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Lonely at the top? An exploration on the role of
mentorship in the experience of black South African
executive business women
Research Dissertation
Presented to
The Graduate School of Business
University of Cape Town
In partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the degree
Master of Business Administration
Submitted by:
Jennifer Katchmark
Supervisor:
Dr. Nceku Nyathi
December 2016
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Plagiarism Declaration
1. I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and pretend that it
is one’s own.
2. I have used a recognised convention for citation and referencing. Each contribution to,
and quotation in this report from the work(s) of other people has been attributed, and
has been cited and referenced.
3. This dissertation is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow, anyone to copy my work with the intention of
passing it off as his or her own work.
5. I acknowledge that copying someone else’s assignment or essay, or part of it, is wrong,
and I declare that this is my own work.
Signature ______________________________
Jennifer Katchmark
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Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I want to thank the women who agreed to be interviewed, for their time, their
honesty, their frankness in sharing their stories, and for being willing to share both their pride
and express the vulnerability of their journeys. They have contributed their voices to my
understanding of the South African context in this MBA experience, and I hope that I’ve done an
adequate job in capturing and sharing their stories. If future generations of female leaders in this
country look anything like them, I am very optimistic for the potential of this great nation.
To Dr. Nceku Nyathi, for talking me down from the dissertation wall on numerous instances, and
providing guidance, directing me toward resources, and being as excited about this topic as I am.
To my family and especially my mother, Cynthia Holmgren, for holding my hand from across
the pond through this entire MBA experience, and for reminding me that I can in fact do
anything I apply my mind and my soul to. Thank you for being a strong woman and inspiring me
to reach higher and dream bigger. Thank you to my stepdad Paul Holmgren for drying Mom’s
tears as she got off the phone with me.every.damn.time. Thanks to my sister Karly, for knowing
what this experience means, and giving me both the virtual slap and the actual M&M’s when I
needed them. Thanks to you and Ross for giving me Tallulah T, the new niece who inspires me
to both be and find more strong female role models for her from every corner of the world.
Thanks to Dan Katchmark for believing in me and for calling so often, and reminding me how
capable I am (and again Karly for helping him). Thanks to my little brother Keenan, for
reminding me how important my work is. Thank you to my friends near and far who have called,
visited, and put up with my near silence for this year, and are still waiting in the wings with your
support. I will be back with a vengeance soon enough.
Thanks to the MBA class of 2016. You have opened my mind, expanded my viewpoints, and
strengthened my resolve. Thank you for being exactly as you are, and providing such a fertile
place for me to grow. To the professors that taught and pushed us, Linda, Tim, Mark, and Sean,
thank you for your part in my growth this year.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to my fund raiser, #ADissertationIsWorth25,000Words.
Your contributions have inspired and pushed me through this most daunting of processes, and I
am thrilled to leave these funds earmarked for scholarships for future generations of business
women of colour at the GSB.
Thank you finally to the Striped Tiger. I guess you’re just what I needed, and my memories of
this tireless endeavour will always bear the mark of you. Thank you for believing in me, pushing
me, and caring for me in a way that is so uniquely yours.
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Abstract
Twenty-two years post-Apartheid, numerous employment equity programs have been put in
place to ensure adequate representation at all levels of employment for previously disadvantaged
populations, most specifically black South African females. However, many of the women in
executive positions still report being the only black female within the executive suite. The age-
old concept of mentoring was proposed as a potential intervention that could help prepare and
elevate a greater proportion of the next generation of black females into executive professional
positions within South Africa.
Exploratory qualitative research methodology was used based on semi structured interviews with
a sample consisting of 16 respondents. All respondents were black South African females
working in various corporate industries at the executive level. The research focuses on exploring
their experiences and conveying their stories while describing the ways these women have
sought and utilised mentoring relationships.
This research enquiry explores the role mentorship plays in guiding these women to the top of
their industries, and provides insights as to the availability of mentorship for these women, the
challenges they faced in accessing and integrating this mentorship into their career progression.
It examines how black South African women are seeking mentors who are demographically
different from themselves to learn how to effectively interact with the demographically
dissimilar executives around them and above them.
Providing young black women with more chances for exposure to educational and professional
opportunities, chances to relate to professional women from similar backgrounds and exposure to
confidence building mentorship experiences could change the young women’s outlooks as to
what is possible within their own lives and futures. Corporate South Africa can and should take a
role in supporting programs which will create a talent pipeline that is more representative of the
demographic diversity within South Africa.
