A Better Approach to Mentorship

We all know that mentorships are essential to the growth of young professionals. The evidence is clear: 75% of executives credit their success to mentors and recent research shows that 90% of employees with a career mentor are happy at work.

Despite this, and despite the 84% of U.S. Fortune 500 firms that leverage mentoring programs, the majority of these programs fail employees from marginalized communities. Research shows that 71% of executives choose to mentor employees who are of their same gender or race. When 76% of CEOs are white, and white men comprise seven in 10 of the 533 executive officers named on federal regulatory forms, this becomes a big problem. It may explain why only 7.9% of CEOs are Hispanic or Latinx, only 7.8% are of Asian ethnicity, and just 3.8% are Black or African American. Most people of color either fail to reach the management level or plateau in middle management.

This disparity can be addressed if more companies prioritize “bridge mentorships,” or mentorships that intentionally connect diverse individuals to help level the playing field and provide more equal opportunities. Reshaping the mentoring landscape has the potential to empower marginalized communities, enhance talent retention, strengthen succession pipelines, and build cultures of belonging. To make this shift, both the corporations and the young professionals seeking a mentor need to better to understand why current mentoring programs often fall short.

Where Corporate Mentorship Goes Wrong

Young professionals who grew up in economically stable environments — namely middle and upper-class individuals — typically benefit from having easy access to role models in the corporate world. Their educational backgrounds often involve attending prestigious colleges and universities that offer comprehensive STEM disciplines, business development, and leadership curricula, which equip them with the professional skills necessary for effective organizational communication, networking, and overall success in the corporate environment. Growing up, their family members, coaches, and teachers likely encouraged their participation in activities such as AP classes, extracurriculars, and clubs that intentionally aimed to foster their personal growth and position them as strong candidates for those higher education institutions. Their parents may have regularly asked questions like, “What universities are you considering?”

The majority of leaders in the corporate world — and, therefore, most mentors — share some version of this background. As a result, corporate mentors are commonly in tune with white employees’ personal and professional needs, which has proven effective in mentoring people with similar backgrounds. However, those entering corporate from socially marginalized communities are typically first-generation college students with working-class backgrounds who grew up with a very different scaffold and require mentors who have a deeper understanding of them and their journey.

As someone who came from this background, I can speak to the experience. I began working odd jobs mowing grass and delivering newspapers when I was 12. My parents never mentioned college, not once during my adolescence or teen years. Instead, they asked me, “Where will you work after graduation?” The day I earned my bachelor’s degree, I looked to my left and right for a sign of my future. No one in my family had a thriving career. I was the exception to the rule, and my story is not extraordinarily unique.

BIPOC and first-gen students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds start at a disadvantage. For decades, marginalized communities have faced barriers to corporate job opportunities. Recruiters and hiring managers, influenced by implicit bias, often prioritize candidates who naturally align with their own thinking, work style, lifestyle, and appearance — perpetuating a “culture fit” bias. This bias extends beyond the selection and hiring process, impacting mentorship, sponsorship, allyship, and advancement opportunities. It’s why, upon entering the corporate world, the guidance that will best serve BIPOC and first-gen workers is often distinct from the guidance being offered to their white counterparts by white leaders who come from the same life opportunities and experiences. Traditional mentoring does not fully address their unique challenges.

One of my Black colleagues, for instance, once told me his white mentor advised him to be more aggressive and authoritative. When he took this advice, he was accused of being an “angry Black man.” Clearly, his mentor was not savvy to the burden of code switching and discriminatory stereotypes. This is just one example of the very specific obstacles my colleague, myself, and others in our situation have had to navigate when transitioning between the working and the middle and the upper-classes in a corporate environment.

For young professionals who share our background, making this transition can feel like venturing into a foreign land without a map. Which way is north? Are there any guides? Have they been here before? What should they expect? Can anyone counsel them on the unspoken rules and norms their middle- and upper-class colleagues have been learning about since childhood? These questions, challenges, and stressors are the day in the life of class migrants — people who transition between social classes — in a corporate environment.

This is why marginalized communities need better guidance. They need better mentors, or bridge mentors.

