Abstract:
Gender inequality at senior levels continues to plague organisations even though most
graduates are women and more women than men are entering the workplace. Mentoring
is a powerful tool to facilitate and increase the advancement of women to leadership
positions; however, women have barriers to accessing mentoring. Organisations have
addressed this through significant investment in formal mentorship programs. Due to
the limited number of women in senior positions, women end up in cross-gender
mentoring relationships. Mentoring does not always yield positive results for the mentor
and protege. Some mentoring experiences are average, or negative, especially in
diversified mentoring relationships. Understanding the dynamics of cross-gender
mentoring relationships will ensure that the designed programs result in effective
mentoring outcomes, addressing gender inequality in organisations. Most of the
research in this space has investigated the benefits of mentoring for the protege,
omitting the mentor’s voice.
The objective of this cross-sectional qualitative exploratory research was to understand
the dynamics and the benefits of cross-gender mentoring on the advancement of
women. A total of 16 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with men and
women involved in mentoring relationships in companies in South Africa.
The study found that the quality of the relationship in cross-gender mentorship resulted
in specific outcomes of mentoring, such as career support, psychological support, and
role modelling. Cross-gender mentoring relationships can be effective in delivering highquality
mentoring outcomes if the quality of the relationship is high. Furthermore, the
study findings revealed that women do not require or desire to be in same-gender
mentoring relationships due to a lack of evidence to support matching on gender, queen
bee syndrome and female proteges’ reluctance to acquire female mentors. Finally,
mentors benefit from the relationship through the satisfaction of advancing women’s
careers, expanding their own network, learning new skills, and receiving friendship from
their proteges.