Keywords: black South African female executive; business women; mentorship; navigate,
journey; expectations; sponsorship; exposure; relationships
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Table of Contents Plagiarism Declaration .................................................................................................................. i Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ i Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii List of figures ................................................................................................................................ iv 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 5 1.1 Research Area and Problem .............................................................................................................. 5 1.2 Purpose of Research ......................................................................................................................... 8 1.3 Research Questions and Scope ......................................................................................................... 8 1.4 Research Assumptions ...................................................................................................................... 9 1.5 Research Ethics ................................................................................................................................. 9 2. Literature Review ................................................................................................................. 10 2.1 Overview......................................................................................................................................... 10 2.2 What are black executive South African business women’s perceptions and experiences of the
accessibility and impact of mentorship in their lives? .................................................................... 11 2.3 What impact have race and gender had on black South African women’s experiences of
mentorship within their careers? ..................................................................................................... 13 2.4 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 17 3. Research methodology .......................................................................................................... 18 3.1 Research Approach and Strategy .................................................................................................... 18 3.2 Research Design ............................................................................................................................. 19 3.3 Data Collection Methods and Instruments ..................................................................................... 19 3.4 Sampling ......................................................................................................................................... 20 3.5 Research Criteria ............................................................................................................................ 22 3.6 Data Analysis Methods ................................................................................................................... 22 3.7 Research Limitations ...................................................................................................................... 22 4. Research Findings ................................................................................................................. 24 4.1 What are black executive South African business women’s perceptions and experiences of the
accessibility and impact of mentorship on their lives? ................................................................... 25 4.2 What impact have race and gender had on black South African women’s experiences of
mentorship within their careers? ..................................................................................................... 33 5. Research Analysis and Discussion ....................................................................................... 40 5.1 What are black executive South African business women’s perceptions and experiences of the
accessibility of mentorship in their lives? ...................................................................................... 40 5.2 What impact have race and gender had on black South African women’s experiences of
mentorship within their careers? ..................................................................................................... 44 5.3 Research limitations ........................................................................................................................ 47 6. Research Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 48 7. Future Research Directions ................................................................................................. 50 References:................................................................................................................................... 52 Appendix 1: Ethics Form ........................................................................................................... 57 Appendix 2: Interview Guide ..................................................................................................... 64 Appendix 3: Informed Consent Form ....................................................................................... 66
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List of figures
Figure 1: Sampling Methodology ................................................................................................................ 21
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1. Introduction
1.1 Research Area and Problem
The vestiges of the racist system of Apartheid still linger throughout the rainbow nation of the
Republic of South Africa, and as members of not one but two historically marginalized groups,
black female South Africans1 remain some of the most economically disenfranchised in the
country (May, 1998; Republic of South Africa Department of Women, 2014). During Apartheid,
only white men were permitted to hold management and leadership positions and non-white men
were relegated to performing unskilled labour, while women of all races were classified as
“minors” and were subject to a patriarchal system wherein they were expected to be
homemakers, or for those women of colour who did work, were only allowed to hold unskilled
factory or domestic work (Booysen & Nkomo, 2010). Indeed as Canham (2014) points out,
within the South African context, the struggle for equality post-Apartheid is often focused on
race, overshadowing the desperate need for strides to be made in all realms of gender equality.
Because of the poverty which was systematically perpetuated under this system, wherein certain
classes of people were restricted from various types of lucrative economic activities, a large
proportion of the governments’ current financial assistance to right the wrongs of Apartheid goes
to programs which are designed to alleviate the impacts of poverty, such as hunger, health, safety
and gender based violence (Khumalo, 2013; Littrell & Nkomo, 2005; Triegaardt, 2006).
While numerous programs, such as the Employment Equity Act (EE) (“Employment Equity
Amendment Act No. 47 of 2013,” 2014) and Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment
(BBBEE) (“Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act of 2003,” 2004) also exist to help
people of colour (formerly disadvantaged groups) participate meaningfully in the current South
African economy, the focus of these programs is often on those gripping onto the lowest rungs of
the economic ladder. This results in these programs providing little assistance for the black
1 Race is a highly stratified and specific construct within the context of South Africa, and for the purposes of this
study, “black” will be differentiated from “coloured”. Black shall refer to people of Bantu or other black African
heritage as opposed to people of mixed racial heritage, commonly referred to within the South African context as
“coloured”. The reason for this distinction is due to a specific interest in those who were historically most
marginalized in terms of opportunity, access and political perception.
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women who may be attempting to move into positions of leadership within corporate South
Africa and break through the corporate glass ceiling. In this research project, the researcher set
about trying to get to the root of some of these obstacles and consider the role that mentorship
could play in the advancement of black women in corporate South Africa.
Although the government of South Africa has made numerous legislative attempts to redress the
lingering institutional inequality that is a legacy of the systematic racism of the Apartheid
regime, there is still a shortage of black women at executive levels within Johannesburg Stock
Exchange (JSE) companies (“Employment Equity Act, No 55 of 1998,” 2004; Republic of South
Africa Department of Women, 2014). These legal requirements of affirmative action, while
necessary, are often expensive and difficult to successfully implement, and cannot effectively
force the required corporate cultural change necessary for successful reparation (Booysen, 2007;
Thomas, 2002).
Additionally, these legislative requirements and programs are often applied on people and
organisations, rather than with input on what people need to feel empowered and included, and
thus have demonstrated rather lacklustre performance to date (Bezuidenhout, Bischoff,
Buhlungu, & Lewins, 2008). This has resulted in a tendency among corporates to “comply”
rather than “transform,” meaning that these companies bring on employees who satisfy the
employment equity requirement of being women of colour, but then fail to take these employees’
professional development seriously (Bezuidenhout et al., 2008; Mathur-Helm, 2005). This lack
of committed corporate culture can prevent these black female employees from accessing a clear
path to becoming a part of leadership of these companies.
Yet, the importance of having women in positions in the leadership within companies cannot be
understated. Companies with a higher percentage of women on their boards perform better in
terms of sales, return on investment as well as return on equity (Temkin, 2016). Skaggs,
Stainback, and Duncan (2012a) found that having more women present on the boards of Fortune
1000 companies lead to greater female managerial participation at the establishment level. The
mere act of having women in higher positions can attract additional young female talent to a
company, as the existence of women in positions of power within a company serves as a strong
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indicator that they themselves could potentially reach those upper ranks (Mathur-Helm, 2006).
