Gini Deitrich, of Arment Deitrich PR based in Chicago wrote a blog post entitled Is It True Behind Every Successful Woman Is a Man? today. As I was reading it, I was reminded of a book entitled I Can’t Believe She Did That!: Why Women Betray Other Women at Work by Nan Mooney. This book basically destroyed my hopes of finding a female mentor… or even working closely with another competitive female.
That was a few years ago. Since then, I’ve worked for one extremely amazing female executive who always took the time to talk to me about things – work, life, education, etc. Through Twitter and my activities with the Canadian Public Relations Society, I’ve met many wonderful women who are very willing to mentor a student or young working professional, and that’s really saying something. Even when I was looking to do interviews for my application to school, I was met with many female PR professionals who were more than willing to take a minute and answer my questions through Facebook groups! This only reinforces my belief that Gini’s right – Social Media is changing the way we connect with people, be it for personal or business reasons.
One final thought: Paul Arden said it best in his book, It’s Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be. Give away everything you know, and more will come back to you. It’s the mentality of “don’t tell them that, they’ll steal the credit for your idea” which destroys a mentorship, or even the idea of a mentorship. While it’s true that a student will eventually surpass their teacher, it should be celebrated instead of feared. Should it matter who the teacher is, be it male or female? No.
5 Comments
Lesley, I love your thinking and that you have thought leaders to back up your blog post. You know what I think about the whole glass ceiling for women concept and I hope that we all just get out of our own ways and do as you say…let the students surpass the teachers.
Thank you for making the original post! It’s definitely thought provoking and it’s strange just how much of what I’m currently learning can have their simple roots traced back to Paul Arden’s advice.
I have had issues with someone stealing a good idea in the past, and I have to say it’s usually men that do it. Hmmm…
I have to say I have had several great mentors and some of my best have been women! That might seem strange coming from a man, but I really do not see why it matters whether or not the person is a man/woman/old/young/etc. I believe we can all learn from EVERYONE that is willing to be our teacher, and especially from those who choose to be our adversary! And, to Rusty-I think you were probably joking around, but Lesley obviously did not steal anything from Gini because she CLEARLY cited it. We are all influenced by what we read/hear/see and don’t even try to tell me that every thought in your head has been conceived by you!
Dave, I don’t think Rusty meant anything like that – I think Rusty was just speaking generally.
Thank you all for your comments!!
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