As young professionals, encouragement and guidance from a good boss makes a world of difference to our future career path.

I found a great boss in my first job who used to spend time with his department members and aligning the company’s goals with theirs.

Later in my career, I went on to become one of the youngest Finance Directors of a leading international Insurance company in their then biggest office in Poland. The one constant in both positions was having a male boss who was also my mentor.

I continued to be in touch with the first one until his death. He was truly grieved for. A great man, he’d mentored many of us and in his death, he reunited many of us who are now scattered all over the world.

I’m still in touch with the second one and enjoy watching the photos of his grandchildren and his pet dog on Facebook. He and his wife are family for me.

That’s why I was disturbed to read the findings in a recent survey on the workplace that indicated a backlash after the MeToo campaigns.

• 60% of managers who are men are uncomfortable participating in a common work activity with a woman, such as mentoring, working alone, or socializing together. That’s a 32% jump from a year ago.
• Senior-level men are now far more hesitant to spend time with junior women than junior men across a range of basic work activities such as 1-on-1 meetings, travel, and work dinners.

Without the mentoring of these 2 bosses at different stages of my career, I would have taken longer to achieve what I did.

I firmly believe that women professionals need mentors, sponsors and even champions at work.

Mentoring helps create a sacred space where professionals can work towards achieving their potential while adding value to their organization.

Investing in Emotional Capital is important

In the good old days when I was serving my articleship in London with a respected mid-tier Accounting Firm, in addition to the Principal under whom we did our training, my employer also had another program where a senior manager or Partner was also appointed as their mentor.

I thought it was a normal practice. That was until I worked for a firm where they were the best paymasters in the industry and recruited amazing talent. Yet they had one of the highest attrition rates. Part of our mandate as senior managers was to reduce the attrition rate.

For sure they had a buddy system for new employees for their first 6 months of employment. Most times the buddy and the employee hardly met and there was no accountability.

So, it didn’t come as a surprise when a young newly qualified professional of high caliber told me he had quit.

One can imagine how he felt because he told me he had stated in his exit interview that the firm knew how to recruit talent but needed to work on retaining them!

What a contrast to my experience and his! In fact, my Mentor showed me how to handle tricky situations at work. My Principal’s final guidance before I left the firm and embarked on my professional journey was to always find a good mentor even in an unofficial capacity.

Here’s the deal.

Progressive companies and organizations understand the simple fact that focusing on their financial capital and intellectual capital is not enough to be successful.

They also have to invest in human capital and treat ‘emotional capital’ as another vital asset necessary to recruit, nurture, motivate and above all, retain good people.

In fact, many of my clients come to me for help in managing their careers in an environment where there is inadequate emotional capital.

They don’t use those words specifically, but they talk about emotionally cold bosses, poor staff relations and an HR Team that seems to only train and deal with salary issues. They find client relations feel like walking on eggshells. It’s clear what they’re dealing with.

On the other hand, a company that values good emotional capital and encourages people to achieve their potential sees an increase in return in all forms of capital.

It’s an opportunity for Human Resource, which is often criticized for not doing enough for employees to show their skills by promoting Company Mentorship programs. And also encouraging professionals at all levels to mentor their direct reports and even peers.

But first we need to appreciate why Emotional Capital is so important.

In today’s pressure filled world, organizations need to be more sensitive to the needs of their employees to prevent burnout and make sure that their productivity isn’t compromised.

The cost to company of training an employee who is then poached away by a competitor is all too common. Therefore, it’s important to engage the employee intellectually, offer career prospects and also touch their emotions in order to build loyalty to the organization.

It’s equally important to build the employees emotional intelligence levels.

This is possible if the employer understands and manages the company’s emotional capital.

There are many tools and strategies out there that can help the company achieve its goal.

One of the simplest and most effective ones that can provide employees with the right level of support and guidance enabling them to achieve their potential and prevent attrition, is mentoring.

That’s why there is an increase in organizations, whether small or large starting to run in-house mentoring programs and employees are encouraged to consider mentoring roles in their performance evaluations.

If you want to raise your Executive Presence at work, becoming an informal mentor is worth considering. Especially if there is no formal procedure in place.

