The clear and present situation in male-dominated workplaces is the evident fact that women don’t have role models for their leadership journey and style. Women lead differently than men. Empowering women as confident leaders is critical to our success as a nation. We will not have this success until we help each other accomplish our leadership goals. We need mentors who can help us develop our natural leadership strengths. We need women mentoring women.

We are different than men – we play with dolls, we don’t like hunting. I had a friend tell me yesterday that she tried to get one of her daughters interested in a tool bench when she was young, she was thrilled to see her playing with the tools and obviously enjoying it. After playing for awhile she came over to her mommy with her creation and said “I made some cookies for you”. Some things don’t change.

We are nurturers whose nurturing skills work well for getting things done in the workplace. We need to own that ability and use it to our advantage. We have other inherent strengths that make women critical to a balanced leadership team. Our perspective is critical to any company’s bottom line.

The strengths movement (working to your strengths rather than your weaknesses) is now in full swing. Women need to learn how to deploy their innate leadership talents and who better to teach this than other women. Mentoring is a skill that has up to now been without structure. Katie and I are working on putting structure to this skill.The assessment at www.assessmyskills.com is a strengths-based assessment that gives you a place to begin with your mentee.

I was co-opted to mentor a young woman in college through a scholarship program.  I thought it was going to be a great experience but suffice it to say it was not.  It was actually strained and uncomfortable. If I knew then what I know now about mentoring I would have used some tools to get this relationship off the ground.

Not to be too sales-like but we consider Skirt Strategies the book a great tool for mentoring women in the workplace. The 249 Success Tips for Women in Leadership gives you a place to start conversations around leadership topics, some serious, others just plain fun.

The good news is, I have a young woman who works for me who is a great friend. We talk about management and styles and goals comfortably. I hadn’t thought of our relationship as mentoring because it’s so comfortable but I bet she would consider me a mentor.

If you are a leader, take this challenge to mentor a high potential woman in your field. If you are a high potential woman seek out a mentor and begin on your leadership journey.