Lean In: Chapter 5, Are You My Mentor?

Chapter 5: Are You My Mentor?

The title of this chapter refers to the children's book "Are You My Mother?" where the clueless baby chick runs around asking cows, boats, and power shovels, "Are you my mother?" Sandberg says it's a turn-off when someone you barely know asks you to be their mentor. Instead, find a mentor by:

- Respecting the person's time.
- Doing your homework.
- Understanding that your mentor is investing in you and ultimately in the company.
- Asking questions, implementing their advice, and following up to let them know what you did.
- Occasionally sending the person some relevant piece of information.
- Excelling at what you do, which is likely to attract the attention of someone who will take an interest in you.
- Looking to peers, who can act as your mentors too.

She warns women not to be too dependent on others. Don't be the baby bird. Focus on working hard and finding solutions to the problems that face your organization, not on finding that magical mentor.

She addresses the issue of business relationships between men and women being perceived as romantic or sexual. If two men have dinner, they're networking. If a man and a woman have dinner, it looks like a date. She says we all need to be professional about this, but also gives some examples of policies that promote equality. For example, one executive wasn't comfortable having dinner or drinks alone with his female employees, so his policy was to meet with all employees over breakfast or lunch only. She also says structured programs can help with this, especially programs that encourage senior men to mentor junior women.

She ends with an interesting and familiar-sounding story, and I'm not quite sure how it fits in here. In her McKinsey consulting days, at the beginning of her career, she worked with a disrespectful project lead and a client lead who kept insisting in front of the team that he was going to fix her up with his son. She tried talking to both of them, but nothing happened. Her peers encouraged her and she ended up going over her project lead's head to an African-American senior partner who said sometimes "those of us who are different [] need to remind people to treat us appropriately" and gave the other two guys a smackdown.