Mentors can help women shatter glass ceiling

Eve Tahmincioglu • Profile • E-mail

We’ve all heard of the glass ceiling, that invisible barrier that keeps minorities and women from getting to high-powered positions in Corporate America. But it’s not just a barrier of bias: The psyche of women may also be contributing.

We women tend not to toot our own horns, a key to climbing the corporate ladder. And let’s face it, we’re not inclined to be as aggressive in the workplace as our male counterparts for fear of receiving the dreaded “B” label. While I’m not saying every woman possesses these traits, career experts say there are enough of us out there to keep us pining for, but not quite in, the corner office.

So what should women do? Find a mentor now, girlfriend!

A well-placed, successful, encouraging mentor can be your champion if you want to get noticed by the higher-ups but don’t have the stomach to let everyone know how great you are. And a mentor can also help you navigate the ins and outs of what is still a good-ol’-boys network in the upper echelon of the business world. (Women hold only about 16 percent of corporate officer positions in Fortune 500 companies, and there are only 10 female CEOs among the biggest companies, according the research firm Catalyst.)

“I can’t stress enough how important mentoring is to achieving success in one's career,” says Sharon Allen, Chairman of Deloitte & Touche USA LLP. She credits the mentors she’s had in her career with helping her enter the small club of high-ranking women executives.

A key mentor for her was the managing partner in Deloitte’s Boise, Idaho, office where she worked early on in her career. “He would give me a little bit of additional confidence by standing by me and giving me that nudge to assure me I was doing the right thing,” she explains. “As I developed in my career and moved along up the ladder, I established new connections with people I felt were looking out for me.”

The lack of female role models, she adds, continues to hinder advancement for women, so women find themselves “establishing their own way and styles that work for them, and as a result, the additional reinforcement from a mentor is useful.”

One study of more than 500 executives in the health care industry found that mentors can lead to money and power.

“We discovered that women with mentors received more promotions than men,” says Anne M. Walsh, associate professor in the management department at Philadelphia’s La Salle University.

“In our study, the mentors provided access to promotional opportunities, which ultimately affected compensation,” she explains.  “Mentors raised the visibility of these women in the organization, and helped them to develop the skills for these promotions. Mentors are also instrumental in providing feedback about job performance (e.g. act as a coach) and help women develop the skills that are required to compete in the job market.”

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