39. Don’t Be Dominant and Overbearing

Few things are as toxic as a bullying mentor.

In her study of the dark side of mentorship, Professor Terri Scandura discovered that some dysfunctional mentorships were attributed to a particularly noxious mentor type: the bullying, exploitive, egocentric mentor.¹ Often, these bullies are men. Some of these guys are flaming narcissists, egomaniacally driven to prove they’re the best; they demand reverence and deference. Fail to stroke this guy’s ego and you might just be the unfortunate recipient of his narcissistic rage. Other bullies erroneously equate masculinity with dominance. These—paradoxically fragile and insecure—men lead by asserting power and threatening subordinates with punishment. Women we interviewed were consistently repelled by overbearing and dominant men. Alice Eagly, an eminent professor at Northwestern University, acknowledged, “I’ve always avoided overbearing men. The dominant types make me feel anxious. This sort of man thinks, ‘I know what she needs and I will help her get there, she just has to do what I tell her! ’”

Gentlemen, your mentorship with a woman is no place for posturing, dominance, or bullying tactics (actually, we can’t think of any relationship where these behaviors are desirable). Mentoring relationships are inherently power-unequal relationships, especially early on. Accept it. You are more experienced, often higher ranking, and, if you are serving in any supervisory capacity, a gatekeeper to key organizational rewards. The potential for abuse of power is always lurking in a man’s mentorship with a woman. Here’s the problem: based exclusively upon gender, women have historically been in power-down relationships with men. Throughout much of human history, men have literally “owned” women. A legacy of ownership, property, and male-to-female dominance are simply part of the historical narrative we bring to any male mentor-female mentee relationship. Although male privilege might still echo in our DNA and be reinforced by cultural and family traditions, we all need to be alert to avoiding behaviors that might cue outdated scripts that women should, must, or ought to do as we say.

Guys, if your interpersonal demeanor with a female mentee is hierarchical, domineering, and directive you can easily trigger a submissive reaction—your mentee might just retreat to socialized deference in exchange for your protection and resourcing. In order to get along, she’ll follow your directives but hide her aspirations. She’ll also mute her unique talents, perhaps for fear of outshining you. Of course, this will utterly stunt her professional development, not to mention her self-confidence. She might just withdraw from the relationship, wisely discerning that you don’t have the essential emotional intelligence to serve as a safe guide and champion for her development as a respected colleague. Or, if she is more seasoned, more self-confident, and assertive, she might just flip you the bird. If she does, we applaud her! Listen to U.S. Army Major General Camille Nichols as she describes a situation in which a self-proclaimed mentor’s overbearing demeanor created career challenges:

One General Officer saw himself as my mentor—I did not. He moved me to a place that was very difficult for me to work. He picked me for the job to show people he wasn’t “anti-women,” when in fact he really was anti-women. When it was time for slating of Colonels for their next acquisition jobs, I was hinting to him that there were jobs that I would love and he wouldn’t even listen to me. He put me in this position working on programs I had never worked on and that were not very important for the Army. I had to go out of my way to show how I was actually much more capable.

If you’re a guy who needs to tell women what to do and demand their compliance with your directives, get out of the mentoring business.

40. Don’t Make Her Choose Between Reason and Emotion

Men and women often “do emotions” differently. This evolved sex difference is now well established in the research literature.² For instance, men are more inclined to express anger than women and women are more likely to experience negative emotions such as guilt, embarrassment, and social anxiety. Yet, on the whole, women are more attuned (sensitive, empathic, and responsive) to the emotions of others. This means that they’d score higher than men on many indicators of emotional intelligence.

Gentlemen, one of the things we often hear from women in male-centric organizations is that they feel forced to mask or altogether recuse their well-honed empathy, their capacity for feeling and expressing emotion. The message can be subtle or blunt, but women hear it loud and clear: leave your emotions at the door, turn off the tears, and act like a man! When women receive this message, it has far more to do with a man’s discomfort with emotion than anything else.