However, the challenges black women face in making it into the executive suite are not
necessarily unique to South Africa, and thus successful approaches elsewhere can give guidance
as to how aspiring black South African female business executives might attempt to circumvent
these challenges, and how corporate South Africa can assist them. At a university in the United
States, research by Goh, Ogan, Ahuja, Herring, and Robinson, (2007) found that female students
in IT related fields, which are typically male dominated, developed higher self-efficacy when
they had had earlier exposure to computers, but also when they had a mentoring relationship with
a staff member. In Norway, Høigaard and Mathisen (2009) found that females in a formal
mentoring program reported higher job satisfaction, were perceived to have higher levels of
leadership behaviour, and increased career planning. In Greece, Apospori, Nikandrou, and
Panayotopoulou (2006) found that high relationship orientation cultures within organisations
assisted women in developing stronger relationships with their mentors, which resulted in
accelerated career advancement. In Finland, Mikkonen, Elo, Tuomikoski, and Kååriåinen (2016)
found that international student nurses were significantly positively impacted by having a mentor
who was familiar with their cultural background, as those mentors were able to help alleviate the
social isolation that can occur when an individual is the only representative of their culture
within an educational setting. Many of these programs imply promoting a corporate culture of
mentorship is a concept which could be transferable to the South African context.
Mentorship, or the process of developing a relationship with a more senior or experienced person
who can serve as a guide, teacher, champion and friend has been extensively lauded as a practise
that can help those in junior positions navigate the invisible channels, meet the silent
expectations, and acquire the skill sets and meet the people they will need to elevate themselves
to the executive level (Blickle, Witzki, & Schneider, 2009a; Bozionelos, 2004; Kram, 1983). The
benefits of mentorship have been extensively studied in the academic, medical and banking
industries, but in consideration of the business world, much of the focus has been on the barriers
the women encounter which prevents them from achieving that highest level of professional
success (Martin & Barnard, 2013; Mathur-Helm, 2006; Moorosi, 2010). An opportunity to focus
on corporate South Africa and the country’s efforts in transforming the workplace and opening
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up space for those formally marginalised is therefore a worthwhile pursuit for this research
enquiry and to contribute to the role of mentorship in enhancing the professional growth of black
women.
1.2 Purpose of Research
Review of previous research shows focuses on the shortage of women in executive positions
worldwide across industries and contexts and emphasizes the challenges that women face in
capturing these powerful and more highly compensated positions (Dworkin, Maurer, & Schipani,
2012; Mathur-Helm, 2006; Weyer, 2007). New research is beginning to emphasise not only the
barriers, challenges and negative situations these women must overcome, but rather is beginning
to focus analysis of the path for success from the perspective of women who have navigated past
this plateau (Bowles, 2012).
This research aims to join and contribute to this emerging conversation, and highlight how these
successful women have risen to the top. From the stories of their journeys and how they portray
that they themselves have arrived in these rarefied airs of corporate South Africa, this research
enquiry will seek to understand the role of mentorship and the potential lack thereof. The
research will attempt to bring to the forefront the experiences/perceptions of black South African
executive level business women on mentoring, and through the power of their own narrative,
suggest paths forward for black women whom are currently earlier in their careers and intend to
one day occupy the executive suite.
1.3 Research Questions and Scope
Research questions stem from curiosity surrounding black South African business women’s
experiences of mentorship, and:
• general feelings toward mentorship and its relevance in supporting the careers of black
South African business women.
• whether participants found mentorship to be readily available and accessible to them, and
if not, why that was the case from their point of view;
• whether participants pursued mentorship themselves or experienced it as part of a
company organized program; and if they had experienced both which they preferred;
• what challenges participants believe their mentors have helped them navigate as mentees;
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as well as
• if the mentee’s mentors shared demographics with them and whether they believed that
mattered in the effectiveness of the relationship.
Thus, the questions this research aims to answer are:
1. What are black executive South African business women’s perceptions of the
accessibility of mentorship in their lives?
2. What impact have race and gender had on black South African women’s
experiences of mentorship within their careers?
The scope of the research is limited to black South African business women who had been
employed at a company in an executive level capacity, as determined by their experience, title
and self-report. Research participants were selected based on their race, gender, citizenship,
proximity and experience as an executive level employee, as well as willingness to participate in
the research. This research shall focus on the private sector exclusively.
1.4 Research Assumptions
The research was carried out under the assumption that participants had previously been aware of
mentoring as a concept, and had interacted with a mentor throughout the course of their careers.
It was assumed that participants would feel comfortable and willing to share their experiences
and opinions openly, as well as that they would feel secure in their confidentiality to refrain from
holding back any relevant information. Data gathering through interviews was important, as it
allowed the researcher to ask probing and clarifying questions to more deeply understand the
nuance in the participants’ answers.
1.5 Research Ethics
There is potential for ethical concerns any time that people are targeted for research based on
their racial and gender demographic, particularly when these subjects are part of a demographic
which could be considered to be marginalized or disenfranchised. The researcher is sensitive to
this consideration, and believes specifically because these are voices that are not typically sought
out, that this research presents an opportunity to give voice to their experience and perspective.
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The Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town requires that all research
involving human participants be subject to a rigorous ethical review process and that clearance
be granted by an internal ethics committee. Ethical approval is granted upon review of the
potential risks for human subjects, the method for gaining informed consent, and assurance of the
confidentiality of the data collected. The GSB Research Ethics Application Form is attached as
Appendix 1 to the final research, which confirms that ethical standards were adhered to
throughout the research process. Each of the study participants was given a research Consent
Form, (see Appendix 3) which states the full purpose of the research, outlines any expectations
for participants as well as risks associated with the research, and informs participants how to
remove themselves from the research at any point. Confidentiality and anonymity of the
participants were guaranteed as far as possible by assigning numbers to participants and
redacting names of businesses.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Overview
Although black women are one of the largest demographic populations in South Africa,
numerous studies show that they are among the most poorly represented in executive business
positions (Bezuidenhout et al., 2008; Canham, 2014; Mathur-Helm, 2006). Worldwide,
numerous barriers which prevent women from joining the executive ranks of corporations have
been identified and studied, including the identification of the glass ceiling, the glass cliff, queen
bee syndrome, a general lack of preparedness and willingness to make the potential familial
career track sacrifices, an inability to identify and navigate varying expectations of gender roles
within leadership, and the pressure of being the “other” at the top with little support system (see
for example Derks, Van Laar, & Ellemers, 2015; Liu, Cutcher, & Grant, 2015; and Weyer,
2007).