How does bridge mentoring work?

Bridge mentoring is a concept derived from bridging social capital across dissimilar individuals, initially coined by Pierre Bourdieu in 1983 and later advanced by Ross Gittell, Avis Vidal, and Robert Putnam. Most corporate mentoring programs today are based on bonding rather than bridging social capital. Here’s the difference:

Bonding social capitaldescribes the process of developing strong connections within a close-knit group that shares common identities, backgrounds, and experiences. Members of these groups uplift and support one another by sharing valuable information, insights, and opportunities.

Bridging social capital describes the process of uniting individuals from diverse backgrounds to encourage collaboration, understanding, and the exchange of resources. Unlike bonding social capital, it brings together people with varied perspectives and expertise. Building off of this concept, bridge mentoring programs aim to address cultural differences in the corporate environment by closing the knowledge gap between socially marginalized communities and the majority group (typically white people from the middle- or upper-classes).

Like most mentorships, bridge mentorships have some guidelines, including the promise of confidentiality and non-judgmental attitudes from both the mentee and the mentor in order to create a supportive and safe environment that encourages trust and open conversations. Unlike most mentorships, bridge mentors typically receive cultural competency training to equip them with tools they need to navigate cultural differences, understand some of the common challenges faced by migrant mentees, and identify biases.

Mentors and mentees meet regularly one-on-one to form a two-way partnership where mentors gain a deeper understanding of mentees’ unique experiences, perspectives, and cultural backgrounds. In conjunction with training, this process fosters empathy and cross-cultural communication. It helps both parties overcome fears and biases, ultimately building a more culturally competent work environment for everyone.

I have personally experienced the significant impact bridge mentoring can have. Guided by a mentor with a dissimilar background, I learned the value of forging relationships beyond my own experiences. One memorable instance was when my mentor encouraged me to learn how to fly drones, a hobby enjoyed by an executive leader in our company. I would have never guessed this was the skill I needed to gain access to that leader.  Taking the initiative, I became a pretty good pilot and invited the executive to join me during lunch breaks. We built a long-term professional relationship that opened many doors to me.

How can young professionals find a bridge mentor?

Unfortunately, bridge mentoring is still relatively uncommon, and it’s ultimately on organizations and leadership teams to implement more of these programs. That said, people from socially marginalized backgrounds do have the power to seek out influential mentors, both in and outside of their organizations, to get the guidance, behind-the-scenes information, and support they need. Based on my experience as a bridge mentoring advocate and corporate D&I consultant, here are the top five ways employees can connect with bridge mentors:

You can join employee resource groups (ERGs) within your organizations to meet potential mentors and allies in senior positions who understand or have been educated on your unique challenges.

You can attend industry events in your fields, or those aimed at cultivating connections within your particular communities, to expand their networks. This may help you gain access to diverse leaders who have risen through the ranks and are familiar with your cultural background.

You can explore online platforms that focus on matching marginalized individuals with mentors, including Mentor Spaces, Mentor Cloud, Mentoring Her, Woman to Woman Mentoring, and Muse Mentorship.

You can participate in cross-functional projects within your organizations, and introduce yourself to leaders in other departments. Bridge mentorships require you to step out of your comfort zone. Cross-collaborating is a great way to meet senior employees who may be good mentorship candidates. You can even invite potential mentors out to coffee to pick their brains and gauge whether they want to invest in the relationship further.

Finally, it’s important for mentees to remember that while connecting with mentors within their industry is useful, people outside of their field of interest can also offer them valuable guidance that will benefit their personal development. Bridge mentoring comes in various forms, and what people need at each stage of their career journeys may vary. While not every senior leader will have the cultural competency mentees need them to, some people will. I encourage mentees to stay open-minded. In time, they will find a mentor who is the right fit.

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As the next and most diverse generation of workers enters the corporate world, bridge mentoring will be instrumental in creating more equitable environments and growth opportunities. Both leaders and individual contributors can play a part. It starts with educating yourself on this new model of mentorship, and ends with a culturally competent workforce that may just break down the barriers socially marginalized communities are still facing today.