As a mentor, it is imperative that you honor your female mentee’s unique approach to reading, expressing, and integrating feeling and emotion into her work. If she cries now and then (see element 18), if she has a gentler approach to delivering bad news, or if she is more attuned and sensitive to relational nuances than you, chalk it up to her unique emotional intelligence, not a deficit in her ability to act like a dude. Let’s face it: it’s not her job to make you feel comfortable with expression of emotion. It’s your job to discern and honor her approach. And don’t forget, mentoring is a two-way relationship; if you learn something from her about how to read emotions and interact with a more emotionally expressive coworker—good for you!

Remember, there is not a single rational or evidence-based reason to make women behave more like men when it comes to emotion. Earlier in this guide, we showed you that more feminine and egalitarian organizations—environments in which emotion, intelligence, and leadership mingle freely—are more successful and competitive for the long haul. As you mentor women, practice these crucial mentor behaviors:

1. Never assume that because she’s a woman her approach to expressing emotion will be problematic. Every woman—and man—will experience and express emotions differently, and in different contexts. Be attuned and learn about her unique style of blending emotion with reason at work.

2. Never convey shame, embarrassment, or discomfort if she expresses emotion more openly and freely than you. Own the fact that it’s your own discomfort that needs work, not her manner of expression.

3. If there are elements of her emotional style that seem to consistently lead to resistance from others or failure at specific tasks, discuss these honestly and strategize how she might tweak her delivery to get the intended results without sacrificing the value she places on emotional congruence.

41. Don’t Misinterpret Her Reticence About Promotions

Robert Lightfoot is the chief operations officer at NASA. He is a prolific mentor to women, including Janet Petro, deputy director of the Kennedy Space Center. Over the years, Lightfoot has observed something interesting about the women he mentors: they sometimes appear hesitant and reluctant about promotions and career opportunities. Light-foot told us:

Women are often more honest and open about their self-doubts. They are more transparent about their insecurities regarding their qualifications. I don’t see this as often with men. When I mention the next big job in a man’s career trajectory, I’ll often get, “Yep, sounds great, I’m ready! When do I start?” Of course, when these men walk out the door, they have the same self-doubts and worries that women have, they just don’t share them. Actually, it can make mentoring harder because they won’t talk to you about whether they’re really ready.

Lightfoot has discovered that this trend in female transparency and honesty also holds true in job interviews: “I always ask candidates about three relative weaknesses. That question tends to reveal a lot about men and women. Women are more self-aware but also more self-critical.”

Lightfoot’s observation about the way some women may balk when you suggest they toss their hat in the ring for the next big career opportunity or promotion aligns with research on gender differences.³ Women are often socialized to be more self-effacing and modest, and to report less interest in serving in leadership roles, particularly when they have just been reminded of their gender or stereotypes about women. Women also employ less bravado and puffery in estimating and discussing their skills and competence. Opportunities that come with risk of potential failure can also be particularly scary for women, especially in male-dominated workplaces, contexts where women have failed before.⁴ Be sensitive to this trend if your mentee appears overly conservative when it comes to her qualifications for that next big step. In general, women are simply more honest and accurate in self-reporting their qualifications for a task.

Gentlemen, here is the takeaway: do not misinterpret your mentee’s self-doubt, reservation, or hesitation when you push her forward for a next career step. If she gives voice to anxiety or insecurity about being qualified or ready, you should express admiration for her self-awareness and transparency. But don’t misinterpret her hesitation as evidence she doesn’t want the promotion! Understand that she might express more doubt, and appreciate that she might be more self-critical. Be patient and willing to spend time processing her concerns; have that conversation—or several—to allay her worries about whether she is qualified. Then, let her know in clear and confident terms why you believe she is the right person for the job and why exactly she is ready to step up to the next leadership tier. To mentor her well, you’ve got to be direct and intentional about convincing her she’s ready and right for the next promotion or job.

