21. Make Sure She Gets Included

Remember that sign on your tree fort or clubhouse when you were kids? The one that read, No Girls Allowed! Well, as it was when we were little boys, so it—too often—continues to be when men in the workplace gather together. Although most of us are no longer conscious or deliberate about excluding women from key meetings and social events, women continue to find themselves on the outside looking in. Sometimes, women get excluded simply because men never stop to consider that they might want to take part. When Admiral Sandy Stosz was a junior officer, she discovered that male colleagues never even thought to include her in key social activities: “When the ship was coming into a liberty port, I discovered that the guys on the ship never thought to include me. When, I’d ask, ‘Hey guys, what are you planning to do when we hit Rio de Janeiro?’ I found that because I was female, they’d assume I’d have no interest in going out with them into port. But, I had no one else to go with.”

At other times, guys fail to grasp the importance of gender inclusivity when planning important meetings or social events. Consider the experience of Kathy Hannan, partner at KPMG, when earlier in her career, someone—undoubtedly a guy—decided that a golf tournament would serve as a perfect “team building” experience for the leadership team: “It turned out that the golf club was male only. I had to be escorted around the golf course. In the evening, I missed out on all the fun and interaction because I couldn’t be in the cabin where the men were. So, I was on my own. It didn’t feel fair at all. I was happy to be part of it, but I wasn’t able to enjoy the full experience.”

Guys, must we state the obvious? Bars, strip clubs, and sporting events are rarely appropriate contexts for team building, committee meetings, or key organizational discussions. Organizations with a genuine commitment to gender inclusion can’t afford to make women choose between outright exclusion or standing on the sideline in venues where men typically bond. Need to bond with other men? No problem. Just do it on your own time; don’t combine male-only meetings or venues with key discussions about business. When you do, women—including those you mentor—are left behind.

At all levels in male-dominated organizations, women can find themselves isolated and excluded from key information, the social capital that men take for granted, the intel that can make or break a career.¹ Far too often, that insider, career-critical information gets shared among men in the locker room or the bar. As one woman extolling the virtue of having a male mentor put it in a Harvard Business Review interview, “my mentor is my key to the men’s room.”² Even in the sciences, an arena in which teamwork and collaboration are often critical to mission success, women report social exclusion by men; sadly, these women sometimes attribute the cause of their isolation to some inherent deficit in themselves.³

Beyond the where we tend to congregate outside the workplace as men, is when we schedule these events. Too often, team bonding occurs outside typical work hours that can make it difficult, if not impossible, for women to participate, even when they are invited. For women, evening or weekend events can be more challenging to attend due to family commitments. This is an issue for men as well, but we tend to assume men don’t have these conflicts, even though we often do. In the busy and hectic schedules of our work lives, it’s often challenging to avoid scheduling after-work events—providing advance notice with longer lead times can help people coordinate and create a more inclusive team event. Be vigilant to your mentee’s family commitments, and be a voice for scheduling important work events during a time she can participate.

Sometimes, women get excluded from key meetings or time with key men in the organization on the basis of fear. Female congressional staffers on Capitol Hill increasingly find themselves banned from after-hours office time with male politicians—the very guys who could be crucial to their advancement—purely because they are women, and, well, it just wouldn’t be fair to those congressmen if meeting with an attractive woman caused gossip and a corresponding drop in poll numbers.⁴ Such exclusion is not only unfair—clearly, these staffers have earned the right to be there—it is highly discriminatory and probably illegal.

Gentlemen, if you decide to mentor a woman, it is on you to make sure she gets included. One of the first rules of mentoring is this: make her part of the team, make sure she has a nameplate and a voice at the table, and leave no doubt that you intend to have her included in important conversations. Kathy Hannan recalled that her mentor would insist that she get included in lunches or dinners when key clients or organizational leaders came to town. He never failed to use the moment to introduce her and trumpet her achievements. He also made sure her voice was heard at the boardroom table. Hannan recounted an example from one meeting: “I had been sitting around the key leadership table. At times, I would make a comment and it would get a tepid response, maybe some head nodding. Then, two or three people down the line, a male says exactly what I just said and everyone says ‘wow’ and starts discussing it like it’s a new idea. My sponsor would say, ‘Wait a minute. Someone tell me how this is any different from what Kathy just said a minute ago.’ So, as a mentor, you have to call it out when her voice is excluded, bring attention to it.”

Later, when Kathy was only two weeks post birth with her second child, her mentor arranged for her to give a key address at an all-partners meeting in another city. Although she was still exhausted and recovering, he emphasized that this would be a profound career opportunity, a rare moment to be included in the upper echelons of leadership. Kathy remembers, “He asked me the question, ‘What do you need to make this work?’ I told him that I needed someone to literally carry my bags. Well, he did that for me, so how could I say no?”

Gentlemen, make sure your female mentee gets included in important meetings and events. Don’t leave it to chance or count on others to invite her to join in after-work activities, key social events, and career-enhancing meetings and discussions. You are her mentor; it’s your job to do it.

