Pay It Forward – Why Women Should Mentor Other Women
There’s no question that senior and executive level women reach their positions because of hard work. Oftentimes, these executives believe that over-delivering and acing their performance reviews is enough to climb the executive leadership ladder, but they eventually discover that their career path isn’t going to follow a linear line.
One thing missing from many women’s professional lives is mentorship from other like-minded women. And having to navigate the traditional boy’s club culture, especially if you’re not a golf or cigar enthusiast, can be difficult. So, how can women better support one another in corporate culture, overcoming a history of exclusionary barriers? We need to learn to become better mentors.
Check More Than Just the Performance Box
Corporate culture has evolved, but it still has plenty more room for growth. And with recent calls to diversify the racial makeup of the corporate workforce and corporate boardroom, many individuals in leadership are realizing they need to effect real change, for one, by altering the ways in which they recruit. But once women are hired and looking to grow in their career paths, they need to do more than just check the performance box.
They need to build relationships and network within their places of work. Many men find this easy to achieve when they’re invited for drinks after work, to a skiing trip for the weekend, or more traditionally, out to the golf course to continue important business discussions. It’s ok for women to emulate these types of group or individual socializing behaviors, in fact, they might just have to in order to grow in the corporate world.
Mentor Other Women to Leadership Positions
Women should be working to engage with and even mentor other women. Consider, if they don’t, who will? And because sexism is ever-present in the workplace, despite the recent #metoo movement, women need to look out for one another, showing junior level executives the path forward. If you attended a useful conference, made a great connection, sat in on a valuable industry specific webinar, or if you’ve got knowledge that would be useful for another woman on your team or within your organization, share it.
If you can open the door for another woman, why not do it? Because then she’ll have the opportunity to do so for another. Instead of viewing other women as potential competition, women need to be better activists and advocates for one another and to be as spontaneous and stay as outraged as we were on November 12, 2016; the day women joined together for The Women’s March, around the country and around the world.
So, at WIB, we encourage you to support your daughters, your friends, your colleagues, your staff – support all women, wherever and however you can.
If you’re interested in continuing the conversation, Reach out to me directly
Lesliedoty@womenintheboardroom.com!
Leslie Dukker Doty, CEO, Women in the Boardroom.
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