Last, don’t think your work is done once she agrees to apply for the next promotion. Sometimes, your stalwart moral support and encouragement will be necessary even when she succeeds in being selected! We conclude this element with an illustrative example, again from Robert Lightfoot’s experience:

I recall very well one female mentee who was so remarkably talented as a leader, but I had to literally convince her over and over again to apply for a major director position. Of course, once she was convinced, she was selected hands down, she just blew the interview away. When I called her in and told her she’d been selected, she put her head down and said, “Oh no …” Now, I have just never seen a male do that! So, to be an effective mentor, I needed to continue supporting and affirming her, confronting her self-doubts even after she was chosen!

42. Don’t Promote Her Before She’s Ready (Benign Sabotage)

If you’ve just finished reading element 41, chances are you’re fired up to get out there and recommend the women you mentor for key assignments or next promotions. This is all good, and we applaud your enthusiasm. But hold on just one moment. There is a caveat when it comes to convincing a woman to take the next step and compete for a promotion: don’t push her forward if she’s not prepared to succeed. You’ve got to discern the difference between a woman’s socialized hesitancy and insecurity about the next big job and genuine evidence that she lacks the knowledge or skill set to perform effectively at the next level.

Promoting your mentee publicly and pressuring her privately to compete for jobs prematurely may actually set her up for failure. Gentlemen, this is benign sabotage. Particularly when women are a rare commodity in an organization, you may feel pressure to push your mentee up the chain as quickly as possible.⁵ But if you push her forward before she’s prepared, before she’s had an opportunity to demonstrate sufficient competency and learn enough about the organization, you might inadvertently torpedo her success. Consider this reflection from Alice Eagly, distinguished professor at Northwestern University: “I was sometimes put forward for things too early because some men wanted to affirm and promote women. It’s a sort of benevolent mentoring that can backfire. Reaching out to women to promote them to important positions is noble, but men must be careful about thinking, ‘Oh! There’s a great young woman! I’ll put her forward for__promotion!’ Especially if she’s not ready; it may undermine her ultimate advancement.”

Gentlemen, the decision to promote your mentee, encouraging her to step forward and raise her hand for advancement, is a delicate one. It demands considerable wisdom on your part as you balance two competing “goods.” On one hand, it is good to champion, encourage, and promote your mentee. On the other hand, it is good to be objective in assessing her experience, skills, and motivation and how these jibe with the demands of a new job. Remember element 1: Do No Harm. If you’ve become smitten with a rising Athena, a talented female mentee, your objectivity may be compromised and you may find yourself compelled to put her forward prematurely. If you do, and if she crashes and burns, you own some of the blame.

Outstanding mentors champion their mentees for career-enhancing opportunities and promotions, but only when they are confident their mentees are well prepared and likely to succeed.

43. Don’t Be a Benevolent Sexist

Women are wonderful, beautiful, delicate creatures. They just need a good man, a chivalrous guy, to protect, shelter, and, when necessary, rescue them from the trials and tribulations that life and career can bring.

Read the sentences above several times. They sound positive, right? I mean, women are great; who can argue with that? And who’s going to knock a man willing to be gallant, courteous, and brave hearted when it comes to protecting a lady? Here’s the problem, gentlemen: the sentence above drips with benevolent sexism. In 1996, Peter Glick and Susan Fiske popularized the term.⁶ Benevolent sexism refers to men’s evaluations of the feminine gender that may appear subjectively positive, but that are actually damaging to women and gender equality more broadly. Benevolent sexism is that magnanimous and courtly attitude toward women that we guys have perfected since our days learning about girls on the playground and receiving gender lessons from older men in our lives. Positive on the surface, benevolent sexism is actually sexist because it casts women as weak creatures in need of men’s protection.