22. Teach Her What She Needs to Know (Provide Access to Hidden Politics)

Sophocles said, “The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.” So, can you teach? Do you? Gentlemen, never forget that direct instruction is one of the most salient mentor functions. Research consistently reveals that clear guidance is among the things prospective mentees most desire in a mentor.⁵ High-impact mentors are natural educators; they instinctively provide knowledge and refine a mentee’s professional skills. The word “education” stems directly from the root word educere, literally, to lead forth, to nourish and bring out potential.⁶ It is no wonder, then, that the obituaries of highly regarded mentors nearly always refer to the deceased person’s facility as a teacher. Effective mentors create frequent teaching moments by giving advice, recounting their own relevant experiences, and providing consultation for the hurdles ahead.⁷

Want to be a great mentor to a woman? Take the time to teach her what she needs to know to thrive in your workplace. Be particularly vigilant for opportunities to provide her with access to critically important information, intel that might otherwise be unavailable to her. Sheryl Sandberg observed that some high-potential women may have difficulty asking for help because they don’t want to appear stumped.⁸ So don’t wait for her to ask for guidance. Think something might be crucial for her to know? Have you identified a knowledge or skill deficit? Get busy teaching and coaching! Janet Petro’s mentor went out of his way to teach her to avoid burning bridges and to maintain amicable relationships at work, even with difficult colleagues. Rohini Anand described how her mentor taught her to let her team come up with solutions, even if she already had solved a problem herself.

Belle Ragins reminds men to help women develop thriving strategies.⁹ Help your mentee turn negative workplace episodes (e.g., ignorance, prejudice, discrimination) into opportunities for enlightenment and learning; excellent mentors use these momentary setbacks as teaching moments, so female mentees will increase their repertoire of effective responses. And keep in mind that good teaching is multimodal. Depending on the mentee, the lesson at hand, and the context, consider using a combination of direct training, personal disclosures of your own struggles and adaptation, stories about others who have gone before, and direct role modeling of key skills. Catalyst CEO Deborah Gillis provides an excellent account of how her board chairman did that for her:

I’m a first-time CEO and have been in my role for about a year. The chair of my board is Peter Voser, the former chair and CEO of Royal Dutch Shell. As we go through board meetings, he’s very good at giving me feedback, advice and says, “Here’s a way that you could have handled the situation differently, or here’s the appropriate intervention for a CEO to make in this particular circumstance.” Although Peter is the chair of the board, he is giving me advice on more of a peer-to-peer basis. From his perspective as a CEO who has sat where I’m sitting, he’ll say, “Here’s my feedback in terms of what went well, where you really hit the mark, and where you can continue to develop.”

Gentlemen, there is one more component to excellent teaching: find tactful and appropriate ways to give your mentee the inside scoop about the critical history and hidden politics in the organization. When Betsy Myers was offered a key position in the Obama election campaign, her mentor David Gergen cheered her on, but immediately detected a political red flag. In order to avoid alienating herself from many colleagues who would be supporting the Clinton campaign, “he told me, you need to call all of the Clinton folks who are potentially going to be supporting Hillary and explain that you’ve been offered this key job.” Her mentor understood that hearing the news from Betsy directly would head off hard feelings and prevent negative fallout later in her career. In a similar vein, Laura Behling emphasized the crucial significance of getting the insider perspective from her male mentors: “As a junior faculty member, my two mentors provided the history and backstory that existed among people at the institution, the history that everyone who had been there thirty years was familiar with. My mentors didn’t offer this history in a critical way, but conveyed exactly what someone who was new should understand. In some cases, the history pointed out minefields to watch out for, in other cases it helped identify potential allies.”

Particularly in historically male organizations, women can easily be cut out of “the know.” In the Navy, we call this the gouge. Students at the Naval Academy trust their upperclass mentors to pass along the gouge, salient tips for surviving, thriving, and avoiding big trouble. If you want to mentor a woman well, don’t neglect to pass along the inside scoop. Teach her about the organization’s culture, its assumptions, traditions, and taboos. And perhaps most important, tell her who the safe and dangerous actors are. Who are her likely foes, competitors, allies, and neutral parties? Consider the insider knowledge that was given to Kathy Waller, CFO and executive vice president of Coca-Cola Company, by her mentor Jack Stahl: “I remember one of the things Jack Stahl said to me early on, ‘You need to be careful in a company like Coca-Cola, which is a relationship-focused company. You never know who you’re going to end up working for. Roles change and people change; some of the people who report to you today, you could be reporting to in the future. So absolutely be nice to everybody.’ He said, ‘I don’t care who it is, what they do, it’s going to absolutely matter the rest of your career.’ He was absolutely right.”

Here is a final word: giving the gouge is never an excuse to monger gossip or undermine colleagues. You’ve got to transmit essential insider information—to include the subtleties of politics and power—without demeaning others in the name of mentoring. Frankly, you’ve got no business creating unnecessary fissures between your mentee and others at work. Convey the intel that will help her navigate the terrain successfully but after that, let her decide for herself about the personalities and politics around her.

23. Challenge Her! (And Provide the Support to Go with It)

Inoculation: the process of inoculating; especially, the introduction of a pathogen or antigen into a living organism to stimulate the production of antibodies.

Casting an inspiring vision and then challenging her to achieve it is one of the most important elements of mentoring women. If you back off and temper your expectations—because, well, you know, she’s a girl—then you’re probably failing her, yourself, and your organization. Gentlemen, this may be one of the toughest mentoring elements to get just right, so listen up! Excellent mentors push, dare, and confront mentees. They are persistent in challenging mentees to do and experience things they might otherwise neglect or actively avoid.¹⁰ A wise mentor understands the trials and tribulations women will face on the road to success, and he cares enough to help them build immunity—defenses and key skills—for the journey ahead.