In fact, most of the time professionals who want to be seen as leaders mentor their colleagues and teams using their referent power base.

How Mentoring creates a win-win situation

There are many benefits for organizations who implement mentoring programs, namely,

Mentors can assist employees cope with changes within the organization (especially during restructuring and reorganizations) as well as facilitate their learning and development needs.

Mentoring helps build trust and respect for the organization and shows that the employer is serious about the career development path of its employees which helps reduce the incidents of attrition.

There are times when going the normal HR route might not help resolve a conflict or issue whereas a good mentoring partnership can help solve issues, both career and personal by finding ways to counteract stress and pressure.

It isn’t just the organization that benefits from the mentor-mentee relationship.

This is a powerful personal and professional development tool that makes people feel more empowered and confident.

Mentoring also plays a role in building the emotional intelligence of individuals thus contributing to the emotional capital of the organization.

An emotionally intelligent mentor can draw from his or her own experience to guide the mentee on matters that might not be directly related to work, but which impact the mentee’s productivity and performance.

I still remember the time when an hour before I was to drive my car from Minsk to Warsaw, my father’s driver managed to smash my beloved Honda Prelude, He had taken to get the vehicle fueled up but damaged the vehicle at a nasty blind spot with another driver hitting it.

What made it worse was that despite my having asked for a comprehensive insurance, my father had only arranged a Third Party one because we only required the insurance for the journey. After that, I would have gotten new insurance. It was done in good faith but this insurance didn’t cover the bill for $3,000!

Back at work, my boss cum mentor knew I was upset and displayed empathy with a story.

As a newly married person he had smashed his wife’s car while reversing. Insurance didn’t cover it because he had a learner’s permit at the time.

He shared how he had felt and what he did.

Coming from a person whom I admired and who could never do anything wrong, I definitely felt better and took decisive action. This included getting the car repaired and extracting the payment from the other driver who was at fault.

In later years, I’ve noticed my own mentoring style includes stories of similar experiences to help my mentees.

How could it not? After all, both my mentors were also role models for me.

A good mentor will always aim to help explore and improve the emotional intelligence of the individuals they are mentoring.

They understand how to boost the mentees existing skills and experience, training instead of simply relying on the mentees technical and intellectual abilities.

They understand that there is a human being working at the office who needs to be nurtured in order to bring out the best in them.

That’s why current survey results make me wonder.

If managers are not willing to mentor female colleagues, then what will be the impact on the emotional capital of the organization?

For sure female mentors could do the job but that would defeat the purpose of having an authentic mentoring program. We’d be looking at exclusions instead of a whole.

One hopes this is a temporary situation and ambivalence to mentor gender diverse colleagues will soon recede.  There is much to be gained through the medium of mentorship.

Have you ever been a mentor? How do you add value to the emotional capital of your organization?

PS. If this post has inspired you to find a mentor to help you advance your career, then you want to check out this resource.

Click here or on the image below to get Karmic Ally Coaching’s Complete Mentor Toolkit for Professionals.

In today’s day and age of gender equality and equal employment opportunities, do women professionals really need champions or sponsors to help open doors to opportunities that can get them ahead in the corporate world? Won’t a mentor suffice?

Or better still, don’t we have what it takes to achieve it all on sheer competency?

This week I’d like to know your view. I am keen to read what you have to say about this topic which has come up time and again both during my corporate world days as well as in my second innings career as a coach who endeavors to empower women professionals to play their A game.

I believe, without gender bias, that everyone should have a mentor, whether in school, college, work or even if you are running your own business.

The mentors can change as you change but having one who has been where you are at a given point in time and is willing to give you the gift of experience and insights is invaluable to help you develop in the direction that you want to.

But a champion or a sponsor- that is a different kettle of fish altogether. It can take your game to the next level, provided you find the right champion.

The story behind the Champion vs Mentor debate

It started off innocently enough during a Get to Know You phone call with a mid-career professional who is doing well with her career but wants more.

In the course of the conversation she proudly stated that she had gotten where she was without anyone to promote her cause but did not have the connections that will take her further and help realize her dream. She used the word mentor, but for all intents and purposes, she was alluding to a champion.

