Few ofthe women in this sample worked in organizations with formal mentoring programs. Women from engineering, the Big 4,2 and the insurance industry said the mentoring programs were ineffective because of lack of interest of the mentor and lack of fit to the mentee’s career. At one Big 4 consulting firm, employees got two mentors: a ‘buddy’ (usually not within her department) and a ‘performance manager’. If the woman got a performance manager who advocated for her,
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then she could gain greater access to higher-profile billable project hours. Mentoring of some kind seems to be an essential part of Big 4 culture all the way to the partner level, although mentors are responsible for multiple mentees. Most women at Big 4 firms praised their mentors (often their first managers who continued to help their careers even after they switched managers). One young woman used the opportunity of reviewing her mentor (part of his performance review) to resolve successfully an issue that bothered her. Another young woman described an unfortunate situation in which her mentor ignored her, and then asked her to lie about his performance. She soon left the firm, but she did not “burn any bridges,” a phrase commonly heard in these interviews.
The definition of mentor varied. Women found informal mentoring much more successful. Women earlier in their careers identified women as informal mentors. They self-selected women who were leaders in the organization as mentors, referring to the “strong woman” who was a role model. Sometimes their contact with this woman was temporary and short-lived, but the woman inspired them. (Some women also talked about mothers as “strong women” who provided important support to them.) Women who had worked in the IT industry longer identified mostly men who were their bosses. When a woman had a boss who
was an advocate for her, she felt more supported and had better access to opportunities.
From the interviews five types of informal mentor relationships emerged: guide, role model, boss advocate, defender and teacher (Table 4).
Many women (24 of 38) recognized the importance of networking, either socially or professionally, to gain access to opportunities that could help their careers or where they could help others.
One woman who was put on the “fast track” by her first boss (who was also fast-tracked), described what he did for her:
I didn t know what kind of management job I would be walking into but when one opened up, he was right there pushing me into it. He promoted me. That’s where things started to move for me. I was put into more high visibility jobs. More exposure, and I got creditability as a result…
My ex-manager had about 25 years in the company, so he would help me understand what the agendas were, what the politics were, what the major issues were. It could be easy to take a side and then get caught up in it. Certainly if I wanted to change positions, he was there to advise me. Managing employees, because he had managed people for 20 of the 25 years he was there, and he would help me. That was really valuable to me. (R18)
Typically, women maintained these early manager-mentoring relationships throughout their careers, going back to the same informal mentor, even when they no longer worked together.
One woman described why she preferred a female mentor in these terms.
But the ones I get the most out of are women in leadership positions, because our motivationsfor leadership are different. Men can work all the hours in the world and be aggressive and women cannot necessarily do that, no matter what their challenges are. The barriers they have are a little higher, to get into those positions. They have to do things differently than the men. (R14)