Women Benefit from Mentorship | Kathy Marshack

Back in the 90’s I made the statement

, “Women mentoring and mentoring women will undoubtedly insure a strong female leadership in the 21st century.” This has certainly proved true as more women discover the value of working with 

business coaches and life coaches to build the lives they want to live.

Women, just as men need to be wise to the politics of corporate life. They need to have professional credentials and skills if they want a good salary or to achieve that promotion. It’s just that women take things personally so those personal needs must be addressed.

My research has found that, for women, getting to know oneself in relationship to others is the foundation of life. Mentoring for them is about developing relationships and about learning as much from the protégé as from the mentor. It’s collaboration, a dialogue, an evolving and developing process leading both women into a deeper relationship as well as a more advanced stage of life.

In the past the mentor was a cherished grandmother, aunt, older sister or neighbor who took the young woman under her wings and showed her the ropes. With so many fractured families this support system isn’t always available.

If there is no woman to mentor her, no mentor to relate to her personally, a young woman may hold herself back from accomplishment because of lack of confidence or lack of a mirror to show her she’s on the right track. That’s why being a mentor, or finding one, can be the key to success.

So just what does a mentor teach? Mentoring can cover the gamut of female behavior from dressing for success to litigation tactics to canning vegetables to dating etiquette. If you’re considering mentoring, don’t limit your options to the traditional male arena. We owe it to the next generation to teach what we know. Your young protégé needs to learn how to be a woman, not just an attorney or an artist.

Principally a mentor will encourage her to believe in herself. However, young women are still in great need of learning about the career possibilities there are in the world, so if you have a unique specialty, tout it. Let young women know that there are new and exciting career realms to explore.

Please join me on my Facebook page and share your story of how a mentor helped you.