No, that’s not a typo. My friends will tell you I make up my own language. I’ll get around to explaining being a “mantor” in a moment.
Contemplating during International Women’s Month what my female clients’ need, I turned to a male colleague Pat and asked, “What would be the largest impact for women to gain parity in tech roles for pay and executive positions?”
His response, “Since women only hold around 26% of executive, senior-level and management positions in S&P positions, they need a male mentor whose sitting at the table.”
One of my astute clients confirmed the same. When I asked her if she had female sponsors, she explained that it’s men who hold the vast majority of CxO roles, so she had double-downed on that pathway for her success. She also had female mentors to support her career journey.
The lightbulb moment occurred, and I decided we need more “mantors.”
Mantor Defined
When I googled whether my new word (to me) existed, intriguing definitions popped up:
- Community-based mental well-being platform for men in Asia
- Cold and cunning nemesis who appeared in the Power Rangers franchise
- Man to whom you—as a man—aspire towards
Here’s my take on the word:
Mantor = /’man, tôr (noun)
A man who is a mentor to females. An experienced person who advises a female colleague or student as a teacher, sponsor, agent, role model, coach, and confidante regarding professional success. A positive influence who brings a sense of humor, intelligence, and empathy coupled with bearing the honest truth.
Why Become a Mentor? 5 Reasons Explained
I asked Pat why he became a mentor and he explained it’s a pay-it-forward thing. Basically, someone likes you and wants you to succeed. Pat had multiple bosses who were supporters for his promotions to Senior Sales Director at the now defunct billion-dollar tech multinational Nortel Networks.
Now as a mentor, Pat provides financial advice mentoring to an early-stage career person at Robinhood and negotiation tactics mentoring for a fellow Board of Directors member who is in his mid-career.
Today, on a call with a client, who’s a senior manager in data analytics, I asked her why she is a mentor to young women in AI and Machine Learning. Jenny has 4 reasons for helping people:
- Ability to practice her own management skills and increase engagement; in turn, she could bring back key learnings to her team of seven.
- Increased her professional network with females who are creating novel ideas in tech and tackling situations from a different perspective.
- Created a sense of professional community and involvement outside of the corporate office.
- Opportunity to build friendships with those outside her company since she worked in a male-dominated business unit.
What are Responsibilities?
You might not be quite familiar with what’s expected of a mentor, UC Davis shares the following responsibilities:
- Assist your mentee in identifying professional and personal growth goals and objectives.
- Assist your mentee in establishing explicit goals and objectives for the relationship.
- Assist your mentee in developing and maintaining the Mentoring Agreement.
- Commit to meeting with mentee on a regular basis. Establish how and when those meetings will take place.
- Complete progress reports and regularly re-assess needs.
- Review agreements reached in the Mentoring Agreement at regular intervals of the partnership.
- Maintain the confidentiality of the relationship.
Where to Find a Mentee?
Now you may wonder how to find a potential mentee.
They might be in your organization or be a referral from another colleague or acquaintance. Or you can venture outside your corporation to a professional association or not-for-profit. I did as a volunteer for Dress for Success Austin, I’ve been a mentor twice as part of their 6-week one-on-one mentoring program.
I’ve seen executives announce on LinkedIn posts they have an open mentoring spot as part of a professional payback. Why don’t you offer the same?
As far as the time commitment, the great news is that’s entirely up to you as the mentor in discussions with your mentee. Last year I joined the WomenTech Network mentoring program and am currently mentoring 3 women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Unlike what UC Davis suggested, we didn’t establish a formal written Mentoring Agreement.
Generally, we meet individually on a cadence of once a month for 1-hour over video conferencing. They all asked me for how long I wanted to be a mentor. My response was it could be a year or a lifetime depending on what we reciprocally could bring to this relationship. Hey, sometimes relationships don’t always work so why not keep it fluid?
None of my mentees live in the same city as me with two living in California and one living in Colorado. Since Covid is on the wane as a barrier to meeting in person, I envision mentoring during lunch or dinner in the near future.
For all you male technology executives, if you’re not one now, isn’t it time to be a “mantor”?
#BreakTheBias #mentoring #careers # technology #personaldevelopment