It got me thinking, do women professionals need champions or mentors? I reflected on my career and as a student of Social Science, who draws conclusions from empirical evidence, my first thought is that one needs both.

I believe that there is no gender discrimination when it comes to benefiting from a champion. The difference if any lies in the fact that women are conditioned to be self-deprecating and often find themselves balancing a family life which can take precedence with their career.

Taking a career break is not uncommon but when they return to the corporate world, their male counterparts and other females who chose not to take the break are miles ahead.

Sometimes they have to take a position lower than their actual credentials and competency just to get a foot back in the door. Or decide to do their own thing and a new entrepreneur, mommy-preneur or solo-preneur is born.

Women I find feel they need to know more before they apply for the promotion.

Men on the other hand are more assertive and ambitious when it comes to trying to get the position. Even if they are not the best qualified candidate for the job.

So, women professionals do need champions to encourage them and put the spotlight on them.

They also need to demonstrate Executive Presence.

Gathering evidence that women need champions to get ahead in their careers and business

Looking back at my own career, I benefited from having both. The mentors who gave me perspectives and insights to look for an end goal. And champions who knew that by shining the spotlight on me with the higher ups, they would get ahead with their careers while promoting mine.

The mentors are still very much there in my life. The champions are now faded memories from a long time ago.

There is no guarantee a champion today will not be the first to pull the rug from under your feet if promoting you further is not in alignment with the Champion’s own career goals. Or if you become a threat to the status quo.

The article To get promoted, women need champions not mentors quotes Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor.

It raises the point that you need a champion or sponsor who will promote you, the protégé behind closed doors and support you when it matters because you make them look good.

I remember an office event that dates almost 9 years back when 3 female tax partners visited from the Northern Americas office.

All the female managers and senior managers were rounded up at short notice (read, while I was driving home at 8 pm) at a 5-star hotel’s rooftop restaurant for presentations and drinks.

I think they were meant to give us all motivational talks to encourage us to go for partnership as the firm in India at the time did not have female partners and very few women in the upper echelons of management anyway.

We did get our first female partner the following year from the taxation services which was joked about by the men in hushed tones (her husband was a partner too).

That was the 1 department which was predominantly women-oriented, and the staff actually went home at close of official office hours. Of course, she had a male champion sponsor her.

Coming back to the event, each of these women gave a talk which followed a script. It was of how bad life was and then they were discovered by a mentor/champion in the firm and things took off.

Not one said she got where she was because of hard work or going the extra distance or proving that she was as good as any man for the job.

No tips were shared about how we were going to do it though it was clear that each woman in the room needed a man to sponsor her.

As for the ladies who attended, we met up the next day and had a good laugh and discussed the whacking good free meal with flowing wine and how the story did nothing to motivate us.

Where were we going to find champions when we did not need to be rescued?

A global phenomenon, not isolated to women in India Inc

Whenever there is an article in the local or international papers about top women executives, there are very few women who have actually taken charge of their careers without the presence of a champion or sponsor or even a father who thought his daughter or daughters could run the company.

In search of more evidence, I came across a Slideshare presentation by a young MBA student on the subject of Women in the Corporate World.

The 5 women whom he chose to mention all had fathers or champions who promoted their careers with just 1 exception. This was a lady started her business from home and is now a world-renowned name in the world of cosmetics.

There are other women who have started their businesses at the kitchen table and finally become so successful that they retire their husbands to help manage the spouse’s growing empire.

To give the student full credit, he has looked at the gender bias in terms of opportunities and pay for women in a global context. Perhaps, someday he will champion the cause of women in the corporate world.

Quite possibly, women would do even better if they had the support of other women who have trail blazed the path that they are now walking with mentoring and encouragement to dare to take up the challenge of reaching the top. Women, just like men, need to believe that they can have it all and take it from there.

So, what do you think? Do women need champions to get ahead in the corporate world? Or is it a mindset problem? I’d love to know what you think!

Related reading and resources:

Women need power brokers not mentors to help them succeed

Women in the Corporate World

Do Women shy away from promotions

Why Mentors are important for Professional Success

Written By: Vatsala Shukla