When Mentors Attack

Did you ever / do you have a mentor? Sometimes they seem like unicorns, which can also be approached, or caught, by a lucky few. For the rest of us, they might as well not exist. And then there are some people who manage to secure a mentor, only to discover that the beneficial relationship they expected can become seamy or upsetting fast.

Roxane Gay has a piece in Fortune about the recent mess at Stanford, which she sums up this way:

It’s a murky situation — but a mentoring relationship went horribly wrong. Clearly both professional and personal boundaries were crossed inappropriately — and a young woman who was supposed to be mentored and encouraged professionally was, instead, embroiled in what was, at best, an unhealthy relationship with someone who possessed undue influence.

Still, when mentoring relationships go well, they can be hugely influential and helpful to a person just starting out:

There is ample evidence that mentoring for college students can have a significant impact on how prepared recent graduates feel as they enter the workplace. A 2014 Gallup study of 30,000 college students found that mentoring opportunities were remarkably important to long term career success and satisfaction. Brandon Busteed, the executive director of Gallup Education noted how the study revealed that, “the three most potent elements linked to long-term success for college grads relate to emotional support: feeling that they had a professor who made them excited about learning, that the professors at their alma mater cared about them as a person, and that they had a mentor who encouraged them to pursue their goals and dreams.”

Alumni are a natural source of mentoring for colleges and universities. These alumni and their success stories are living proof that the education at any given college or university works, and that the current students are making a wise, invaluable investment in their future. Joe Lonsdale is one of countless alumni who have been tapped by their alma maters to work with promising undergraduates. Unfortunately, though, many universities seem to think that getting mentors on campus is all they need to do. There is, all too often, little oversight and few systems in place to help students when these relationships become troubled.

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review suggests that we place too much value in the idea that mentoring is a panacea — especially for women:

As companies continue to see their pipelines leak at mid-to-senior levels even though they’ve invested considerable time and resources in mentors and developmental opportunities, they are actively searching for ways to retain their best female talent. In a 2010 World Economic Forum report on corporate practices for gender diversity in 20 countries, 59% of the companies surveyed say they offer internally led mentoring and networking programs, and 28% say they have women-specific programs. But does all this effort translate into actual promotions and appointments for both sexes?

The numbers suggest not. …

women are paid $4,600 less in their first post-MBA jobs, occupy lower-level management positions, and have significantly less career satisfaction than their male counterparts with the same education. That’s also the case when we take into account factors such as their industry, prior work experience, aspirations, and whether they have children. (For more findings, see Nancy M. Carter and Christine Silva, “Women in Management: Delusions of Progress,”HBR March 2010.) Yet among that same group, more women than men report having mentors.

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