Does Your Mentor Have the Right Energy?

Business Articles | February 16, 2011

Mentorship is a valuable relationship where an older and wiser mentor can help guide a less experienced protege through the system ensuring them a greater likelihood of success. And it, like other aspects of our world, is manifested differently by masculine and feminine energy.

When it comes to mentorship men, who have a predominance of the strategic masculine energy can work with anyone but women, who tend to have more relationship-oriented feminine energy want a mentor they like and respect.

Masculine energy knows where it wants to go and focuses on accomplishing its goals. Thus, individuals with lots of this energy will recognize the chain of command and latch onto someone with power. They will find an influential mentor who will serve as an advocate for them. It isn’t important to like them, only that they can work together. And because masculine energy is all about doing things mentorship happens more easily, while having a beer or playing golf.

Feminine energy wants personal connection, seeking out mentors with whom it can laugh and share. Inner-oriented it seeks approval from the external world and wants a mentor to be an encouraging friend. Those with lots of feminine energy have trouble with feedback which covers the “good, bad and the ugly”. Our system reveres individuals which display independent masculine energy giving those with softer feminine energy less benefit of the doubt. So its no surprise that individuals with lots of feminine energy seek acceptance from their mentors.

As I contemplate my protege experiences I now realize that accessing mentors with both energies was crucial for me. And sometimes that meant having more than one mentor. For example

, a tough but well-connected mentor who included me in meetings helped advance my career while a warm and sympathetic mentor assuaged my uncertainties and made me feel that I wasn’t all alone.

Can you put these energies to work in your mentorship experiences?

Article Tags: Masculine Energy, Feminine Energy

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After a highly successful career in business, including 26 years with PotashCorp where she was Senior Vice-President, Betty-Ann retired in 2007, the same year that she was named to Canada‘s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Hall of Fame™. She now works as a speaker, author and mentor and is committed to using her personal and professional experiences to inspire and empower other women. A firm believer in the value women bring to organizations, Betty-Ann explores changing perceptions of male and female roles including candid observations about what she calls "Good Gender Physics” on her blog at www.stillettochick.com. She helps both men and women understand the primary energy of their gender but also accept and appreciate the strengths of their opposite.