This won’t be fun or particularly easy. Most human beings— your mentees included—typically avoid the discomfort, distress, even flat-out anxiety that accompany being pushed from their comfort zone and challenged to take on unfamiliar tasks, large audiences, and “impossible” trials. But to mentor a woman well, you must discover the things she naturally avoids—owing to anxiety or something else—and then push her to deliberately expose herself to these tasks and situations. Does she hate to speak up in groups or take credit for her work? Challenge her to do it, over and over again. Does she break eye contact and lower her voice when confronting a colleague’s bad behavior? Take the time to practice a different approach with her; then challenge her to go try it again. All of this is designed to immunize her for the leadership challenges ahead. As one of the first women assigned to a U.S. Navy submarine, Lieutenant Tabitha Strobel recounts how her mentors were deliberate about withholding no punches, challenging her exactly the way the male submariners were stressed: “My department head gave me the same chance to stumble as anyone else, he signed me up for really challenging watches, made sure I was getting challenged just like the guys. As women, we’re going to make the same mistakes that everyone else makes, but we’re here to learn. I think it really helped that my leadership, my Captain, my department head, they gave me the same tough jobs they would anyone else.”

Women and men at the Naval Academy are daily inoculated against the profound stress, sleep deprivation, and operational intensity that will confront them shortly after they are commissioned at graduation and begin leading Sailors and Marines in combat. Although an outside observer trailing a plebe during a typical day in Annapolis might feel sympathy for the barrage of stressors and demands she faces, please understand the method behind the madness: anything short of pushing her to the very brink of her resources, constantly testing her resilience, would constitute an inexcusable disservice to a future leader. Gentlemen, don’t you dare shirk this vital mentoring function: through persistent challenge, inoculate her against the hurdles ahead.

Many of the women we interviewed confirmed the key role a mentor’s challenge played in preparing them to succeed at the highest levels as Rear Admiral Sandra Stosz recounted: “When I was the first female commanding officer and he was the battle group commander, he made everything as hard as possible on me to see if I would break under pressure. He went to extreme measures to give me trials and tribulations. He knew that otherwise, people were going to think he was giving me an easy time because I was a woman.” Similarly, Kathy Hannan described how her mentor developed her: “He challenged me to accept an opportunity to address all the partners. He reminded me that it was crucial for my career to get the visibility. I was a young partner. I was female. He knew it was anxiety-provoking and out of my comfort zone but he was there alongside me, carrying my bags and giving me the encouragement to go through with it. Right before I went on, I remember he said: ‘You’re going to nail it!’ ” For other women, mentors saw unrealized potential. As Susan Chambers detailed: “He set such high standards and expectations; he expected me to move so much faster and to achieve so much more than I ever had before. At the time, I felt it was unfair. But it’s only as I look back that I realize I wouldn’t be in my current role without it. I wouldn’t have been able to get through the difficulties I’ve been through if I had not had someone who cared and expected that much early in my career.”

If challenging a female mentee sounds easy, we can confirm that it’s not. Compared to male mentees, women are significantly less likely to report being seriously challenged and pushed to perform, even by the men who call themselves mentors.¹¹ So why do we as guys instinctively back away when what a woman needs is firm confrontation and challenge? Here are three top reasons:

♦ Thanks to stereotypes about women’s capacities, we may simply hold erroneous notions about how much they can take; men tend to underestimate women’s ability to tolerate stress and respond to challenge.

♦ Due to male socialization, we may have learned to treat women with kid gloves. Chivalrous childhood mantras, such as “women and children first” and “boys are tough, girls are delicate”—while certainly well-intended—can leave men with genuine aversion to seeing a woman in any distress. Perhaps unconsciously, we fear that women will “break” if pushed too hard. We back away when what she really needs is for us to throw down a challenge and push her to try something that really scares her.

♦ Women are often socialized to underperform so as not to threaten men, and they may use distress signals (e.g., tears) to trigger male protection. And women may simply be less attuned to performance challenges that guys recognize instantly.¹²

Guys, here’s the thing: evidence shows that women who persist and thrive in historically male disciplines are women who have been inoculated to thrive in competitive environments. In the sciences, women who persist have had mentors who challenged them to develop a strong sense of self and defenses that neutralize the worst effects of peer hostility and competitive cultures.¹³

Here is the final component of creating successful challenges for mentees: challenge her to do great things, then, provide unwavering support to go with it. Dana Born says, of her mentor, “He challenged me to do things I either hadn’t considered or didn’t feel qualified to do. The key to whatever limited success I’ve enjoyed was that he believed in me, trusted me, and always provided the support and top cover to go along with it.”

Tailor your challenges to each mentee. Pushing everyone at the same rate and in the same way rarely works. The goal is to incrementally stimulate growth with tasks and assignments your mentee has a good chance of successfully completing. Push her, but don’t push so hard that she doesn’t succeed and the confidence you have been working to bolster is undermined.¹⁴ Expose her to her fears persistently but gradually.

As a mentor, discern how she’ll need to be armed to win the battles ahead. Then, help her polish the skills and develop the armor she’ll require. Persuade her of her capabilities; challenge her to perform to that potential; then, applaud each little victory along the way.