The benefits that mentorship relationships can provide for women have been widely studied, and
many researchers echo the seminal findings of Kram (1983) who described the mentoring
relationship as playing an important role in the career development, work attitudes and behaviour
of employees as well as resulting in improvements in intangible categories such as reduced
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employee turnover intentions, increased job satisfaction, improved employee attitudes, and a
higher sense of organisational commitment, on top of tangible impacts on career satisfaction,
promotion rate, and higher compensation. In a meta-analysis of the career benefits of mentoring
for both mentees and mentors, Ghosh and Reio (2013) found that mentors were more satisfied
with their jobs and committed to the organisation, indicating that mentorship was not only
beneficial to mentees. This benefit to the mentors was echoed by Janssen, van Vuuren, and de
Jong (2014), Allen, Poteet, and Burroughs (1997) as well as Orland-Barak and Hasin (2010).
2.2 What are black executive South African business women’s perceptions and
experiences of the accessibility and impact of mentorship in their lives?
Whether mentorship has been available to black South African executive business women
depends on several factors, including, as Singh, Ragins, & Tharenou (2009) would suggest, the
individual herself. They found that “rising stars” or those individuals who already demonstrate
several of the characteristics they found in their longitudinal study to appeal to potential mentors
were more likely to get a mentor. These attractive attributes included a strong promotional
history, high expectations of advancement, and engagement in proactive career behaviours.
Demonstrating these qualities made these “rising star” individuals more like to be sought out to
be mentored than those who may not demonstrate these characteristics already, even though
those who do not demonstrate these attributes might potentially benefit more from mentorship
(Singh et al., 2009b). Allen (2004) confirms that mentors are more likely to choose mentees that
demonstrate a willingness to learn in addition to proven ability, and utilises social exchange
theory to support her assertion that both people within the mentorship experience must perceive
that there are more rewards than costs in order for the mentorship experience to be an effective
one.
The work of Derks, Van Laar, and Ellemers (2015), Johnson and Mathur-Helm (2011), Stone
and Coetzee (2005), and Williams, Phillips, and Hall (2005) shows that opportunities for
mentorship may be curtailed by the senior women who could be well placed to provide
mentorship to younger women in the corporate world, having previously navigated their way
own to the top. While previous theories of discrimination in the workplace centred on men alone
holding women back from ascending to the executive level by subjecting women to a double
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standard for success, newer analysis considers to role of senior women in preventing women’s
advancement to positions of leadership. The “queen bee phenomenon” seeks to describe how
women may assimilate and take on “masculine” identified traits in male dominated companies
and industries, and as a result may perpetuate rather than challenge gender inequality within
business (Stone & Coetzee, 2005; Williams et al., 2005). Derks, Van Laar, and Ellemers (2015)
explain that women who may have had to climb a ladder filled with challenges and
discrimination may see themselves as unique, or different, and may distance themselves from
younger women who they see as either lacking similar qualities, or as a threat to their own
position. These “queen bees” may reflect on their path to the top as having contained a great deal
of sacrifice, and may be unwilling to provide mentorship to those they feel “have not earned it”,
and may even go so far as to deny the same gender discrimination they may have encountered
exists for women of the up and coming generation (Derks et al., 2015). Johnson and Mathur-
Helm (2011) found evidence of this type of queen bee behaviour among female bank employees
in South Africa, and speculate that the behaviour could be based in fear of being surpassed or of
having to compete with someone younger than them, or believing that there was only room for
one woman at the top. They also found that occasionally queen bee behaviour wasn’t overt, but
manifested in a senior woman’s making herself consistently unapproachable, unavailable or
unhelpful to younger women who may benefit from their guidance and mentorship (Johnson &
Mathur-Helm, 2011).
In looking beyond the potential mentorship limitations resulting from queen bee behaviour by
women at the top, and increasing the range of potential mentors past just senior women, there is
also a question of whether there are other individuals within an organization who would be
willing, able and appropriate to mentor an aspiring black South African business woman.
Traditional mentorship typically involves a matched dyad, a pair which includes someone a bit
older and more experienced who guides a younger person within the same organisation (Higgins
& Kram, 2001). There has been some debate in the literature about this structure, as well as
speculation about the importance of formal and assigned mentorship and whether this type of
arrangement is the only effective way to derive the benefits of mentorship. James, Rayner, &
Bruno (2015) contribute to this conversation by highlighting the value of mentoring relationships
such as bottom up, peer, group and situational in addition to the typical junior-senior type
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relationships. Higgins and Kram (2001) also question whether a didactic approach is essential to
mentoring or if a stronger measure of the impact of mentorship is to consider the range, depth
and diversity of an individual’s “development network” which can include peers, school
networks, former employers, religious affiliates, or anyone connected to an individual who
supports them in manner similar to that of a traditional mentor.
2.3 What impact have race and gender had on black South African women’s
experiences of mentorship within their careers?
The literature often focuses on interpreting the impact of race and gender as having a relative
multiplier effect, indicating for example, that if a person is both female and black, the barriers
they may face in attempting to ascend to positions of leadership will be magnified or enhanced
due to their membership within not one but two minority or typically discriminated against
groups (Booysen & Nkomo, 2010). However, as Smith and Stewart (1983) point out, stark
cultural differences in socialisation and upbringing can mean that the interplay between race and
gender for an individual result in much more nuanced ways of interacting with the world. These
varied personality traits and approaches can present challenges in an individual being perceived
as having the characteristics necessary to be accepted into the leadership of an organization by
other leaders and colleagues (Littrell & Nkomo, 2005).
