After all these years working with female leaders around the world, from different organizations, industries and cultures, I learned that there is a common denominator, in spite of all the differences and special traits. This denominator made me re-think and recognize a new paradigm regarding what it takes to be a leader in capital letters. 

Above all, a good leader can listen. When you accept a leadership role, whether in a social organization, a business or a community project, it is vital to deeply understand your environment. You need to ask questions and listen to all those around you who walk with you to achieve your goals. You need to understand who they are, what they need, what makes them tick, what motivates them. Everyone has a deep desire to be heard, and real leaders acknowledge that and satisfy that need. True leaders, women and men, are able to find sustainable solutions precisely because they have a true understanding and connection with the people and the community. 

A good leader shares the power. Quoting Alyse Nelson, “leadership doesn’t happen in a vacuum!” When we were discussing empowerment, I said that the most effective leaders share one common belief: “power expands as we share it.” If you lead on your own or just for yourself, you will certainly get nowhere. Quite the contrary, take advantage of your leadership position to empower others and make them shine. In this way, your impact will dramatically multiply, as will the impact of others. Networks of women act as accelerators of their leadership. Let’s adopt it as a universal truth. It is a fact: with access to circles of influence, women are in an infinitely better position to recognize the change and occupy roles of leadership. 

A good leader finds mentors and also becomes a mentor. Another universal truth that we should adopt is that mentoring promotes leadership. Without doubt, the mentors who chose to invest in me helped me navigate my own journey. The mentor is not someone who gives you a hand just to take you one step further. It is someone who stays standing behind you whether you win or lose; it’s an alliance. A good mentor celebrates your accomplishments, but a better one encourages you to Journal of a learn from your mistakes. I strongly advise you to look for mentors within your circles but also outside your normal environment. Find mentors with whom you can make a partnership or alliance while you develop your leadership.

However, I would like to emphasize that the most important outcome is that you eventually become a mentor yourself! Share your wisdom, your contacts, your talents and abilities. Start a beneficial chain reaction, so that women play more important roles in society and there is a fairer and more equitable world for all. According to the study by Catalyst, in 2012, 65% of the women who had been mentored became mentors themselves. 

Leadership involves daily practice. It is a decision we make. There is no perfect time or chance to start leading. You do not “arrive” to a place to lead. You lead from the place in which you are. Leadership is not a final destination, as I have already said, but a journey, a process, a lifestyle choice. 

We must be open and willing to accept and understand that developing our leadership style is a continuous process of learning and evolving. Specially, being an emerging leader, you have the ability and responsibility to lead with meaning and to leave a legacy. 

“EXERPT FROM THE BOOK “A VITAL WOMAN’S JOURNAL, EMPOWERMENT, LEADERSHIP AND MENTORING FOR YOUR PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL EVOLUTION” BY MARIA GABRIELA HOCH (BOOK AVAILABLE IN AMAZON IN SPANISH )

Based on my own experience as a mentor and a mentee, the following list summarizes the most effective questions that you can ask to your mentor: 

1. What was the best decision you have ever made? What was the worst? 

2. What is the one thing you would have wanted to know before starting your professional career? 

3. How do you manage disappointment or failure? 

4. What would be your dream, your fantasy, if you were not at your current job? What is stopping you from doing it? 

5. What was the best piece of advice you have ever been given? 

6. If you could write a letter now to a version of you from the past, what would it say?

According to Bert Gervais, founder of Success Mentor Education, these are other questions that could help take full advantage of the mentoring meeting: 

1. How do you spend most of your time? Can you describe a typical day in your professional and personal life? 

2. What would you do if you were in my shoes? 

3. How can I help you? 

4. Is this the place you thought you would be in? How did you get here? 

5. What used to be your greatest weakness? What did you learn about yourself in the past 6-12 months?

6. What do you think is your biggest strength? What makes you proud? 

7. What professional organizations or associations are you a member of? In what way did they help you?

8. With whom would you recommend that I relate? 

9. FORM: acronym for Family, Occupation, Recreation and Motivation. Finding something in common with your mentor would be great to help build a relationship then and in the long term. 

