Mentorship in the Black Community: What Companies Need to Know
Corporate Mentorship Missteps Through The Lens of a Black Woman
Mentorship matters more than ever as employees navigate new ways of working. As many companies transition to working remotely, they are now put to the test on how to sustain culture, break down silos and create opportunities for professional development for their employees virtually. Mentorship is a critical resource for solutioning these hurdles.
In the Black community our first mentors are usually our teachers who take a bit more interest in our development and build our confidence. Black self-esteem is constantly challenged by intersectional layers of race, gender and class bias. It’s easy to feel undeserving.
As you advance to upper grades, teachers advise us to “get a mentor”. That meant finding a person that was definitely older, experienced and credentialed. Outside of that cool teacher that believed in you or that coach that conditioned you to win more games for the school, Black people are starved for mentorship.
College counselors mean well but they often discourage Black students from pursuing their highest levels. Remember, a counselor once told Michelle Obama, America’s most admired woman, she wasn’t Princeton material.
Unfortunately your former teachers may be the last mentors you ever have.
During recruitment you are interviewed more times and more intensely than your non-Black counterparts. It’s exhausting. Then you finally get hired and the company can now check “African-American” off that DEI quota box.
Black people feel relief after getting hired and when you’re the minority you don’t want to be too ambitious or draw attention. Boomer parents raised in more volatile times advise you to keep a low profile out of fear of being labeled difficult. The joke in the Black community is that we are “last hired, first fired” in reference to how disposable Black talent is. That means once you get the job, don’t expect help. A Black employee’s 90-day probationary period must be spent “figuring it out.”
For Black professionals in white dominant companies, mentors are practically nonexistent. To onboard you need help. If you’re lucky you may get partnered with a C-suite leader so far up the org chart that you spend the time gophering instead of learning.
I have witnessed white co-workers being automatically groomed for promotion and leadership they never showed interest in, but they were a “culture fit”.
Then you bump into another Black person and celebrate, in your mind, that another Black employee exists. What is the culture really like for Black employees? But don’t automatically expect your Black teammates to help you. When Black people find their footing in a job, it’s common for them to feel overworked or simply grateful to be there. Do more, but don’t expect more from your employer.
Almost every company will tell you they have a mentoring program, but look again and you’ll quickly see these programs are run by overworked HR Managers, and aren’t built to advance marginalized people in your workplace. Here are three missteps I see most often within corporate mentoring programs.
1. Companies white-centeredness culture misses, and in some cases, outright rejects the Black experience.
2. Companies expect Black leaders to mentor every other Black person their organization. What we actually need are allies.
3. When companies manually match individuals for mentorship, it’s often top-down and exclusive, ignoring Black talent.
For Black people, COVID and the political and social unrest only compounds our trauma and the need for mentorship, support and belonging in the workplace.
We all applauded Amanda Gorman when she recited, “For there is only light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we are brave enough to be it.”
Companies, now that you see it, are you brave enough to “be it?”
Nicole Briggs leads Sales and Marketing at Tribute, a modern mentorship app that promotes employee growth, connection and collaboration through personal storytelling and shared life experiences.