24. Walk the Razor’s Edge Between Protection and Empowerment

Here is an inescapable truth: on her path to career success, a woman will often encounter political agendas, petty animosities, and abuses of power. The competent mentor must master the art of shepherding mentees through moments of danger and vulnerability. In many contexts, women more than men will encounter mean-spirited criticism, misogynistic male coworkers, harassment—both overt and subtle— dismissive assignments, and tasks likely to sabotage their career trajectory.¹⁵

Gentlemen, sometimes a mentor must intervene. Protection is sometimes required to shield a mentee from unfair, vindictive, or sexist policies or behavior in the workplace. In other words, you may need to signal a willingness to kick a little ass (figuratively speaking) to repel unfair attacks and deter future nonsense. Protection can take a variety of forms, including vocal advocacy in public forums, direct confrontation of hostile actors, slicing through bureaucratic red tape designed to keep her sidelined, and questioning of job assignments unlikely to get her noticed and promoted. And don’t think you’ve got to be a major power broker in the organization to serve as an effective defender for your mentee. When Rear Admiral Sandy Stosz was a lieutenant in the Coast Guard and the first woman to skipper a Coast Guard cutter, her chief boatswain’s mate—an older, experienced seaman, an enlisted man, and her subordinate—proved to be a powerful mentor to her, in part because he was a tireless protector behind the scenes. Chief boatswain’s mate Dave Foley related his interactions with other men:

I’d go walking off the ship and there would be some Chiefs sitting around talking her down. I’d tell them, you guys don’t know what you’re talking about. She’s a good officer and this is not a fad [gender integration]. You need to get used to it or get out of the service. Then, of course, the next thing from them was, “so what, are you sleeping with her? ” … We also had a Captain in charge of the area at that time who didn’t believe women had any place in the Coast Guard. He kept expressing doubts about Sandy behind her back. I finally just told him flat out, “You know, Captain, the truth is she’s very capable. She’s smart and she knows what she’s doing. You need to back off, give her the leeway to do her job.”

Sandra Stosz explained what she learned from Dave Foley’s actions:

For a while the Captain was going to extreme measures to give me trials and tribulations as the first woman CO. Then, finally, one day things started to get better. I was interacting with the Captain one day and he said, “I’ve backed off you because your Chief boatswain’s mate walked in here one day, closed the door, and said, ‘Stop picking on our Commanding Officer. It’s unfair, it’s not right, and we’re sick of it onboard the ship.’ ” By standing up for me to a Captain, he taught me you can stand up to someone much more senior in paygrade if you are right.

Alright, guys, so we’ve established that you do have to protect her at times. But before you go all mixed-martial-arts cage fighter on anyone who gives your mentee a hard time, take a deep breath, and think carefully about how protection can quickly become overprotection. Effective mentors are firm and clear in confronting injustice but they are simultaneously calm, measured, and diplomatic. If you turn Raging Bull when someone “messes” with your female mentee, we predict that you will lose credibility and undermine her. By appearing too ego involved and arrogantly reactive, you diminish your capacity to be an effective advocate for her in the organization. Worse, such behavior may raise questions about your enmeshment or inappropriate involvement with her. I mean, why else would you behave like a jealous boyfriend?

We appreciate that knowing when and how much to protect is a delicate balance. The tension is inherent in the very term protégé, which comes from the French verb “to protect.” It is sometimes translated as “a protected woman.” A protégé is a person under the patronage, protection, or care of someone older or more powerful. In the original study of cross-gender mentorships at work, Kathy Kram discovered that young female managers frequently found it difficult to achieve autonomy and independence from male mentors because these men became overprotective and smothering.¹⁶ Women can feel fathered to death and paradoxically disempowered if men undermine their sense of autonomy and power. Rather than go charging in when she’s struggling with discrimination, harassment, or conflict, consult with her first. Be collaborative, not presumptuous or impulsive. Discuss alternative approaches, empower her to take appropriate action, cheer her assertiveness, and encourage her to role-play difficult conversations with you. Conserve your political capital and directly intervene to protect her only when the circumstances are egregious or the two of you agree this is both necessary and unlikely to undermine her own efforts to assertively address the problem.

Here is a final tip, gentlemen: if you are constantly intervening on behalf of a mentee, perhaps you should soberly consider whether you are turning a blind eye to real problems with her performance. Is she needlessly provoking conflict? Is she performing poorly? Sometimes we can develop tunnel vision with a mentee we really like. But it won’t do to ignore evidence of unprofessionalism or subpar performance in women we mentor.

25. Open Doors and Put Her Name Forward

Want to mentor a woman well? You’ve got to deliberately and proactively open doors and promote her publicly. A recent assessment of women in organizations reveals that high-potential women are over-mentored and under-sponsored relative to their male peers; as a result, they are not advancing at the same rate as men in many organizations.¹⁷ Here’s the problem: mentors to women seem comfortable giving them feedback and advice, even care and support, but mentors appear less willing to use their own power and influence to advocate for their female mentees. Guys, sponsor your mentee by trumpeting her successes and promoting her visibility—particularly to key stakeholders—at work. Sheryl Sandberg illustrated how her mentor did this for her:

When I got to the World Bank, every time Larry Summers introduced me to anyone, he would say, “This is Sheryl Sandberg, she’s my research assistant. She was first in the Harvard Economics Department.” I told him that was really embarrassing and asked him to stop saying that. He told me, “I’m not going to stop saying it. I know you would never say that about yourself, and I know you’re embarrassed, but it’s really important that people know that you’re good because they’re going to want to work with you more and treat you more seriously. So, even though you’re uncomfortable, I’m going to keep saying it.” Looking back, he was sponsoring me.