10. If I have any more questions, can I contact you later? 

“EXERPT FROM THE BOOK “A VITAL WOMAN’S JOURNAL, EMPOWERMENT, LEADERSHIP AND MENTORING FOR YOUR PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL EVOLUTION” BY MARIA GABRIELA HOCH (BOOK AVAILABLE IN AMAZON IN SPANISH )

Lidia Heller, often in charge of training sessions that Vital Voices offers, proposes forging relationships between mentors and mentees, and she introduces the gender perspective. According to her, the process requires the participants to agree on the mentoring goals and to create a bond of trust. This will help unlock the creative potential for strategic decision-making and also help acquire new skills for analysis, negotiation and initiative. This would also help expand the communication and contact networks. 

Lidia also wonders (and asks us): What does it mean to speak of a gender perspective in relationships? 

The answer is that it involves making visible (or at least taking into account) that gender-based systems are sets of practices, symbols, representations, rules and social values that societies create based on sexual differences. Social gender relationships are power relationships and, within the social division of labor, they work as the main engine of inequality. 

Achieving gender equality in the workplace and in career development should not be considered just a “women’s issue”. It should be a concern for society as a whole.

When we think about women in the workforce, some of the metaphors used to explain gender phenomena become apparent, such as, for example, the glass ceiling¹ the sticky floor². In addition, there are tensions between work and personal life. We are missing flexible and supporting policies to reconcile family and professional life, and there are also stereotypes about professional development, standards for success and unequal assessment of activities. We lack female role models, female mentors and opportunities for networking. There is an explicit and subtle discrimination that reveals mental models about the roles of women. It is advisable to take the time to learn and reflect on these issues and also form an opinion to guide our attitudes.  

• Glass ceiling: It is an invisible barrier, difficult to penetrate, which describes a particular time in a woman’s professional career. Instead of going up thanks to her qualifications and experience, she is stuck in a job, trade or sector. The term was originally coined in the 1980s, in a report on female executives published in The Wall Street Journal, and it has extended to all kinds of occupations. It is not a legal obstacle. It is widespread prejudice about women in positions of responsibility, about salary and about giving them similar categories for the same functions believing they will accept less. It also encompasses subtle patriarchal practices of the business world, such as the type of meetings being held, male corporatism or cronyism.
• Sticky floor: It refers to the tasks of caring and leading a family life that traditionally have been allocated to women. Coming out of this “natural space” (which according to patriarchy belongs to women) is an obstacle for their professional development or for access to training that would allow them to enter the labor force. This concept is related to the “balance” between work at home and outside the home.

Exchanging these ideas with a mentor can provide an opportunity for mentor and mentee to incorporate the gender perspective in their future professional steps. 

Mentoring is the most simple and powerful tool to speed up the development of female leadership. You just need the commitment to invest time, which is the most valuable gift a person can give. 

I firmly believe that mentoring develops leadership, and that practicing it adds enormous value to the entire society. 

Mentoring is a very hands-on experience, especially as conceived by Vital Voices. It creates a relationship of learning and trust between a successful and experienced person and someone who is eager to succeed in their professional and personal journey. Through conversation, work together and shadowing, the apprentices are motivated to discover certain skills and resources. If you are an apprentice, your mentor should inspire you to show these talents and guide you to take the next crucial step towards growth.

Mentoring is an exchange. It is a reciprocal relationship of give and take, in which the mentor enjoys sharing his or her most important learnings, and this, in turn, helps the mentee to grow and step out of the comfort zone. 

