Mentoring challenges of minority professionals

A key finding of this research is that professionals of color who plateaued in management received mentoring that was basically instructional; it helped them develop better skills. Minority executives, by contrast, enjoyed closer, fuller developmental relationships with their mentors. This was particularly true in people’s early careers, when they needed to build confidence, credibility, and competence. That is, purely instructional mentoring was not sufficient; proteges needed to feel connected to their mentors.

Specifically, a mentor must play the dual role of coach and counselor: coaches give technical advice—explaining how to do something—while counselors talk about the experience of doing it and offer emotional support. Both are crucial. If a protege doesn’t have someone to talk to about his experiences in the organization, he will often have trouble implementing any coaching advice. This is especially true early in a person’s career, when the instructional advice requires him to assume behaviors that he is not yet comfortable with. Later in the protege’s career, the mentor must focus on establishing and expanding a network of relationships, including sponsorship and connections to people who are higher in the organization. While the quality of the interpersonal relationships remains important, the diversity of the network becomes another crucial factor.

Many people, however, do not approach mentoring from a developmental perspective. They don’t understand how to work with subordinates, especially minorities, to prepare them for future opportunities. My own experience and the findings of other studies suggest that organizations can change this by educating managers about their developmental role and by teaching them how to mentor effectively. Of prime importance is an understanding of the kinds of developmental relationships that people need at different points in their careers. Also crucial is an appreciation that, because race and racism can pose significant obstacles for people of color, mentors of minorities may need to approach mentoring differently than they do with their white proteges. This education process must include an awareness of the inherent difficulties of mentoring across race. A significant amount of research shows that cross-race (as well as cross-gender) relationships can have difficulty forming, developing, and maturing. Nevertheless, the mentoring of minority professionals must often be across race, as it was for most of the minority executives in my study. And to develop the personal connections that are the foundation of a good mentoring relationship, the participants must overcome the following potential obstacles.

Negative Stereotypes. Mentors must be willing to give their proteges the benefit of the doubt: they invest in their proteges because they expect them to succeed. But a potential mentor who holds negative stereotypes about an individual, perhaps based on race, might withhold that support until the prospective protege has proven herself worthy of investment. (Such subtle racism may help explain why none of the minority professionals in my study had been fast-tracked. Whites were placed on the fast track based on their perceived potential, whereas people of color had to display a proven and sustained record of solid performance—in effect, they often had to be overprepared—before they were placed on the executive track.)

On the other hand, when a person of color feels that he won’t be given the benefit of the doubt, he behaves in certain ways—for example, he might not take risks he should for fear that if he fails, he will be punished disproportionately.

Identification and Role Modeling. Close mentoring relationships are much more likely to form when both parties see parts of themselves in the other person: the protege sees someone whom he wants to be like in the future. The mentor sees someone who reminds him of himself years ago. This identification process can help the mentor see beyond a protege’s rough edges. But if the mentor has trouble identifying with his protege—and sometimes differences in race are an obstacle—then he might not be able to see beyond the protege’s weaknesses. Furthermore, when the mentoring relationship is across race, the mentor will often have certain limitations as a role model. That is, if the protege adopts the behavior of the mentor, it might produce different results. In my study, an African-American participant recounted how his white mentor encouraged him to adopt the mentor’s more aggressive style. But when the protege did so, others labeled him an “angry black man.”

Skepticism About Intimacy. At companies without a solid track history of diversity, people might question whether close, high-quality relationships across race are possible. Does the mentor, for example, have an ulterior motive, or is the protege selling out his culture?

Public Scrutiny. Because cross-race relationships are rare in most organizations, they tend to be more noticeable, so people focus on them. The possibility of such scrutiny will often discourage people from participating in a cross-race relationship in the first place.

Peer Resentment. A protege’s peers can easily become jealous, prompting them to suggest or imply that the protege does not deserve whatever benefits he’s received. Someone who fears such resentment might avoid forming a close relationship with a prospective mentor of another race. Of course, peer resentment occurs even with samerace mentorships, but it is a much greater concern in cross-race relationships because of their rarity. Such obstacles often hinder cross-race mentoring from reaching its full potential. In my research, I have found that they make people less willing to open up about sensitive issues and more afraid of disagreements and confrontations. The general sense is that cross-race relationships are more fragile.

Not surprisingly, many cross-race mentoring relationships suffer from “protective hesitation”: both parties refrain from raising touchy issues. For example, Richard Davis, a white mentor in my study, thought that his African-American protege’s style was abrasive, but he kept that feeling to himself in order to avoid any suggestion that he was prejudiced—specifi- cally that he harbored the stereotype that all black men are brash and unpolished. Davis eventually found out that he was right when his protege’s style became an issue with others. At that point, though, his protege was deemed to have a problem —one that could have been prevented had Davis only spoken sooner. Protective hesitation can become acute when the issue is race—a taboo topic for many mentors and proteges. People believe that they aren’t supposed to talk about race; if they have to discuss it, then it must be a problem. But that mind-set can cripple a relationship. Consider, for example, a protege who thinks that a client is giving him a difficult time because of his race but keeps his opinion to himself for fear that his mentor will think he has a chip on his shoulder. Had the protege raised the issue, his mentor might have been able to nip the problem early on. The mentor, for instance, might have sent the protege to important client meetings alone, thereby signaling that the protege has the backing of his mentor and the authority to make high-level decisions.