Outstanding mentors draw attention to their mentees by highlighting their contributions and achievements both laterally (to peers and colleagues) and vertically (to superiors).¹⁸ Look for high-profile committees and projects to sponsor her for. Introduce her to power brokers and use the opportunity to mention her accomplishments and credentials. In addition to nominating her widely for key assignments, invite her to collaborate with you on projects so she can share the credit for successful outcomes and get noticed as a rising star. Like Sheryl Sandberg, many of the women we interviewed expressed gratitude for their mentors’ proactive sponsorship:

He opened doors and gave me incredible opportunities as a junior person. For instance, he put me on the editorial board of a journal he edited. When we had meetings of the consulting editors, even though I was the most junior person in the room, he asked my advice publicly. He did this in front of much more senior consulting editors.

—Nadine Kaslow

He started talking to other people about what I could do. Then he gave me an opportunity to cochair a committee with him that was a faculty committee to set the whole strategic plan on research and scholarship for the institution. It was a high-profile committee and it raised my own profile in the institution.

—Susan Madsen

He made lots of introductions for me at senior levels at the [Kennedy Space] Center. As an outsider, this gave me instant credibility. He was very inclusive, brought me into senior meetings so I could see how business was conducted. His willingness to make me a part of all of those insider meetings from the start was really key to my success.

—Janet Petro

Give your mentee opportunities to demonstrate her competence, and then go tell key people about it. The goal is to make her increasingly visible in positive ways. Never forget that mere exposure to and familiarity with your mentee will make key leaders more inclined to tap her for choice assignments and promotions. Be her advisor and confidant, but don’t stop there: you’ve got to intentionally market her in the organization and the profession. Finally, be careful not to sabotage her by overpromising what she can deliver or promoting her for tasks prematurely.

26. Share Power and Social Capital

Here is a simple truth: in many organizations, particularly those that are currently or recently male dominated, men have a wider base of power and access to more resources. As a man, remember that sharing your own power with mentees can work wonders at leveling the playing field for women. Studies of women with male mentors show that a mentor’s “stamp of approval” leads to increased acceptance and stature among a # woman’s male colleagues, significantly higher salaries, greater access to important people, and stronger perceptions of legitimacy, by both mentees themselves and others in the organization.¹⁹

Here’s how power sharing works: as you publicly support a woman at work, endorsing her for projects and assignments, putting her name forward often, perhaps even sending her as your emissary to key meetings or events, others in the organization will naturally grant her reflective power— power of the mentor by extension. Your sponsorship implicitly communicates this message: she enjoys my backing, support, and endorsement. This is powerful stuff. Think of the power and reputation you have accrued during your career as a shield bearing your coat of arms. When you mentor a woman, your coat of arms goes before her to melt barriers, open doors, and provide access to influential people who might ordinarily not give her the time of day.²⁰ When Janet Petro was recruited by her mentor at the Kennedy Space Center, he used his accrued power to cut through the center’s resistance to outsiders and endorse her leadership: “As the center director, he gave me the reins from the start. He said, ‘I want you to run the center for me. I’ll step back and let you do it. I’ll just provide you with support.’ He made that very clear to the rest of the senior management team.”

One slice of deliberate power sharing involves weaving your mentee into your own web of contacts and relationships; power isn’t just who you are but who you know. We are talking here about social capital, the collective value of all your social networks. Why is this so important for your mentee? Our networks of colleagues and associates constitute an informal society in which members are inclined to do things for one another. Think of several of your best buddies and colleagues at work. If one of them asked you for a favor, perhaps an introduction or even a job for one of their mentees, wouldn’t you be inclined to say yes? Evidence suggests that you would. Norms of reciprocity in our social networks make us inclined to help one another. Any friend of a good colleague is automatically a friend of mine. So each time you introduce your mentee to members of your own network, each time you invite her to a conference or key meeting and then make sure people hear her name and how terrific she is, you are depositing some of your social capital in her credibility account, thereby helping to fund her future success.

Here is one poignant example of this phenomenon. A study by Harriet Zuckerman of U.S. Nobel laureates revealed that more than half had worked under the supervision and mentorship of previous Nobel laureates. Although comparatively fewer women have become Nobel laureates, these award-winning women are twice as likely as men to have been mentored by Nobel laureates.²¹ It turns out that social capital can lead to social heredity ; in sharing our power, prestige, and resources with junior members of our profession, we pass on a legacy of sorts, helping to enhance the prospects for success of those we sponsor. Like many of our interviewees, Deborah Gillis explained how her mentors provided access to their networks and social capital:

Chris Brett, a mentor and very successful lawyer, through his influence and relationships, introduced me to the then-leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Michael Ignatieff, who nominated me to be a candidate for election for Parliament in Canada. Michael did not know me, but the fact that I had a highly placed sponsor who really went out on a limb to introduce me and advocate for me made that possible. When I look back on my career, at every stage and transition there was someone who opened up a door and advocated for me for that next step or opportunity.

Gentlemen, remember to actively and transparently share power with your mentees. When you sponsor a woman, don’t withhold access to key members of your social network, and make certain that you accord her the access, public support, and resourcing she needs to get noticed and get things done.

27. Brag About Her in Public; Provide Correction in Private

Gentlemen, as a mentor for women, here is your mantra: Praise her in public, correct her in private.

We’ve established that women have a tougher time of it at work. When breaking barriers and rising through the ranks, they often live life in a fishbowl and under a microscope. They’ll be accorded less latitude for mistakes and failures, and often, they’ll feel alone in leadership roles. In you, they’ll need a persistent and vocal cheerleader. But their success will simultaneously hinge on your willingness to provide honest feedback and corrective advice.