It is true also that mentoring significantly improves both leadership per se and career growth. It gives the mentee the opportunity to appreciate things that could not be seen before, from a greater perspective and with a panoramic, objective and reliable vision. Mentoring gives the mentee the chance to release her full potential as a person, regardless of the organization or startup she works at. It is also worth noting that mentoring provides an opportunity to enter a circle of relationships that is completely new and was previously not part of her network. 

Throughout history, men have mentored new generations of boys and men. These relationships have been extremely effective. It was time that women spent time in practicing this too. For women around the world, today, mentoring is a new and increasingly used method to explore and exploit.

I believe that mentoring has the potential to transform society. The mentoring relationships transcend time, space and industries. They enable a powerful and deep exchange of knowledge, ideas and information, and they generate different perspectives. Mentoring allows us to systematically uncover and strengthen female talent and use it for the common good, helping economies and society as a whole to grow.

“EXERPT FROM THE BOOK “A VITAL WOMAN’S JOURNAL, EMPOWERMENT, LEADERSHIP AND MENTORING FOR YOUR PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL EVOLUTION” BY MARIA GABRIELA HOCH (BOOK AVAILABLE IN AMAZON IN SPANISH )

Without having any previous knowledge about mentoring, it turns out that I have had mentors since the beginning of my professional career.

A mentor is a person who guides you, directs you and gives you advice on your professional development. It is a person with whom you can share your everyday issues and with whom you can also talk about crucial concerns in your professional responsibilities. It is someone you trust, both for his or her judgment and in good faith. In a mentoring relationship, you share knowledge, experience, values, emotions, desires and fears related to professional life but also linked to your personal, family and social life.

The concept of mentoring originally comes from the Odyssey, a story by the Greek poet Homer. Before leaving for Troy, Ulysses asked his friend Mentor to prepare his son Telemachus to be a leader. Mentor, then, acted as a model and as a counselor, inspiring Telemachus and presenting him with challenges so that he would become a competent leader. As a leader, he needed to able to succeed his father as king of Ithaca, the beautiful Mediterranean island. And this is how Ulysses achieved the goal of educating his son while he was away.

Since then, the term has been used as a synonym for tutor, guide and counselor, and today it even takes on the meaning of advisor or coach.

As we develop our careers, we face new challenges. We are not always 100% sure of the decisions we must make. Many times, decision-making is very lonely.

However, the process leading to the decision can be very rich if we share our goals, concerns and ideas with others in whom we trust. By expressing their point of view, these people enrich our vision. Many times, they can provide details that we had not considered, or emphasize issues that seemed secondary. The point of view of others always gives us a fuller view of the situation, and that logically leads to better decision-making.

Mentoring is a highly rewarding experience. It is a simple and powerful tool to help women achieve their highest potential and to speed up the development of female leadership.

In my case, the first informal mentoring relationship that I remember started by chance. It was an empathic relationship in which I felt identified with that person and I learned from past experiences, comments and professional vision.

I have now realized that I have always had mentors. And I know that, from now on, I will have them all the time. In general, my mentors are much more experienced than I am. How valuable! Such wisdom to absorb!

Today, I can’t make a list of all the men and women who have been my mentors. The concept is so ingrained in my life that unconsciously I find mutual learning, guidance and counseling in all my relationships.

Each mentor has humbly dedicated time to me with disproportionate generosity, and has given me energy to remain on my chosen path. And this does not mean that I did not stumble!

Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone, my teachers, mentors, guides, colleagues, and friends.

I have a confession to make: being grateful feels a bit “selfish.” I am constantly expressing my appreciation because it makes me happy. I suggest you do it too. Saying thank you improves your quality of life, creates positive experiences, increases your self-esteem, helps you overcome stress and anxiety, and keeps you away from truly selfish and ugly thoughts.

There is no doubt that one of the keys to my personal and professional growth is to be grateful. Another key is to have the chance to be around more experienced people, who have the capacity and willingness to work with me on my development. I encourage you to try it too. Perhaps you realize that you already have a mentor, or several. What a pleasant surprise!