Parker and ogilvie (1996) further the case that the socialising effect of gender does not operate
the same across all racial or cultural divides, and they argue that within the African American
leadership context, there are certain behaviours and approaches that black women integrate into
their embodiment of leadership that white women do not. These include demonstrating more
creativity, risk taking, boundary spanning, divergent thinking and behavioural complexity
(Parker & ogilvie, 1996). Depending on the situational context in which these traits are
demonstrated, they could either lend legitimacy to an individual’s claim to leadership ability or
hinder it, which a mentor could help a mentee to moderate in order to be perceived as more
capable or professional if necessary.
To assume that these characteristics often found in African American women in leadership can
then automatically be applied to black South African women and intentionally gloss over the
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difference in culture would perpetuate the same mistake that Parker and Ogilvie (1996) deplore.
However, their research can at least give background for a contextual starting point on the
various perception and expectation barriers black South African business women may encounter
on their rise to the top positions in executive leadership, and the value that effective mentors can
potentially have in helping them navigate these barriers.
Littrell and Nkomo (2005) examined the differences between gender, race and expectations of
leadership in the South African context by first reviewing Booysen's (2001) work, which found
that there were significant differences between black and white employees’ expectations of
leadership qualities and styles. At the time of her work, the South African banking sector
management positions were oversubscribed to white males in relation to their proportion of the
greater population. Black males were underrepresented, but still outnumbered white females and
black females were drastically underrepresented, gender and racial proportions which are still
typically common demographic representation among management positions within South
Africa today (Republic of South Africa Department of Women, 2014).
Booysen (2001) focused on the racial differences in expectations of leadership qualities,
characteristics and approaches among black and white South African managers, and found that
the commonality between both white and black management staff were appreciation of
characteristics which were more “masculine” in orientation, defined in this instance as high
assertiveness, focused on individual, material success and placing a low value on gender
equality. This means traits which were more typically “feminine” are demonstrated in leaders
who are focused on the collective, express caring for others and who are more concerned with
quality of life. Although Booysen (2001) was not explicit in this work about establishing
significant relationships between the different preferences in leadership styles of the two
genders, as women are more likely to embody characteristics which are typically “female,” this
could potentially put women at a disadvantage in consideration of opportunities to become a part
of the leadership of a company.
Booysen (2001) found that the white South African management staff significantly preferred and
expected management traits which were generally quite Eurocentric, meaning that individualism
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is valued above all, and decisions emerge from adversarial, competitive and power driven
relationships. Meanwhile, the black South African management approach was found to be more
Afrocentric and based in the principles of Ubuntu, or collective expression, decision making and
subservience to the whole if in competition with the individual (Booysen, 2001). This difficult
corporate cultural juxtaposition was partially confirmed by the work of Shrivastava, Selvarajah,
Meyer and Dorasamy (2014) when they also examined the potential for an Ubuntu approach to
leadership and implications for mentorship and leadership development within South African
businesses between generations, races and genders who were both of the Apartheid era and post-
Apartheid era. When an established majority widely accepts certain leadership styles and
approaches to decision making as preferable, it can put those who embody different styles and
approaches at a disadvantage (Shrivastava et al., 2014). With characteristics that are typically
identified as being on opposite poles of a spectrum, it can be difficult for those in the majority to
accept the potential for a leadership style so different from the one they are used to and expect to
see to be successful, and can thus avoid mentoring those who embody these different
characteristics (Littrell & Nkomo, 2005). With white male management in the historical and
current majority of executive business positions in South Africa, one can only speculate how
much more difficult can it be for this population to recognize and promote the leadership
capability of black women, who may differ so greatly from them in management style and
approach.
Littrell and Nkomo (2005) then explore some widely divergent findings in their inclusion of the
work of Thomas and Bendixen (2000) which is in near direct contrast of Booysen (2001).
Thomas and Bendixen (2000) indicate that there is in fact a common national culture driving
management practices in South Africa, and speculate that these commonly held cultural values
could be a result of the long and oppressive history of Apartheid, which they claim has forcefully
evolved the social mores and values of the various oppressed ethnic groups within South Africa,
resulting in similar current values despite widely variant roots. These assertions do not appear to
be well observed in the current context of South Africa, but provide an alternate and interesting
perspective to consider.
Littrell and Nkomo (2005) then conclude by furthering the work of Booysen (2001) by
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presenting results that support the hypothesis she did not herself fully explore in her earlier work,
which is of the interactions between race and gender in expectations and perceptions of
leadership characteristics. They were able to accept their three hypotheses, indicating that
preferred characteristics of a leader in fact differed across racial groups, between males and
females, as well as varying among racial groups as a function of gender (Littrell & Nkomo,
2005).
It is worth noting that in her more recent and arguably ground-breaking work, Booysen and
Nkomo (2010) continued to contribute to her earlier work by establishing evidence within the
South African context of a “think manager-think male” attitude which was found to be stronger
among black and white South African males than it was for females. They found that men were
less likely to attribute successful managerial characteristics to women, but interestingly found
that black women were more likely to identify characteristics which were commonly identified
as female as being more managerial (Booysen & Nkomo, 2010).