First, let’s talk about bragging on her. To a person, the women we interviewed described their mentors as public cheerleaders and vocal fans. They created opportunities to publicly highlight their mentees’ accomplishments, often when the boss was listening. Listen to what this sounds like from several of the women we interviewed:

David Gergen was my mentor at the Center for Public Leadership. He was always what I call a raving fan about me. That’s one of the things I’ve discovered; good mentors are raving fans. They stick up for me, they tell people about my work, and they champion me to other people. David Gergen was always willing to say, “Betsy is terrific! I couldn’t do this without her!”

—Betsy Myers

People don’t like it when women share their own accomplishments, and men automatically get credit for their accomplishments more often than women do. So women have to have some way for their accomplishments to be known. It is very effective when other people share our accomplishments.

—Sheryl Sandberg

These relationships were based on my mentors’ confidence in what I had done and that I could deliver in the future. They believed that I deserved those opportunities. Richie Mann would describe how I performed and reacted during times of organizational stress, he talked about how I remained focused on getting the job done, delivering the results and keeping people aligned. He saw something in me early on and acted on that.

—Deborah Gillis

Elements 25 and 26 urged you to open doors, put your mentee’s name forward, and transparently sponsor her by sharing power and social capital. That is all well and good, but while you’re at it, feel free to crow about her talents and achievements. It is good to play the part of proud mentor. If, in the words of Betsy Myers, you can become a “raving fan” for her, chances are others in the organization will take note of her work. Just as important, your mentee will feel buoyed and heartened. Her own self-confidence and self-perception as a capable, competent rising star will be bolstered. And when the going gets tough and self-doubt creeps in—and it will—she can borrow from your reserves of confidence in her.

At the same time, gentlemen, never withhold correction. When your mentees get it wrong or make a blunder, be direct and honest in letting them know precisely how they’ve erred and share strategies to correct the problem. Because no one is perfect, your mentees need you to provide constructive criticism designed to rectify shortcomings and help them amend their approach. If not you, the guy who’s committed to champion her, then who? In our conversation with Sheryl Sandberg, she shared how she blundered in a big way when helping her mentor, Larry Summers, then chief economist for the World Bank, prepare for a speech:

In the speech, I inserted an illiteracy rate for girls in Korea that turned out to be off by a lot. It was entirely my fault. The error created some very negative fallout. Rather than blame me in public and say something like, “She’s not careful enough to be my research assistant anymore,” Larry pulled me aside and said, “You messed up, you’ve seen the consequences, and you’re not going to make a mistake like that again.” People tend to doubt women more than men. So when you do mess up and your mentor still believes in you and stands behind you, it means a lot. I quadruple checked every figure I gave him after that.

Other women offered similar stories about powerful mentors who were unafraid to let them hear about it when they made mistakes or got off course, but to a man, these mentors delivered corrective feedback in private while continuing to extol their mentees’ virtues in public:

He was so incredibly tough, but he was always in my corner. So, when things did go south, whether we missed a budget or failed to implement something correctly, he might let me have an earful if I screwed up badly, but when it came to defending his team, I could not ask for a greater champion.

—Susan Chambers

Once, despite the Colonel’s explicit zero-tolerance policy on drug use, I strongly supported a soldier who had failed a drug screen at a punishment hearing in front of the Colonel. I could tell he was unhappy. Rather than admonishing me in front of my people, after the hearing he dismissed everyone in the room but me. He sat me down and talked to me in a very direct way about his policy and his rationale. Because he wouldn’t embarrass me publicly and because I could trust him to give me direct, critical feedback, we really respected each other, even when we didn’t agree.

—Becky Halstead

Here is a paradox: confronting a mentee about bad performance or unprofessional behavior may cause her some pain and distress in the short term. But it also conveys genuine care and commitment. On the other hand, avoiding critical feedback may spare her some pain in the short term while setting her up for ultimate failure. Each and every one of our interviewees emphasized the importance of her mentor providing critical feedback about her job performance—especially when something needed to improve. Kathy Waller emphasized the importance of being receptive to timely feedback and how her mentor, Peter Ueberroth, helped her:

Very few people give you instant feedback because they have to think about how to tell you. A lot of times delaying feedback diminishes its value in helping you make changes. Men were always worried about how to tell me, until they got to that point in the relationship where they were brutally honest. Peter is now brutally honest. But in the very beginning, when I could have benefited more, he was hesitant. I think that the faster you can get to a place where you don’t react to feedback, the better off you’ll be.

Be her raving fan in public and her most reliable critic in private.

28. Help Her Sharpen Her Leadership Style (Don’t Change It)

I often sensed that my male colleagues expected my leadership style to be very directive, commanding, and transactional. But my natural style—and that of many women—is to be more collaborative, democratic, and inclusive. So, there is a delicate balance in how I am perceived. At times, I sensed that some men thought my transformational style was “wafflely.” Yet, if I was too directive as a woman, then I might be perceived as pulling rank to get what I want. I have had to work very hard to give myself permission to have my own leadership style.

—Dana Born, Brigadier General (ret)

Women often lead differently than men.

