My first day at work at the World Bank, Larry Summers asked me to perform some calculations. I was at a loss on how to proceed, so I turned to Lant Pritchett for help. “Just put it into Lotus 1-2-3,” he advised. I told him that I didn’t know how to do that. “Wow,” he exclaimed. “I can’t believe you’ve gotten this far, or even how you can understand basic economics, without knowing how to use Lotus.” I went home convinced that I was going to get fired. The next day, Lant sat me down. My heart was pounding. But instead of firing me, he taught me how to use the program. That’s a great boss.
Women are also more reluctant to apply for promotions even when deserved, often believing that good job performance will naturally lead to rewards.8 Carol Frohlinger and Deborah Kolb, founders of Negotiating Women, Inc., describe this as the “Tiara Syndrome,” where women “expect that if they keep doing their job well someone will notice them and place a tiara on their head.”9 In a perfect meritocracy, tiaras would be doled out to the deserving, but I have yet to see one floating around an office. Hard work and results should be recognized by others, but when they aren’t, advocating for oneself becomes necessary. As discussed earlier, this must be done with great care. But it must be done.
Taking risks, choosing growth, challenging ourselves, and asking for promotions (with smiles on our faces, of course) are all important elements of managing a career. One of my favorite quotes comes from author Alice Walker, who observed, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
Do not wait for power to be offered. Like that tiara, it might never materialize. And anyway, who wears a tiara on a jungle gym?
5
Are You My Mentor?
WHEN I WAS a child, one of my favorite books was Are You My Mother?, the story of a baby bird that emerges from its shell to discover an empty nest. The hatchling heads off in search of its missing mother, asking a kitten, a hen, a dog, and a cow the burning question: “Are you my mother?” Each animal responds, “No.” The hatchling grows more desperate, eventually shouting, “Are you my mother?” at a car, a boat, a plane, and even a steam shovel, which can only respond with a loud “Snort!” Stuck in the shovel’s jaws, the hatchling appears doomed until, miraculously, the shovel lifts the bird back to its nest. The mother returns and the hatchling announces, “You are a bird, and you are my mother.”
This children’s book poignantly mirrors the professional question “Are you my mentor?” If someone has to ask the question, the answer is probably no. When someone finds the right mentor, it is obvious. The question becomes a statement. Chasing or forcing that connection rarely works, and yet I see women attempt this all the time. When I give speeches or attend meetings, a startling number of women introduce themselves and, in the same breath, ask me to be their mentor. I cannot recall a single man asking me to do the same (although men have asked me to mentor their wives or girlfriends).
The question is a total mood killer—the equivalent of turning to a pensive date and asking, “What are you thinking?” Every senior woman I have talked to about this is deluged with the same request. Their reaction is unanimous: “Oh, I never know what to say when people I don’t know ask me to be their mentor.” The interaction is flattering, but awkward. Even media mogul Oprah Winfrey, who has taught so much to an entire generation, admits that she feels uncomfortable when someone asks her to be a mentor. She once explained, “I mentor when I see something and say, ‘I want to see that grow.’ ”
In part, we’ve brought this on ourselves. For the past decade, talk of mentorship and sponsorship has been topic number one at any women’s career seminar. It is the focus of blogs, newspaper articles, and research reports. Many of these young women are responding to the often repeated advice that if they want to scale the corporate ladder, they need to find mentors (people who will advise them) as well as sponsors (people who will use their influence to advocate for them).1
The emphasis on finding a mentor became especially clear to me when I went back to speak at Harvard Business School in the spring of 2011. I was invited by Dean Nitin Nohria, who joined me onstage and conducted the interview. His first questions centered on Facebook and what it was like to work for Mark. I told him that I loved it, except on days when coworkers said things like, “Sheryl, can you look at this? We need to know what old people will think of this feature.” We discussed the Arab Spring and a slew of other timely topics. Dean Nohria then asked me a question about women in the workforce. I’m not sure what possessed me, but I turned to look at the audience, paused, and answered with brutal honesty. “If current trends continue, fifteen years from today, about one-third of the women in this audience will be working full-time and almost all of you will be working for the guy you are sitting next to.”
Dead silence in the large auditorium. I continued, “I’m sorry if this sounds harsh or surprises anyone, but this is where we are. If you want the outcome to be different, you will have to do something about it.”
On that strained note, Dean Nohria ended the interview and turned to the audience for a Q&A. A number of men leapt to the microphone and posed thoughtful, big-picture questions like “What did you learn at Google that you are applying at Facebook?” and “How do you run a platform company and ensure stability for your developers?” Then two women rose to the microphone. The first asked, “Do you think it’s okay to work for a company that competes with the company you worked for before business school?” The second asked, “How can I get a mentor?” My heart sank.
