Women’s Mentoring Archives

Women at work – Are you faking it?

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Imposter SyndromeA closer look at Imposter Syndrome

In my final post for International Women’s Day, I am going to consider the issue of Imposter Syndrome. This can have a dramatic impact on a woman’s ambition. It used to be thought of as the domain of the high woman achiever. However, it is a syndrome also experienced by men.

Amy Cuddy in her book ‘Presence’ talks about it being a female rather than a male issue. She says men are far less likely to talk about it. They fear social punishment for failing to conform to social stereotypes, i.e. that men are assertive and confident. Two psychologists Clance and Imes originally termed the condition from their clinical experience. They found it occurs much less frequently in men and when it does occur, it is far less intense. However, more recent research published by the International Journal of Behavioural Science in 2011, shows that 70% of men and women have experienced it at some point in their lives. Millennial’s may suffer from Imposter Syndrome even more. They have commenced their careers at a time of extreme technological pace, where there are constant comparisons on social media between peer group members.

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Are Women Ideal Workers or ‘Bulldozers’?

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Are women bulldozers?Barriers to women’s ambition

In my second article leading up to International Women’s Day on the 8th March 2017 I am considering how despite all the time, money and great intentions which have been put into building a more diverse talent pipeline in many organisations, there are still some basic barriers, which have not been removed and get in the way of women feeling and being more upwardly mobile. A Bain Study in 2015 illustrates that an employee’s early employment experience influences their confidence in whether to actively pursue a C-suite career or not. Some of the erosion of or challenges facing ambition come down to factors such as whether women are perceived as ‘ideal workers’, whether they are getting sufficient support from their own direct supervisor, the organisation’s leadership development process and the dearth of real role models. These types of barriers can be explored and supported through coaching and mentoring relationships. Continue reading →


Career Development – Don’t women like ambition?

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Women’s ambitionThe issue of ambition in women’s careers

Welcome to the first in a series of three articles as we lead up to International Women’s Day on the 8th March 2017, in which we consider the issue of ambition for women. Ambition still seems to be an obstacle for some women when developing their careers. Women’s presence on the Board has been proved to add competitive advantage to an organisation. Despite there being roughly the same numbers of women and men in the workforce, there is still an unbalanced ratio in favour of men in more senior leadership roles. In the last two decades, many employers have shown enthusiastic commitment to gender diversity and women have made enormous strides in being able to compete on the same playing field as men at work, so what is going on? Continue reading →


Mentoring Starter Packages: Everything you need to get your mentoring programme up and running

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Slide1It is widely accepted that mentoring benefits organisations and employees in a number of ways, and that setting up a programme is much more cost effective than bringing in external support.  The question is, how to begin?

If you’ve ever thought about developing and implementing your own internal mentoring programme, but not had a clue where to start, then one of our Mentoring Starter Packages, could be just what you need to get your programme off the ground.

These ‘off the shelf’ toolkits have been developed using Coach Mentoring Ltd’s vast experience of designing and delivering mentoring programmes, and are specifically aimed at supporting organisations in implementing their own internal mentoring programmes.

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Does a Woman need a Sponsor rather than a Mentor?

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Sponsorship for Women

A woman protégéeFormal and informal mentoring relationships exist in many organisations. Within these mentoring relationships the mentor may take many roles: being a role model, a sounding board, helping build networks and career support, sometimes simply being there to listen and challenge. However, linked to mentoring, but with clear differences is the role of a sponsor. Is it actually more beneficial for a woman who is seeking to break through the ‘glass ceiling’ to have a sponsor rather than an organisational mentor? Or perhaps she should be greedy and have both!

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Women’s Mentoring and making a crack in the ‘Glass Ceiling’!

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Breaking through the glass ceilingSupporting women talent specifically requires a further lens on how you look at your talent mentoring design, so here are some pointers for when you are developing mentoring programmes specifically to allow female talent to break through the glass ceiling.

In our initial experience of designing mentoring to develop senior women, the outcomes included one wedding, five promotions, several large pay increases, cosmetic surgery and a bullied mentor! So with the benefit of a number of women only mentoring programmes under our belts, use this checklist when designing a women’s mentoring programme: Continue reading →