In their research, Glick and Fiske identified two distinct types of sexist male behavior.⁷ Hostile sexism is more obvious; it describes the angry, explicitly negative attitudes toward women that often emerge when women first enter a profession or organization. Though toxic and difficult for women, hostile sexism is at least overt; a woman can see it coming and gird herself for the battle ahead. Benevolent sexism is more insidious but equally detrimental. Here, men view women stereotypically, benevolently endorsing them for very restricted roles but with a kind, even pandering tone (e.g., She’s a sweet young woman ; Let’s start her slowly so she doesn’tget overwhelmed). Superficially positive, benevolent sexism substitutes affection, idealization, and protectiveness for genuine respect. Such sexist attitudes justify women’s subordinate status vis-à-vis men. In male-dominated organizations and professions, it also creates damaging stereotypes that women are too weak and sensitive to make it without copious hand-holding and backup support.

Benevolently sexist attitudes toward women are dangerously subtle, and may exist even among guys who view themselves as advocates for women. For instance, too many men believe women deserve a fair shot at work, just as long as men don’t have to work for them.⁸ Men can be reluctant about supporting women for leadership roles. Second Lieutenant Virginia Brodie related a perfect illustration of this bias after it was announced that she was in the first group of women selected to be an artillery officer in the Marine Corps:

There was a lot of negativity that I didn’t expect. Everyone was really supportive when they knew I wanted Artillery but they didn’t think it would actually happen. As soon as it happened, there was this “Oh, man, they’re actually coming” feeling. There was this one guy in my platoon who was one of my closest friends, and as soon as I got Artillery he just completely cut ties and didn’t speak with me at all. I thought, wow, that’s harsh. So eventually I pulled him aside and asked him what’s going on. He said, “I just don’t want women here, but I believe in you and I want you to succeed. It’s just going to take a little time for me to get used to that.” This was something I didn’t expect to happen.

At least Virginia Brodie’s peer was self-aware enough to understand how he was feeling. A half a century ago, many of us might have told a woman aspiring to lead, “Now, don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.” Today, benevolent sexism may be more subtle, for instance, when a candidate list for a prime leadership job is generated, all the names are male. Worse, mentors to women never stop to ask why.

Gentlemen, beware those ostensibly benevolent, superficially positive thoughts and comments about women that convey an undertone of dismissal and that reinforce stereotypes about female dependence upon men. Make this a general practice in the workplace, but be especially vigilant in your mentoring relationships with women. And if you catch yourself making a sexist remark—no matter how benign—fess up, apologize, and vow to do better. We predict she’ll appreciate your sincerity.

44. No Cloning Allowed!

Gentlemen, beware the temptation to clone yourself in your mentees.

In a classic research study from the world of academe, exceptionally prolific college professors were asked to nominate their “most successful protégés.”⁹ When the researchers then studied the careers of these favored mentees, they discovered stunning similarities between mentors and mentees in terms of career choices and trajectory. In many ways, these “most successful” mentees had followed career paths that mirrored their mentors’.

Gentlemen, be sober and concerned about the deep-seated—often entirely unconscious—desire to validate your own life choices and career decisions through your mentees. It can feel profoundly gratifying when a mentee who admires and respects you decides to follow in your footsteps. It can be a tantalizing stroke to the ego when a woman you mentor replicates key portions of your own professional and life journey. We are all at risk of becoming enamored with and showing favoritism to mentees who validate our career decisions by making the same decisions. After all, imitation truly is the highest form of flattery.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the tendency to clone ourselves in the women we mentor is the fact that the motivation to do so operates below the radar of consciousness. If asked, most of us would give loud support for the virtue of encouraging a mentee to follow her own path, but in practice, we too often advise, cajole, pressure, and sometimes flat-out insist that mentees follow in our own footsteps.¹⁰ Consider this warning about cloning from Dr. Nadine Kaslow of Emory University’s School of Medicine: “It is imperative not to mentor people to be just like you! People thrive when mentored to be their own person. I think many women are particularly sensitive to the messaging about what you’re supposed to be like. So when mentoring women, you’ve got to go out of your way to let them follow their own path and pursue their own interests. This was one of the most significant things my male mentors did for me.”

