Professional mentorships used to be the workplace norm, but today they’re hard to find, even though they matter more than ever. Here’s how to find one, and how to get the most from it.
My first desk had an inert hand grenade in one corner and a notebook in another.
As a public relations assistant to Kathy Hochul, the Erie County clerk at the time, my job was to make the office (and by extension, Ms. Hochul) look good. The grenade reminded me that it took decisive confidence to do that well. And the notebook contained advice on how to develop that, much of which I’m still learning.
When Ms. Hochul gave me my first real job, she also taught me how to function in an office. She coached me on how to make myself heard in a roomful of older, more experienced professionals. As I leaned over her shoulder, she edited the materials I wrote for her, honing and sharpening my voice. And when I left her congressional campaign before the election to take a job as a newspaper reporter, she championed my decision.
Mentoring makes a difference, especially for women
“I want the women that I mentor around me to see those possibilities, how they can make a difference when someday they’re in charge,” Ms. Hochul, now New York’s lieutenant governor, said. “I want them to have a more expansive view of their potential. And to me, mentoring is all about letting them see and then helping them find the path to get there.”
While mentoring benefits all participants, it is especially important for young women. A 2015 study from the University of California Haas School of Business found that women gained more social capital from affiliation with a high-status mentor than their male counterparts did. The Department of Labor reports that today, 57 percent of women participate in the workforce. As workforce demographics continue to change, encouraging mentors and mentees to seek one another out might be more important than ever.
Why mentoring works
Mentorship advances careers. A study in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that people with mentors are more likely to get promotions. That’s no accident. Jenni Luke, chief executive of the national teen mentorship organization StepUp, knows that those relationships can help propel young women to success.
“When I go into a room full of people and I say, ‘Raise your hand if you’ve gotten your job through somebody,’ every hand goes up,” Ms. Luke said. “Every single person on earth has the social capital, and you want to use it with intentionality.”
When mid and senior-level employees choose to mentor someone newer to the workforce, they can boost people who may not otherwise have those opportunities and help level the playing field.
Many companies are “hiring in these kinds of closed networks,” Ms. Luke said. “And unless you’re willing to really understand that and open up your networks,” she added, “the network of folks coming into jobs continues to narrow.”
Mentorship also exposes both parties to new ideas and perspectives. Arlene Kaukus, the director for career services at the University at Buffalo, said she believed that was becoming more and more important, as workplace demographics continue to change.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2024 less than 60 percent of the workforce is likely to define itself as “white non-Hispanic.” Latinx people could comprise 20 percent of the labor force in 2024. The proportion of African-Americans in the workforce is also projected to rise, to 12.7 percent in 2024 from 12.1 percent in 2014, and the proportion of Asians to 6.6 percent in 2024 from 5.6 percent in 2014.
“The importance of being able to see things from different people’s points of view based on their life experience, their culture, their ethnicity, their gender, becomes even more important,” Ms. Kaukus said.
What mentoring does for the mentors
Ms. Luke emphasized that mentoring should not be paternalistic. “It’s very much reciprocal, and there’s so much to be learned from the younger generation,” she said. Both sides are “meeting different types of people, understanding different experiences, and really growing their own network of young, up-and-coming professionals to be able to support or to be able to offer opportunities.”
Ms. Kaukus, who also volunteers as a mentor to international students, said she also learned a lot from those she mentors. It affords mentors “an opportunity to reach back and continuously develop talent and payback for the wonderful extension of mentorship that perhaps they were granted at some point in their career,” she said. “I think that is a powerful motivator. And it’s also a powerful benefit for the mentor.”
Don’t get stuck looking for mentors only at work
While formal mentorships used to be de rigueur in the business world, they have fallen by the wayside. A Harvard Business School study on mentoring found that every professional over 40 could name a mentor, but only a few younger interviewees could. The solution: reimagining how employees find mentors, and how those relationships function.
Katherine Brodsky, a freelance journalist, and director of Random Minds PR, started a private mentoring group to help people feel connected to others at all stages of their careers. “Often, knowing how to get from Point A to Point B is mystifying, but when you see people who have succeeded in your field and get to learn about their journey, it takes the mystical element out of it,” she said.
In particular, seeking mentors outside your team at work can provide a “safe space” to ask questions you might not feel comfortable asking a manager or someone to whom you report directly. That open, honest relationship can help people feel more supported both at work and, as Ms. Kaukus pointed out, in life.
Source: nytimes.com ~ By: Lizz Schumer ~ Image: Canva Pro