Being Sensitive - Being Open - Being Authentic: Considerations for Mentoring Across Differences

Mentoring relationships provide opportunities for growth and learning by all individuals who are involved. In order to build caring, respectful, trusting relationships across differences, it's critically important that mentors reflect deeply on how they've learned about cultural differences and commit to unlearning inaccurate information they've learned about others based in assumptions, bias, prejudice and stereotypes.

 

Cultural differences refer to people's beliefs, values, standards of beauty, language patterns and styles of communication. Many of these cultural aspects are connected to group’s racial background, gender, class, spiritual or religious affiliation – and other differences. Simply stated, who we are “culturally” reflects all of who we are and the wholeness of ourselves which includes our race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation and other aspects of our identity.

 

Becoming culturally sensitive includes learning more about the "impact of differences" – the reality that people are treated differently, oftentimes as “less than” – based on cultural differences.  Building a mentoring relationship that supports and nurtures respect, openness, and affirmation and helps to build and sustain trust, can provide a foundation for an authentic relationship across difference.  Other important considerations for mentors include:

 

● Remember that everyone brings a different cultural lens, world view and set of experiences into the relationship -- including you! These factors and differing realities can provide both challenges and opportunities within the relationship.

 

● Be aware that we all enter into relationships across differences with information and misinformation about differences – much of which is grounded in stereotypes, assumptions, prejudice and fear.

 

● Make a commitment to more fully recognize, understand and appreciate differences and the impact of differences in your mentoring relationship.

 

● Notice power imbalances and commit to understanding how power and privilege impact your mentoring relationship. Explore how to be an ally to support an authentic relationship across difference.

 

● As a mentor, recognize when you move toward providing assistance that is grounded in well intentioned, “savior mentality” that may lead to dysfunctional rescuing or other unhelpful behavior in the relationship.

 

● As a mentor, commit to being a navigator to your mentee - helping to connect your mentee with others in the organization, problem solve collaboratively with your mentee to address issues, and making visible organizational processes and procedures (written and unwritten) - that supports your mentee’s success. 

 

● Remain open and humble and welcome the gifts and opportunities for learning that mentoring across differences will provide you.

 

● Be aware the issues and identities such as race, gender, sexual orientation, class, disabilities and other differences are always present in relationships across differences.  These factors and issues may or may not be primary to the interaction or situation, but work not to deny that these differences exist.

 

● Be aware when denial, disbelief, defensiveness or other unhelpful behaviors show up in your mentoring relationships across differences especially when discussing difficult or complex issues related to differences. 

 

What other attributes or characteristics would you list as important to successful mentoring relationships across differences?

 

What have been some of your important things your have learned about yourself when engaging in mentoring relationships across differences?




Written by Dionardo Pizaña