Here are some of the most negative side effects that can accrue when a man endeavors to replicate himself in his female mentee:

♦ Distress: Imposing his own model of a successful career onto a mentee can create significant stress and anxiety in a woman.¹¹ This may be compounded if she has been socialized to please and comply in order to guarantee support and affirmation.

♦ Suppression of her dreams and aspirations: A mentor set on cloning himself in a mentee will often be blind to her unique vision of success, her priorities, and the developmental needs he should be attending to in an effort to get her there.

♦ Exacerbation of work-life conflicts: Because men have less often been required to share equally in child-rearing and household duties, unconscious cloning can make him insensitive to her work-life priorities. For instance, such a mentor might suggest to a female mentee that she forgo or delay having children in order to devote more time to her career. This might easily result in a painful bind in which she feels compelled to choose between a successful career and her desire for a family.¹²

♦ Diminished mentoring: A mentor may lose interest in a mentee who wishes to chart her own career path and take a route less familiar to the mentor. His engagement with her development and the value of the relationship may dim slowly, leaving her confused or perhaps convinced she has become a disappointment.

♦ Resentment: Although she may crave acceptance and affirmation from her mentor—as most mentees do—a mentee may become resentful and ambivalent about the mentorship when the mentor’s expectations and demands for her to copy his example become an unwanted burden.

Gentlemen, beware the thin boundary between career coaching and cloning. Accept that you are likely to be most attracted to mentoring women and men who most remind you of yourself. Recognize that the process of creating an affirming mirror image of yourself in a mentee is often insidious and unconscious. Discuss the risk of cloning openly with each mentee and ask her to bring it to your attention immediately should she feel coerced or pressured to deviate from her career dream in order to please you.

45. Never Entertain the Possibility of Sex

Guys, let’s get real. If you are heterosexual and if you mentor women often, it is exceptionally likely that you may find some of those women attractive, emotionally and physically. And you won’t be alone. Your trusted authors would be lying if we told you we’d never been aware of feeling some measure of attraction to a rising Athena now and then. But let’s get right to the punch line of element 45: no amount of attraction, bonding, or emotional intimacy EVER gives you clearance to sexualize a relationship with a woman you mentor, particularly when you hold any sort of power relative to her. Men, this is a bright-line boundary. No exceptions. Deal with it.

All right, with that out of the way, let’s talk about why sexual feelings are not at all unusual or shameful when mentoring across sex. We’ll also discuss how to think about these feelings and, most important, what to do with them.

Many strong cross-sex mentoring relationships conjure a delightful sense of excitement, synergy, creative exchange, and increasing levels of mutuality and intimacy, often between a man and a woman who share salient career aspirations, professional interests, and values.¹³ Moreover, the mentoring pair may enjoy close proximity, frequent interaction, and sometimes intense work together. As mentor and mentee discover slowly increasing and mutual affection, respect, trust, self-disclosure, and a sense of closeness, it should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone if feelings of attraction and erotic tension enter the mentorship equation at times.¹⁴ Although some measure of mutual liking and attraction are actually quite enjoyable, synergistic, and motivating, the value of a mentorship is placed in peril when one or both members of the relationship wish to add a sexual liaison.¹⁵ Erotic attraction can lead to either violation of important relationship boundaries or anxiety that ultimately provokes distancing and withdrawal from what was heretofore a valuable developmental relationship.