Although mentors are lauded with assisting their mentees to navigate the often unspoken norms
and expectations within an organization, women can still struggle to integrate behavioural cues
and dispositions which allow them to be perceived as authoritative, but not “bitchy” or
domineering (Stone & Coetzee, 2005). This can be a challenge for women who have male
mentors who might challenge them to approach a situation a certain way, but who struggle to
embody this approach themselves for fear of being perceived as too masculine, or acting in a
way that might feel inauthentic or be perceived as such (Stone & Coetzee, 2005). Research by
Kent, Green, and Feldman (2015) indicated that long term mentoring across racial and gender
lines was unproblematic, but this research was also undertaken in an academic setting, which
may be different than the corporate setting. Their work also indicated the importance of the
longer term and informal nature of the commitment to the mentoring relationship over the course
of five to eight years, which might be quite different from current corporate settings as well
(Kent et al., 2015).
Mitchell, Eby and Ragins (2015) found that demographics mattered very little in whether
mentors and mentees perceived that they shared similarities, but rather had what both members
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perceived was a stronger similarity when both members of the dyad exhibited either similarly
high or similarly low attachment security (which they used as a proxy for the level of positive
internal working models, healthy interdependence, and appropriate levels of care that individuals
show to each other). They found that “to the extent that protégés perceive themselves as similar
to their mentors, they are more likely to identify with their mentors as role models, and may
generalize this identification to their organization and their profession. These findings suggest
that it is not just perceptions of similarity, but what these perceptions mean in terms of future
selves and role modelling processes that matter” (Mitchell et al., 2015, p. 8). This role modelling
function can have interesting implications when mentorship is examined across racial and gender
lines. It is interesting to contrast these assertions with the work of Dougherty, Dreher,
Arunachalam, and Wilbanks (2013), which revealed that particularly in male gendered
industries, having a senior male mentor can significantly increase female mentees average
earnings, even out earning men in their peer group who also have a senior male mentor.
2.4 Conclusion
Although they are a relative rarity within the business world scope of South Africa, black
executive business women have had to overcome significant historical, cultural, racial and
gender based barriers to get to the positions they currently proudly inhabit. Their paths to the top
have undoubtedly included the guidance, teaching, role modelling, championing and other
benefits of those in the business world who saw their potential and chose to invest in them.
Missing from the current literature are echoes of their own voices, of their description of their
ascent to the top of their business field, and their stories of the mentors who have helped them
get there.
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3. Research methodology
The purpose of this research was to report on black female executive South African business
women’s experiences of mentorship; whether it was available, whether race and gender played a
factor, and their interpretation of how mentorship impacted their careers. The objective was to
discover if the women expressed feeling challenges to acquiring mentorship, and if they felt they
were able to access the type of mentorship they wanted and felt they needed, from the type of
mentors they desired and experienced to be effective. An examination of the literature has shown
that there has been little previous focus on this specific population with regard to mentorship.
This research provides a deeper understanding of the mentoring needs and desires of black South
African aspiring executive business women, as well as insights as to how to best help them
succeed and move up into the ranks of leadership in the South African context. Due to BBEEE
and EE policies, they will soon hold a more equitable share of the executive business level
positions, and it will be helpful to have a better understanding of what challenges this population
has encountered as well as what has worked well for them with potential for replication.
The research method was qualitative and inductive, with the intention of capturing women’s
stories to synthesise commonalities and highlight unique features. Qualitative research is most
appropriate when attempting to capture a person’s story and history (Silverman, 2000). Using an
interpretative framework to analyse the findings implies that meaning will be derived from the
stories, feelings, thoughts, experiences and opinions the respondents share, juxtaposed against
the context in which they are shared. As Boje, Oswick, and Ford (2004) note “Language is not
only content; it is also context and a way to recontextualize content. We do not just report and
describe with language; we also create with it. And what we create in a language “uses us” in
that it provides a point of view (a context) within which we “know” reality and orient our
actions” (p. 571). Seidman (2006) additionally emphasises the importance of reflection in the act
of storytelling, and as an effort of the telling, the meaning making continues to shape and mould
the experience.
3.1 Research Approach and Strategy
In trying to understand what the mentorship experience is like for black female South African
business women, this research utilised a phenomenological approach to focus on participants’
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individual perceptions and interpretations of the meaning associated with an event, situation,
condition or action, (Leedy & Ormrod, 2015). In alignment with this qualitative and process
driven theoretical approach, the events, situations, people and processes described by the
participants were analysed to infer how these elements interact and influence each other
(Maxwell, 2013).
3.2 Research Design
In utilising a phenomenological interpretative approach, this research examined participants’
responses through a lens of realism, indicating that the researcher holds these expressions,
beliefs, intentions and behaviours as in and of themselves “real,” and are thus accepted as
evidence of the phenomena being described (Maxwell, 2013). It was assumed that the
participants were able to self-interpret, and have either previously reflected on these experiences
of mentorship, or were having the opportunity to do so through the act of being interviewed
about these experiences. In this sense, the participants’ interpretation was a point of greater focus
than ascertaining a factually accurate representation of events. These impressions have given
credence to the development of themes either consistently expressed or uniquely articulated
throughout the interviews.
3.3 Data Collection Methods and Instruments
The research was in the form of in-depth, free-flowing, semi-structured interviews, with
opportunity for participants to convey and elaborate on their stories and experiences of
mentorship. The focus was on the meaning that the participants have taken from the experience,
and the interpretative process through which they arrived at that meaning. As an interviewer, the
task at hand was twofold, both to guide the interviewee through the topics of interest, allowing
the interviewee to introduce new topics as part of the flow, but also to direct the interviewee back
to topics which may not have been covered in sufficient depth to produce a greater understanding
(Flick, 2009). This allowed for the introduction of clarifying questions which can invite the
respondent to revisit areas which were not initially seem significant or meaningful, but in fact
lead the researcher to deeper insights. Taylor and Bogdan (1998) offer that qualitative
researchers must work hard to establish trust and a level of comfort for the participants in their
studies so that participants can initially reveal what is already on their own minds, gaining the
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initial benefit of the researcher as a listener, prior to launching into the full-fledged interview
questions in which the respondent is responding to the researchers’ concerns and aims for study.
