Can a changed approach to mentoring improve the leadership gender gap?

Increased job satisfaction and career development are seen to be the major benefits of participating in a mentoring program. Traditional academic mentoring follows a unidirectional mentor-mentee relationship: a senior academic mentors a junior (female) academic. However, traditional mentoring programs teach women how to work within a system biased against them, rather than challenge the system.

To challenge traditional academic mentoring, Dr Terese Wozniak developed the Catalyse Mentorship Program in regional and rural Australia, which follows a dual-mentorship model. In this program each female mentee is matched with an academic mentor and a corporate-sector mentor. Corporate mentors provide guidance on strategy, leadership and interpersonal skills.

Read more about this approach to mentoring in Professor Fiona Stanley and Dr Terese Wozniak, ‘Here’s an approach to mentoring that can help close the leadership gender gap’ on The Conversation. 23 June 2021.

Professor Fiona Stanley AC, Founding Director and Patron of the Telethon Kids Institute, will launch Women in Global Health Australia on Friday 9 July 2021.