Gentlemen, a few of your closest and most meaningful mentorships with women might approach what psychologist Robert Sternberg would call companionate love. According to Sternberg’s triangular theory of love,¹⁶ when relationships include two key ingredients, they describe strong sibling connections, close personal friendships, and many enduring and particularly strong mentorships. These ingredients are: (1) intimacy, which encourages feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness, and (2) commitment, which encompasses the decision to stick together, providing support and backing even when the going gets rough. In their interviews with women about their high-impact mentorships with men, researchers Joan Jeruchim and Pat Shapiro found an undertone of companionate love: “Many women told us that they loved their mentors. This was not a sexual love but an intense emotional attachment.”¹⁷

Guys, although there is nothing inherently wrong with some emotional intimacy and commitment in a mentorship—in fact, these are two elements most likely to lead to good work together in the long term things get dicey when the third component of love relationships, passion, makes its appearance. According to Sternberg, passion encompasses the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, and sexual consummation.¹⁸ Let us be frank, gentlemen: a sexually intimate relationship with a mentee is nearly always destructive (personally and professionally) and ultimately painful for the mentee, not to mention disruptive to the workplace and toxic to your own reputation and career.¹⁹ Any sexual behavior between a man who holds power and a woman he mentors is inherently exploitive of a woman’s trust and an unequivocal violation of professional boundaries.²⁰ It is inherently confusing to a mentee who can no longer be sure how to think about her relationship to her mentor. Despite all the warnings men routinely hear about honoring fiduciary responsibilities to women they mentor, women continue to experience sexual advances and other boundary violations from men they counted on for mentorship.

Men, there are some ever-present risk factors for romanticized and sexualized mentorships with women. Know them, let them heighten your self-awareness, and be sober about their capacity to nudge you onto that slippery slope toward boundary violations with your mentee.²¹ We offer them here in no particular order:

♦ Your life circumstances: Men experiencing marriage problems, divorce, midlife adjustment issues, career stagnation, loneliness, doubts about their own attractiveness, and hidden depression are at greater risk of sexualizing a mentorship.

♦ Your own psychological needs: Men with strong dependency or narcissistic needs may have a powerful drive to be validated, affirmed, and cared for in an intimate workplace relationship with a woman.

♦ Being admired and needed: Men who discover powerful gratification in a relationship with a woman who admires, idealizes, and needs them may find the notion of sexual union so alluring that all the bright-line prohibitions against sex in a professional relationship become hazy and distant.

♦ Power as an aphrodisiac: Men who hold positions of significant power and prestige are often seen as more attractive to the women they mentor; power dynamics can easily become entwined with sexual dynamics.

♦ Kindness and support as an aphrodisiac: Men who are supportive, encouraging, and engaged with women when the rest of the organizational culture is hostile and unsupportive may elicit stronger attachment and emotional or physical enmeshment from women who feel isolated at work.

♦ Emotional vulnerability in a woman: Women with low self-esteem, a strong need for approval from an authority figure, or a history of exploitation by previous men in their lives may be more vulnerable to blurring boundaries in a mentoring relationship.

All right, gentlemen, we’ve established that romantic and sexual feelings can evolve around the periphery of an otherwise healthy and productive mentorship with a woman. We’ve determined that this has happened from time to time for nearly every guy who cares enough to intentionally mentor women. It does not mean you are creepy, weak, or abnormal. And, we’ve agreed that there are certain red flags and risk factors for sexualizing a mentorship that demand your careful attention and ongoing self-awareness. Finally, we’ve established that it is your sworn duty to manage these feelings appropriately and prevent them from turning a strong mentorship into something else, possibly exploiting your mentee and diminishing her career along the way. To make your task a bit easier, here are some final recommendations for keeping your mentorships with women on the up and up. We encourage you to take them in and review them from time to time.²²

♦ Remain aware of your own needs for affirmation and intimacy from women; be deliberate about getting these needs met outside of your mentorships.

♦ When your own emotional health or marriage is at low ebb, when you feel particularly lonely, or as the middle phase of life and career approaches, be particularly vigilant to boundaries in your mentorships.

♦ Remind yourself that intimacy and attraction to a mentee can magnify fantasies that she is a “perfect match,” when in fact you know comparatively little about her.

♦ When attraction and romantic thoughts threaten to derail a mentorship, tighten up your boundaries, make the mentorship even more public and transparent (watch those closed-door meetings), and remind yourself over and over again just how destructive a sexualized mentorship is likely to be for her and for you!

