the assistance they really needed. Good intentions gone astray resulted in a misapplication of mentoring.
Diversity is equally important when choosing mentors within organizations. Because many mentoring programs are geared to management levels, today’s mentor population still tends to be made up of white males. As organizations seek to devise mentoring programs, they need to include mentors who are both non-white and non-male. Using the resource-based or group-based models, tied to the one-on-one mentoring model, can help diversify the mentor population.
For example, one of the mentoring goals might be to learn how to navigate effectively through the organization’s culture. Using the group model, an organization might have a panel of diverse employees meeting with the entire mentor-mentoree population to share how they have successfully navigated that culture.
I have found that mentoring in and buy itself can be rewarding and even fun. I am in the process of joining a group that mentors students. But I’ve also mentored young engineers in my department. Watching them grow and flourish within the organization is nice, seeing them from start and though progression.
Reference
Sandberg, S. (2010). TEDTalk. Retrieved from
https://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders:
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