The above example highlights an important finding from my research: minorities tend to advance further when their white mentors understand and acknowledge race as a potential barrier. Then they can help their proteges deal effectively with some of those obstacles. In other words, relationships in which protege and mentor openly discuss racial issues generally translate into greater opportunity for the protege.

To encourage and foster that type of mentoring, organizations can teach people, especially managers, how to identify and surmount various race-related difficulties. For example, a white mentor might make a concerted effort to communicate to her minority protege that she has already given him the benefit of the doubt. In a meeting, she could openly endorse his good ideas, thereby signaling to others that they, too, should value his opinions. Such actions would curb the protege’s fear of failure and encourage him to take risks and speak about difficulties. And consider the practice of role modeling. If a mentor accepts that he might be limited in his ability to serve as a role model, he can help his protege identify other appropriate people. He can also offer open-ended advice, perhaps by using qualifying comments (“This might not work for you, but from my experience...”) and invite discussion of the advice rather than assume it will be taken. Otherwise, the mentor might easily misconstrue situations when his advice isn’t taken, which could make the mentor feel slighted and possibly even cause him to abandon the relationship.

It should be noted that when the complexities of cross-race relationships are handled well, they can strengthen a relationship. For one thing, if a mentor and protege trust each other enough to work together in dealing with touchy race-related issues, then they will likely have a sturdy foundation to handle other problems. In fact, people have reported that race differences enabled them to explore other kinds of differences, thus broadening the perspectives of both parties. That education was invaluable because people who can fully appreciate the uniqueness of each individual are more likely to be better managers and leaders. Indeed, in my research on cross-race mentoring, mentors have frequently reported those relationships were the most fulfilling in terms of their own growth and transformation.

As discussed earlier, one of a mentor’s key tasks is to help the protege build a large and diverse network of relationships. The network must be strong enough to withstand even the loss of the mentor. Stephen Williams’s mentor, for example, left the company after Williams had entered Stage 3 and was tackling increasingly challenging assignments. From my research, I have found that the most effective network is heterogeneous along three dimensions. First, the network should have functional diversity; it should include mentors, sponsors, role models, peers, and even people whom the proteges themselves might be developing mentoring relationships toward. Second, the network should have variety with respect to position (seniors, colleagues, and juniors) as well as location (people within the immediate department, in other departments, and outside the organization). And third, the network should be demographically mixed in terms of race, gender, age, and culture.

Although a detailed description of the three dimensions is beyond the scope of this article, several points are worth noting. The difference between mentorship and sponsorship is that the former entails a much closer personal connection. Sponsors are coaches and advocates, whereas mentors are also counselors, friends, and in many ways surrogate family. Nevertheless, the role of sponsors can be critical when, for example, the protege wants to pursue an opportunity outside the mentor’s department. Also, especially when key decisions at an organization are made by committee, the protege will benefit from having as many sponsors as possible.

A frequently overlooked area is a protege’s relationships with peers. People of color, in particular, can oftentimes become isolated from their peers due to resentment. But peer networks are crucial. For one thing, peers can help one another manage their careers and perform important self-assessments. They can be sympathetic sounding boards, useful information checks (what was your experience like when you first started in that division?), and helpful devil’s advocates. For Stephen Williams, participation in a self-help group of African- Americans at his organization provided valuable social support and also expanded his network beyond his association with his engineering colleagues.

To ensure that a protege is not missing any important peer relationships, the mentor must sometimes intervene. For example, if a mentor notices that his protege is not part of an informal go-to-lunch crowd, he might assign her to a certain project with people in that group to encourage those friendships to form.

Another often overlooked area is a protege’s relationships with juniors, which will help the protege become a valuable mentor in the future. Also, particularly for people in middle management, good relationships with junior staff can enable them to stay up-to-date with the latest technology. Furthermore, a protege’s mentors and superiors can be influenced greatly by the opinions of junior staff.

A network of relationships becomes vulnerable when it lacks any one of the dimensions. For example, if a person’s network is limited to his organization, he will find it difficult to find employment elsewhere. On the other hand, people of color have the tendency to draw on a network from primarily outside their organizations. Such support can be invaluable, but it will provide little help when that individual is being considered for a highly desirable in-house assignment. Establishing a diverse network is just the start—a person’s network must be replenished and modified continually.