The men were focusing on how to manage a business and the women were focusing on how to manage a career. The men wanted answers and the women wanted permission and help. I realized that searching for a mentor has become the professional equivalent of waiting for Prince Charming. We all grew up on the fairy tale “Sleeping Beauty,” which instructs young women that if they just wait for their prince to arrive, they will be kissed and whisked away on a white horse to live happily ever after. Now young women are told that if they can just find the right mentor, they will be pushed up the ladder and whisked away to the corner office to live happily ever after. Once again, we are teaching women to be too dependent on others.
To be clear, the issue is not whether mentorship is important. It is. Mentorship and sponsorship are crucial for career progression. Both men and women with sponsors are more likely to ask for stretch assignments and pay raises than their peers of the same gender without sponsors.2 Unfortunately for women, men often have an easier time acquiring and maintaining these relationships.3 One recent study shows that men are significantly more likely than women to be sponsored and that those with sponsors are more satisfied with their rates of advancement.4
Because it is harder for young women to find mentors and sponsors, they are taking a more active role in seeking them out. And while normally I applaud assertive behavior, this energy is sometimes misdirected. No matter how crucial these connections are, they probably won’t develop from asking a virtual stranger, “Will you be my mentor?” The strongest relationships spring out of a real and often earned connection felt by both sides.
I’ve been lucky to have strong mentors and sponsors over the course of my career. The acknowledgments in this book include a long list of people who have been generous enough to guide and advise me. During my junior year of college, I took Larry Summers’s public sector economics class. He offered to supervise my senior thesis—something very few Harvard professors volunteer to do for undergraduates. Larry has been a major part of my life ever since. I met Don Graham, chairman of the Washington Post Company, more than fifteen years ago when I was working in D.C., and he has helped me navigate some of my most challenging professional situations. If it hadn’t been for Paley Center CEO Pat Mitchell’s encouragement and support, I might never have spoken publicly about women in the workplace. These three, among so many others, have encouraged me, made introductions, and taught me by example. Their wisdom helped me avoid mistakes—and clean up the ones I wasn’t smart
enough to avoid.
In turn, I have tried to mentor others, including friends of friends, and as I get older, children of friends. I get so much joy out of watching the career of Emily White, who started working with me right out of college and now runs mobile partnerships for Facebook. When I first met Bryan Schreier, he had never worked in a tech company or traveled abroad, but he displayed unusually strong leadership and analytical skills. I hired him to help build Google’s global operations, and he exceeded every expectation. Years later, when he wanted to pursue a new career as an investor, I introduced him to his current partners at Sequoia Capital. He is now a highly successful early stage venture capitalist, and I can see the impact he has on the companies he advises. I am fortunate to have Emily and Bryan and so many other talented people in my life.
Studies show that mentors select protégés based on performance and potential.5 Intuitively, people invest in those who stand out for their talent or who can really benefit from help. Mentors continue to invest when mentees use their time well and are truly open to feedback. It may turn into a friendship, but the foundation is a professional relationship. Given this, I believe we have sent the wrong message to young women. We need to stop telling them, “Get a mentor and you will excel.” Instead, we need to tell them, “Excel and you will get a mentor.”
Clara Shih is a superb example. I met Clara about five years ago at a conference and was immediately impressed by her ideas about social media. She went on to write a thoughtful book on the subject and founded Hearsay Social, a software company that helps businesses manage their social media presence. Every so often, Clara would contact me, always with an interesting point or a thoughtful question. She never asked to get together to “catch up.” She never asked a question that she could have found the answer to on her own. When I was leaving the Starbucks board of directors in 2012, I gave them a few names of social media experts who might join in my place and included Clara. She was only twenty-nine years old at the time, but she was invited to join the board.
While asking a stranger to be a mentor rarely, if ever, works, approaching a stranger with a pointed, well-thought-out inquiry can yield results. Garrett Neiman stopped me after I gave a speech at Stanford to explain that he had founded CollegeSpring, a nonprofit that provides SAT tutoring and college counseling to low-income students. He wanted to meet with me and made it clear that he only needed a few minutes of my time to ask for introductions to some people who could help expand his organization. He had done his homework and knew that I care deeply about education. In our first meeting and in every interaction we’ve had since, Garrett has been respectful of my time. He is crisp, focused, and gracious. And he always follows up to let me know the results of our discussion.
Capturing someone’s attention or imagination in a minute can be done, but only when planned and tailored to that individual. Leading with a vague question such as, “What is Facebook’s culture like?” shows more ignorance than interest in the company, since there are hundreds of articles that provide this answer. Preparation is especially important when looking for a job. When I left the Treasury Department, former chief of staff Josh Steiner gave me great advice about asking for advice. He told me to figure out what I wanted to do before I went to see the people who had the ability to hire me. That way I would not waste my one shot seeking general guidance, but would be able to discuss specific opportunities that they could offer.
Mentorship is often a more reciprocal relationship than it may appear, especially in situations where people are already working at the same company. The mentee may receive more direct assistance, but the mentor receives benefits too, including useful information, greater commitment from colleagues, and a sense of fulfillment and pride. Sociologists and psychologists have long observed our deep desire to participate in reciprocal behavior. The fact that humans feel obligated to return favors has been documented in virtually all societies and underpins all kinds of social relationships.6 The mentor/mentee relationship is no exception. When done right, everybody flourishes.