♦ Do NOT share feelings of attraction or romantic fantasies with your mentee. This is an unfair burden to put on her and it may paradoxically serve only to heighten intimacy. DO disclose your feelings to a trusted colleague (male or female) —possibly someone external to the organization—so that a reliable and confidential peer can help you with accountability and reality testing.

♦ If all else fails, give yourself a brisk slap to the face, or ask a really big guy to kick you hard in the nuts. Better that than the calamity you can inflict on your mentee and upon yourself should you fail to honor your ethical responsibility to do no harm.

46. Never Attempt to Hide the Mentorship from Your Spouse or Partner

Gentlemen, in this final element, we conclude this guide for male mentors with a word of admonition about your marriage or partnership. It is never a good idea to keep an important mentoring relationship secret from your significant other.

In some of the pioneering studies of cross-sex mentorships, concerns about the jealous spouse were among the more frequent reasons that men were reluctant to mentor women.²³ Wives of mentors were often quite resistant to the idea of their husband having a close relationship with a member of the opposite sex, especially if the two occasionally traveled together for work. To some extent, the same concerns and necessary caution hold true today. If your partner is prone to jealousy, or if things are rocky in your relationship, she might be especially sensitive to your devotion of time and commitment to another woman at work, especially if that mentee is younger and attractive. Remember our lesson on human evolution; on a primal level, this “other woman” could be seen as a direct threat to your partner’s well-being.

Guys, the potential for spousal or partner jealousy is not a reasonable excuse to avoid mentoring women. You’ve just got to be thoughtful, deliberate, and transparent when you do. And for goodness’ sake, don’t ever make the mistake of keeping a significant or ongoing mentorship with a woman secret from your partner. If she is already sensitive and a bit prone to jealousy, imagine how she’ll feel at that holiday party when your mentee introduces herself and proclaims her appreciation for all the time and assistance you’ve provided … Not good. And why would you want to threaten the health and happiness of a marriage or committed relationship by hiding a mentorship? Several of the women we spoke to when preparing this guide mentioned their concern for their mentor’s spouse.

When Becky Halstead, Army Brigadier General (ret), served as personal aide to an Army general, she decided to be proactive in thwarting any misperception or jealousy on the part of his spouse: “The way I dealt with the challenge was to do my very best to nurture a relationship with his spouse. I wanted her to know who I was as a person and an officer. I was always very careful to be approachable, respectful, and to make sure that there were never any hidden conversations. Those of us who are being mentored by a man need to respect that and not ignore the feelings of spouses.”

And, let’s not forget to think about the mentee’s spouse, gentlemen. How might he feel if his spouse raves about you all the time? Dr. Susan Madsen described her approach to bringing her spouse into her relationships with important male mentors over the years: “My husband has always been so supportive. I talked about my mentors a lot because that was so important in my career and what was happening at the moment. My husband really enjoyed hearing about it and, in fact, he got to know all three of my mentors well. I think it was important for him to know them because they were important people in my life.”

We think Becky Halstead and Susan Madsen are excellent role models for our primary recommendation for managing potential misunderstanding or jealousy on the part of your partner: do not attempt to hide any of your mentorships from her! Why would you? It is the twenty-first century; men have got to mentor women and mentor them deliberately. If your partner is so intensely jealous that she cannot tolerate the idea of you interacting with and championing the careers of women at work, it may be time for couples therapy or serious reconsideration of the health of your relationship.

At the same time, a spouse’s jealousy is sometimes just the wake-up call you need. Has a mentorship with a woman begun to veer into dangerous territory? Are you becoming sneaky, having clandestine meetings or conversations with your mentee? Are you hiding the relationship from your spouse and coworkers? Then it’s time to reread element 45 and check yourself and your feelings of attraction.

If your otherwise calm and supportive partner is sounding an alarm, she might just be saving you from a colossal blunder.