The traditionally masculine “command and control” leadership model—a model that assumes a good leader is action oriented, dominant, competitive, self-sufficient, and always willing to impose his will on others to get the job done—is proving increasingly inadequate in the modern workplace.²² In its place, organizations are hungry for transformational leaders who score high on social and emotional intelligence, value collaboration, and stimulate creativity through inspiration. There is a growing demand for leadership infused with soft skills (e.g., empathy, caring, listening skills, approachability) as we find more team and group-focused work tasks in today’s workplace.²³ It may come as no surprise then to learn that organizations with women in top positions perform better on many key success indices than organizations with primarily male leadership.²⁴

Guys, let’s review the behavioral styles and core values that women often bring to the task of leadership. We acknowledge up front that leadership style can vary as much among women as it does among men, yet statistical meta-analyses of hundreds of studies on gender and leadership point to some consistent themes in the techniques women prefer to get the job done.²⁵ We think of these as Athena Values in leadership.²⁶ Use this broad snapshot of commonly feminine leadership values as a good starting place to understand, appreciate, and then champion the rising Athenas around you. Here we go.

On the whole, gender and leadership studies show that women adopt a leadership style described as transformational, democratic (communal), and participative. In their relationships with team members, women leaders are more empathic, patient, and inclined to put others first. Feedback from peers, supervisors, and subordinates reveals that, when compared with men, women are rated higher in teamwork, empowerment, information sharing, and genuine care for all team members. And when it comes to decision making, women are more inclusive and thoughtful about the impact decisions will have on others; women often harbor a sense of responsibility and obligation to others and others’ best interests. Finally, women are more likely than men to opt for praise and empathy—rather than criticism—as a catalyst for innovation, and they define winning in the plural; teams rather than individuals are given credit for success.

By now, you must be thinking, “This all sounds great, so what’s the problem?” Here is the problem: many man-centric organizations— maybe yours included—don’t implicitly value some of these more feminine leadership styles. This will force women you mentor into painful double binds: if a woman adopts traditionally masculine leader behaviors and becomes authoritative and dominant, “taking charge,” as it were, she is actually likely to lose in three ways.²⁷ First, behaving like a guy may feel like a genuine violation of who she is at work. Anyone knows that pretending to be someone you’re not is exhausting and, ultimately, depressing.

Second, she may feel forced to choose between being liked or respected (a choice men rarely have to make). Gender researcher Alice Eagly reflected that, on one hand, women are expected to deliver warmth, friendliness, compassion, and nurturing. On the other hand, they’d better take charge and behave like men (e.g., be assertive, competitive, heroic) when they lead. But simultaneously impressing others as a good leader and a good woman is neither easy nor natural.²⁸

Here is the final—and perhaps most deflating—paradox for women in leadership. Even if they manage to suppress their more egalitarian leader inclinations and behave more like the men around them, they still lose! There is evidence that women who are more agentic, authoritative, and masculine in their leadership style are more likely to be disliked, sabotaged, and attacked in their careers—by both men and women.²⁹ Colleagues may see assertive women as presumptuous, and in male-dominated cultures they may be dismissed as “bitches” and consistently undermined.

Men, when you mentor a woman, it is crucially important to watch, listen, and learn about her unique approach to motivating and influencing those she leads. Do not assume that her approach should mimic your own. Chances are she’ll feel enough pressure to suppress her own style and “fit in” with the guys’ club. Instead, help her articulate her unique vision and preferred strategies for leading. Then, help create leadership opportunities for her. If her approach is working, get busy helping her to shape and sharpen it. Finally, go out of your way to draw attention to her leadership successes and push back at gender-biased criticisms or efforts to undermine her.

Oh, and don’t forget to watch closely: you might learn a thing or two about leadership!

29. Be a Watchdog for Disparities at Work

When Nadine Kaslow—past president of the American Psychological Association—was promoted to the rank of full professor at Emory University, she immediately called her mentor and shared the good news:

His first response to me was “Great! What kind of raise do you get?” I told him full professors didn’t get raises at promotion. He said, “You need to go to your business manager and find out what percent raise the men got when they got promoted. Then, request in writing the mean of that amount.” So, I wrote a formal request to the dean for an 8 percent raise, which was the mean raise for men promoted at that time. The dean’s office then looked at my salary and it was so low that I got a 30 percent raise! That tells you how low my salary was. If my mentor had not encouraged me to do that, I never would have gotten that raise.

In our interviews with accomplished women, few themes resonated with both the persistence and emotional intensity as the call for male leaders and mentors to be acutely attuned to gender disparities in the workplace. And let us be honest here, gentlemen: these women expect much of you. For instance, it is not enough to do everything in your power to avoid gender stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination in your own relationships with women. That is all well and good. But it is merely the start. The women you mentor also need you to address disparities in the way women are treated in your organization generally. They need to witness you boldly and courageously saying and doing something when discriminatory practices threaten not only their own prospects for success and promotion, but the prospects of women writ large. For your mentees to feel safe with you, and for your own credibility, you need to address disparities out loud and consistently.

Like Nadine Kaslow, many of the women we interviewed recalled how a male mentor addressed gendered pay disparities in a powerful way. As a junior professor, Susan Madsen had never thought to renegotiate her academic salary: “One day my mentor called me down and said, ‘I just looked at your salary.’ I said, I know, it’s low. He said, ‘No, it’s wrong!’ He said, ‘I’m calling the provost right now and we’re going to resolve this because you deserve a lot more.’ He knew that two men were hired at the same time I was for $10,000 more. Within a day, my salary had gone up $10,000 and the institution back paid me as well. That meant a lot to me.”

Similarly, Laura Behling has been impressed by men who consistently push for pay equity and transparency so that women are not left behind: “One of the things I’ve seen done very effectively when men have entered supervisor roles is to do a thorough review of job descriptions and salaries for men and women, to make sure women have not been left behind. These men openly verify that if women are doing equivalent work, that they are receiving equivalent titles, promotions, and pay in comparison to men. That can be very powerful.”