The time allotted for interviews was 45 minutes to an hour and a half, which provided sufficient
time to fully explore the topic of mentorship with each interviewee. The interviews were
scheduled in advance, so that both parties properly allotted the time and were not disrupted or
distracted. All interviews were performed in person or through the use of telephonic or internet
based video exchange platforms. In order to ensure accuracy of data recording, a digital
recording device was utilised. The data was transcribed, reviewed and then coded for emergent
themes. Themes were analysed and consolidated to determine appropriate inferences.
3.4 Sampling
Research participants were selected from a particular population group, which is that of black
executive South African business women. The research included 16 participants, who were
discovered through a combination of purposeful selection, convenience and snowball sampling
as shown on the following Diagram 1. These methods allowed the researcher to access additional
participants through existing participants, as well as utilising her own school and
personal/professional networks. The assumption was that the focus population is a quite
exclusive subset of the larger population of South Africa, but also that a wide variety of people
might know at least one qualified participant to refer for the research. Many of these executive
business women did share networks, but due to timing much of the sample was created purely
through convenience sampling and referrals. The sample included one inadvertently chosen
mentor/mentee dyad, although neither was aware that their mentor/mentee was being interviewed
as they were both referred by a third woman who knew them both. Two women were approached
and invited to interview by the researcher as a result of the researcher attending the participants’
public speeches, four participants were snowball referrals from existing participants, one was
found through a Linkedin search of similar candidates to existing participants and found through
subsequent networking, and the remainder were invited through a referral from either a
university based colleague or professor or the researcher’s professional and personal networks.
Purposive selection indicates that certain people are chosen deliberately and specifically because
of their higher ability to convey information pertinent to the study (Maxwell, 2013). A potential
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shortcoming of the snowball methodology is that it can limit diversity of participants (Taylor &
Bogdan, 1998). However, as the focus of the research was on a very specific sample of the South
African population, this sampling methodology did not negatively limit the research.
Figure 1: Sampling Methodology
01
2
Referred
4
Approached
Directly
3 Approached
Directly
12
7
5
9 Referred
10 Referred
11 Referred
13
Referred
Referred
14 Referred
15 Referred
166
By colleague
Network
8 Referred
LinkedIn Research
Snowball
By Classmate
Direct Encounter
By Professor
Snowball Referal
In a mentoring relationship
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3.5 Research Criteria
In terms of qualitative research, “the question of validity can be summarized as a question of
whether the researcher sees what they think they can see” (Flick, 2009, p. 387). As the interviews
were recorded and accurately transcribed, they accurately reflect the reports of the respondents.
External validity is the extent to which the findings of a study can be replicated in other settings
(Leedy & Ormrod, 2015). As this research involved a small number of participants, it is unlikely
that the findings and conclusions are replicable, which means that the external validity is weak,
but this was known from the start as the research involved a very small number of participants.
Reliability reflects the extent to which the measurement is consistent, and reacts the same way
under numerous testing attempts (Adams, Khan, Raeside, & White, 2007). The interview
protocol (see Appendix 2 Interview Guide) guided the interviews, which ensured consistency in
the delivery of the questions. The sample size of 16 participants is small and thus a limitation of
the reliability of the data set.
3.6 Data Analysis Methods
Maxwell (2013) helpfully stresses the importance of beginning the data analysis of qualitative
research after the first interview and continuing from there. After the interview was completed,
the researcher made field notes of the interview, and after the transcriptions were completed, the
researcher read, and then reread the transcripts to get a sense of the themes or main emphasis of
the interviews. Following the creation of themes was the linking of themes, which occurred with
each subsequent interview that was completed. A table of the emergent themes was created to
track the various responses that arose from additional interviews which were completed. The
table included spaces to capture illustrative quotes which were selectively included in the final
write up.
3.7 Research Limitations
The investigator is a white American female, which is a different racial and cultural demographic
than the population being studied. This difference could have caused subjects to feel
uncomfortable in being forthright with the researcher, but this not appear to be the case as all
participants expressed being excited to share their stories and appeared to be at ease. Being of a
different demographic group could have possibly caused bias either in the participants’ responses
or the researcher’s interpretation of the responses.
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However, these differences also had the potential to provide a measure of impartiality as the
researcher has less inherent familiarity with the challenges and benefits associated with the topic
within the context. The participants did not have to be guarded or worry about offending the
researcher with their pointed comments about some of the more delicate racial issues within
South Africa, and could rather feel free to make explicit explanations without having to assume
the researcher already had a deep understanding of the context. At the same time, the researcher
possesses a strong curiosity surrounding this topic, and has a great deal of experience
communicating cross culturally and respecting cross cultural differences. As (Keats, 2001) points
out, “the recognition of cultural norms which might differ from those of one’s own culture marks
the beginning of mutual understanding, without which the interviewer will experience a degree
of frustration” (p. 129).
In an attempt to mitigate these limitations, the participants will be reminded of the voluntary
nature of their participation, as well as reassured of the confidentiality of their identity in the
study. They will be informed of how to remove their responses from the research should they
change their mind prior to publication. Although the researcher relatively new to the South
African context, she has spent two years living in Botswana, as well as five years working in
various African countries, which should give her a small measure of background in addition to
the six months spent in the country which have partially inspired the research itself. The
researcher has chosen a black South African male supervisor who should be able to shed some
light on certain cultural cues which the researcher might misunderstand.