Erin Burnett, now a well-known CNN journalist, credits Willow Bay, a veteran TV correspondent and editor, for mentoring her when she first started out. Willow was a brand-new anchor of Moneyline but did not have deep financial experience. Erin had worked at Goldman Sachs, which made her an ideal person for Willow to hire as an assistant. Erin impressed Willow with her ambition, work ethic, and talent. Meanwhile, Erin got to watch a savvy, established journalist up close and personal. Each benefited from the other’s expertise.
Justin Osofsky caught my attention at Facebook years ago when we were getting ready for our first senior-level meeting with the Walt Disney Company. Each of our teams, including sales, business development, and marketing, had submitted ideas for the partnership, but no one was coordinating, which left our presentation disjointed and unwieldy. Rather than just submitting his section, Justin took the initiative to pull the group together and integrate all the ideas. I have been “mentoring” him ever since, which in his case means that I often turn to Justin to solve problems. This helps the company and creates ongoing opportunities for him.
Getting the attention of a senior person with a virtuoso performance works, but it’s not the only way to get a mentor. I have seen lower-level employees nimbly grab a moment after a meeting or in the hall to ask advice from a respected and busy senior person. The exchange is casual and quick. After taking that advice, the would-be mentee follows up to offer thanks and then uses that opportunity to ask for more guidance. Without even realizing it, the senior person becomes involved and invested in the junior person’s career. The word “mentor” never needs to be uttered. The relationship is more important than the label.
The label itself is open to interpretation. For years, I kept an eye on an enormously talented young woman on my team at Google and advised her each time she had a major decision to make. I never used the word “mentor,” but I invested a lot of time in her development. So I was surprised one day when she stated flatly that she had “never had a mentor or anyone really looking out” for her. I asked what a mentor meant to her. She explained that it would be someone she spoke to for at least an hour every week. I smiled, thinking, That’s not a mentor—that’s a therapist.
Few mentors have time for excessive hand-holding. Most are dealing with their own high-stress jobs. A mentee who is positive and prepared can be a bright spot in a day. For this same reason, mentees should avoid complaining excessively to a mentor. Using a mentor’s time to validate feelings may help psychologically, but it’s better to focus on specific problems with real solutions. Most people in the position to mentor are quite adept at problem solving. Give them a problem to solve. Sometimes high-potential women have a difficult time asking for help because they don’t want to appear stumped. Being unsure about how to proceed is the most natural feeling in the world. I feel that way all the time. Asking for input is not a sign of weakness but often the first step to finding a path forward.
Mentoring and sponsoring relationships often form between individuals who have common interests or when the junior members remind the more senior members of themselves.7 This means that men will often gravitate toward sponsoring younger men, with whom they connect more naturally. Since there are so many more men at the top of every industry, the proverbial old-boy network continues to flourish. And since there are already a reduced number of women in leadership roles, it is not possible for the junior women to get enough support unless senior men jump in too. We need to make male leaders aware of this shortage and encourage them to widen their circle.
It’s wonderful when senior men mentor women. It’s even better when they champion and sponsor them. Any male leader who is serious about moving toward a more equal world can make this a priority and be part of the solution. It should be a badge of honor for men to sponsor women. And since we know that different perspectives improve performance, companies should foster and reward this behavior.
Of course, there are some trick
y issues to be solved here, including the perceived sexual context of male-female relationships. Once during my Treasury years, Larry Summers and I traveled together to South Africa, where we holed up in the living room of his hotel suite to work on his speech on fiscal policy for the next day. Jet-lagged and oblivious to the time change, we suddenly noticed it was 3:00 a.m. We both knew it would look awful if anyone saw me leaving his hotel suite at that time. We discussed the options. Maybe he should check to see if anyone was in the hall? Then we realized we were stuck because there is no difference between trying not to be seen leaving someone’s hotel room late at night and actually leaving someone’s hotel room late at night. I strode into the (luckily) empty hall and made it to my room undetected.
Junior women and senior men often avoid engaging in mentoring or sponsoring relationships out of fear of what others might think. A study published by the Center for Work-Life Policy and the Harvard Business Review reported that 64 percent of men at the level of vice president and above are hesitant to have a one-on-one meeting with a more junior woman. For their part, half of the junior women avoided close contact with senior men.8 This evasiveness must end. Personal connections lead to assignments and promotions, so it needs to be okay for men and women to spend informal time together the same way men can. A senior man and junior man at a bar is seen as mentoring. A senior man and a junior woman at a bar can also be mentoring … but it looks like dating. This interpretation holds women back and creates a double bind. If women try to cultivate a close relationship with a male sponsor, they risk being the target of workplace gossip. If women try to get to the top without a sponsor’s help, their careers will often stall. We cannot assume that interactions between men and women have a sexual component. And everyone involved has to make sure to behave professionally so women—and men—feel safe in all settings.
Lean In Page 7