Supporting Female Mentorship at Work
In our last article, we reviewed a curious dynamic that plays out between professional women, in which a history of inequality has created pressures that can drive a rift between female leaders and subordinates at work. We believe a renewed emphasis on a mentorship mindset can improve the relationship between female professionals. In this article, we go over a few steps that can be taken to achieve this.
Gaining awareness of our own bias
The first step towards changing our attitudes is becoming aware of our own thoughts and beliefs. Leaders can set an example by engaging in a self-account of their own implicit biases. A senior manager at a major defense contractor admitted she previously preferred female subordinates who dressed more modestly and did not wear a lot of makeup. Why? She made an assumption that the more time one spent on their appearance, the more likely they were to leverage their looks to overcome shortcomings in performance. This leader now recognizes that bias and makes a point to not let it overcome her ability to make fair and accurate evaluations. Being able to recognize one’s own biases will allow the leader to better manage their expectations for their subordinates.
Following their leaders’ examples, subordinates need to recognize how their own implicit biases may affect the way they view the workplace and their co-workers, which can produce a change in learned behaviors that may otherwise be harmful to organizational relations.1 For example, I (Yasmine) know that I tend to find deeper voices more authoritative, and given my past experience with female leaders, often gravitate to male leadership. I (Kim) have falsely assumed that a person who was tall with an athletic build was a stronger leader than someone without those qualities.
Understanding that we, as women, hold these types of biases can allow us to uncover unfair expectations we may hold for our female leaders. For example, just because someone is a female, does not mean she will immediately empathize with my (Yasmine’s) childcare situation. Perhaps my memory of that first encounter is colored by my expectation that a former mother would certainly understand my struggle the same way I did. In fact, I can’t discount that my memory might not even have been an accurate account! And perhaps I (Kim) had unfair expectations that women who were exposed to the same hyper-masculine working environment would all experience it the same way.
If female subordinates can become more mindful of their biases, then they can better recognize how unfair expectations can potentially lead to disappointments.
References
- Ludwig, V. U., Brown, K. W., & Brewer, J. A. (2020). Self-regulation without force: Can awareness leverage reward to drive behavior change? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(6), 1382–1399. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620931460
- Mittal, E. V., & Sindhu, D. E. (2012). Emotional intelligence & leadership . Global Journal of Management and Business Research, 12(16).
- Albrecht, D., Bolstad, K., Endrizzi, T. L., Erickson, M., Fricker, R. A., Fruechte, M., … Larson, K. (2019). In Leadership as we know it (p. 161). Winona State University. https://openriver.winona.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=leadershipeducationbooks .
- Moss-Racusin, C. A., & Rudman, L. A. (2010). Disruptions in women’s self-promotion: The backlash avoidance model. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 34(2), 186–202. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2010.01561.x
- Headquarters, Department of the Army. (2019). Army doctrine publication 6-22: Army leadership and the profession.
- Gruber, J., Mendle, J., Lindquist, K. A., Schmader, T., Clark, L. A., Bliss-Moreau, E., … Williams, L. A. (2020). The future of women in psychological science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 174569162095278. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620952789
- Mitchell, P. (2020, March 6). How to mentor and support other women – and help them succeed. https://ideas.ted.com/how-to-mentor-and-support-other-women-and-help-them-succeed/
- Rocha, V., & Praag, M. (2020). Mind the gap: The role of gender in entrepreneurial career choice and social influence by founders. Strategic Management Journal, 41(5), 841–866. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3135
About the Authors
Yasmine Kalkstein
Yasmine is currently an Associate Professor of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where she also serves as the Lead Integrator in the Character Integration Advisory Group. As a Fulbright Scholar, she spent a year working at the Medical Decision Making Center at Ono Academic College in Israel. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from University of Minnesota and her BA in Biopsychology from University of Virginia. She is interested in the fields of character and leadership development, medical decision making, education, and human-centered design.
Kimberly Kopack
MAJ Kimberly Kopack is an Officership Instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. She commissioned through the University of Pittsburgh Army ROTC program as an Air Defense Artillery Officer, with a 4-year branch detail to Field Artillery. She holds an MA in Leadership Studies from the University of Texas at El Paso.
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