Guys, you’ve also got to be attuned to varieties of bias and discrimination in the workplace beyond pay and benefits. For instance, women are more often exposed to personally demeaning and disrespectful coworker behavior.³⁰ You will find this especially true for women of color. Work on “listening” to everyday workplace exchanges with empathy for the way your female mentee might hear them. When you hear something disparaging of women, we hope you’ll have the cojones to say something about it. Consider the experience of Dana Born when she was a professor at the Air Force Academy:

I recall a briefing attended by all male senior professors and leaders on the Air Force’s current aircraft fleet. During the briefing, the speaker, a man, referred to one of the aircraft using profane slang that was quite derogatory toward women. I sat there thinking, he didn’t just say that, did he? By the end of the meeting, my anxiety was high because I knew I had to say something, the comment was entirely inappropriate. Then, the dean came forward and said, “I want to say that some of the language used today has no place in today’s Air Force. It should never be used again, either inside or outside this room.” I was so relieved knowing that my boss really “got it.” When the sole woman in the room doesn’t have to address language that is denigrating or dismissive to women, and inappropriate, when men take charge and do that, it is very powerful.

A final category of gender disparity at work has to do with opportunities for promotion based upon equivalent work and achievement. Is your mentee the victim of theprove-it-again bias?³¹ In addition to doing what her male peers do, does she have to jump through rings of fire or bill twice the client hours to be viewed as equally competent? Are her missteps magnified and her achievements attributed to luck? Most important, when vacancies come open and candidates for promotion are considered, is she mysteriously left off the list? Navy Admiral Michelle Howard described the critical importance of men ensuring that candidate lists for promotions include women: “If candidate lists are always 100 percent majority members, then women or diverse members will never be hired; their names are never up for consideration.”

Watch for evidence of unfair treatment for women. Then do something about it.

30. Help Her Construct a Rich Constellation of Career Helpers

Here is our last nugget of wisdom for really helping a woman take off and soar professionally: for goodness sake, don’t do the guru thing.

Guys, let’s level with one another. There is still just enough of the caveman in each of us, just enough alpha-male behavior coded in our DNA, that we can instinctively and unconsciously respond to women with protectiveness and possessiveness; you know, me Tarzan, you Jane. In our mentorships, this means we are all vulnerable to desperately enacting the heroic guru mentor for the women we guide. Here’s the problem: not only does it rarely work, it will also stunt her development and limit her ultimate success.

Kerry Ann Rockquemore, president and CEO of the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity, recently observed that we must dispense with the traditional guru notion of mentoring that paints the mentor as the all-knowing, all-providing wise man who protects a mentee from all evil forces in the organization and meets all of her needs for support while scarcely breaking a sweat.³² In other words, don’t kid yourselves, guys! The chances that you can provide everything a woman—or a man—needs to thrive in a career are slim to none.

Gentlemen, we’re providing a dose of reality here, and hopefully, taking some of the weight off your shoulders. We hope it comes as some relief to know you can’t—and shouldn’t try to—be all things to your mentee. The traditional guru model of mentoring is old school. It also doesn’t work. The truth of it is that most of us require more than one helping relationship during important periods in our lives—and certainly throughout our careers.³³ Yes, having a primary mentor is often critical during the all-important early-career phase, especially in one’s first job, but most of us benefit from a wider constellation of helping connections. These helpful collections of relationships are often described as developmental networks, composite mentoring, or, our favorite, mentoring constellations, and evidence from many career fields suggests that those who enjoy multiple sources of mentoring are more productive, successful, and content with their careers than those without such a rich constellation.³⁴

Gentlemen, here is the bottom line: the wider and more comprehensive a woman’s network of career helpers, the better the chances that she will succeed, not just today and not just in your organization, but later, throughout her career. Want her to soar? Then get busy helping her to construct a rich, robust, and fail-safe network of support. Here are some specific steps to take. First, deliberately introduce your mentee to the concept of a mentoring constellation, explain the benefits of multiple mentors and career helpers, and have honest conversations about your own strengths and relative weaknesses (e.g., the contours of your own experience and expertise) as a guide.

Second, as your mentorship progresses, as trust develops, and as you gain a better sense of her career ambitions, think out loud with her about other people—potential mentors—and layers of support (e.g., key members of your own network, organizations for women, online networks). In light of your own experience, strengths, and interests, who else in the organization might complement what you offer? For instance, if you’re a guy without a family, it may help to connect a mentee wrestling with work-family demands with a colleague who is also navigating the challenge of young children or an aging parent. If there are very few women in your organization, perhaps you can connect your mentee with a female colleague external to the organization who can offer support and a confidential safe space for sharing gender-based challenges. Or perhaps you know a power broker in the profession who can open a key door for her on the road to achieving her unique career dream.

We conclude with a final warning about your inner caveman. Sometimes, we’ve seen male mentors become jealous and territorial upon learning that a female mentee is receiving career help or personal support from others. To this we ask, really, dude? Honestly, nothing will undermine a woman’s efforts at developing a healthy and helpful constellation more quickly than a prickly and possessive mentor. So check your inner caveman at the door, suppress your guru tendencies, and don’t you dare express hurt or anger when a mentee widens and strengthens her mentoring network. Just be satisfied to be an important part of it. It’s about her, not you.