The sample size is small, and thus the findings of this study will only provide a starting point for
understanding on this topic, and will not be large enough to be generalizable. Additionally, the
non-randomness of the sample presents a limitation for the applicability of potential findings.
Additional risks in approaching the process from a realism paradigm is that increased reliance on
inference may lead to drawing unjustified conclusions or disregarding validity threats such as a
deliberate mischaracterisation of a situation by a respondent (Maxwell, 2013). Finally, the
potential always exists with qualitative inquiry that the researcher will impose her own
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interpretation of meaning on the responses of the participants, thus overshadowing the potential
for new meanings and conclusions to be derived.
4. Research Findings
The sixteen women who were interviewed had generally very vibrant comments on their
experiences of mentorship, which could have been at least partially due to the nature of the self-
selection in agreeing to be interviewed in relation to the topic of mentorship. All participants had
experienced some form of mentorship whether formal or informal, sponsored by companies or
sought of their own volition, with varying degrees of reported impact and success. Nearly all the
women identified their industries or companies as male dominated, with the exception of two
participants who worked in the marketing/advertising and fast moving consumer goods
industries. Between these 16 participants they expressed opinions and insights on mentorship
that both echo and contradict previous literature (and each other), but nonetheless provides a
window into the experiences of black executive business women in post-Apartheid South Africa.
Nearly all women used some form of the word “navigation”, or a synonym for that term to
describe the way in which mentorship has helped direct or guide themselves within their working
life, their family life, or both. The term navigation was often used in relation to office or
company politics, in terms of the subjects’ intended progression and direction within their greater
careers, or in delineating a path that created a balance between home life and work life.
“Exposure” was another word commonly used to describe opportunity to access different
experiences, types of people, ways of life, ideas, styles of leadership, careers, or job prospects.
“Journey” was a common term participants used to describe their movement through their
careers, and mentors were often a part of that journey.
“Token” or the concept of “tokenism” were not words or ideologies that were offered up by any
of the women, and when asked of their perceptions on tokenism, they universally responded
indicating that although they acknowledged the impact that the post-Apartheid context and
BBEEE had had on opening opportunities for their careers, they believed they were where they
were due to their own demonstration of merit, in the forms of hard work and skills, rejecting the
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idea that they were “token” black women even if they were alone as black women at the top. The
“queen bee” phenomenon was never mentioned as a barrier to mentorship, and when they were
questioned as to whether it had impacted them, many of them said that although they had seen
some women in power embody those characteristics, they felt that it was less gendered, and was
in fact a type of behaviour they had also seen from men in power. The phrases “glass ceiling” or
“glass cliff” were not specifically mentioned, but the characteristics of those phrases, such as
women describing feeling unable to achieve certain positions within their organisations because
there were no role models who looked like them in positions they aspired to. The “old boys’
network” was described as somewhat impenetrable, but neither glass ceilings or old boys’
networks were repeated as a consistent focal point or area of emphasis within the interviews.
Overall, women were much more interested in relaying how they had maneuvered for success
rather than dwelling on what could hold them back.
4.1 What are black executive South African business women’s perceptions and
experiences of the accessibility and impact of mentorship on their lives?
In this section, participants report a wide range of information in relation to the appearance and
progression of mentorship within their own context and lives. Participants report on the
availability of mentorship, including the first emergence or recognition within family of origin or
African National Congress (ANC) borne expectations on education, networks and specifically
identified support. Findings include insights into the act of discovery, or the impression of “being
discovered” during university or first employment experiences, which will be contrasted with
those who have actively sought mentorship. Shortcomings and failures in expectations of
mentorship in early years, as well as identified conditions for successful mentorship experiences
will be reviewed. Participants perceptions of various types of mentorship interventions which are
needed throughout the course of a career are revealed.
Accessibility of mentorship:
Many of the women began their recollections of mentorship with their experiences within their
family of origin, which was the case for P5, P7, P8, P9, P11, P15, and P14, each of whom
described family members who pushed and guided them either academically or career wise in
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their earlier years. P9, P12 and reflected that their parents held certain attitudes about the type
and style of education that was expected to be reached, in some cases as a pathway out of
poverty. P2, P9 and P12 each spoke of how her family’s connections (or rather lack thereof)
influenced her attitudes toward mentorship. In the cases where her family came from working
class rather than professional background, the participants lamented that they felt they often had
no one within their family of origin to reach out to for guidance or perspective. This often
influenced their proactive pursuit of mentorship in the professional setting.
The sample was evenly split between women who deliberately sought mentorship and those who
express something akin to being “discovered” by their mentors. There was wide consensus that
while these women as the recipients of mentorship worked with mentors who “saw something”
in them, they often struggled to elaborate what that certain special something was. The sensation
that, as P9 mused: “somebody who obviously saw an opportunity, who saw something in me that
even I didn't see in myself,” was echoed by P7: “by that time I had a mentor and I had a coach
and how that happened only God knows, because I didn’t look for these people, but what they
saw, the potential that I had, for some reason was offered to me, and it was just awesome!” After
the first experience of being “discovered,” participants still often attributed finding a mentor to
“luck” as when P11 states: “I’ve been lucky to have been promoted quite a number of times, and
each time I was lucky enough to find someone who held my hand, guided me, people who were
just available for me to ask stupid questions. And those were the people who gave me confidence
when I felt I couldn’t do something, they believed in me, but they also corrected me if I was
going out of line, or doing things that were not serving my purpose or the job.” Similar
sentiments were paraphrased throughout several of the participants’ descriptions of how their
experiences with mentorship began. This impression occurred most often in participants’
descriptions of their first mentors, usually when they had not sought mentorship, or when the
mentorship was not a formal process within their companies, but rather seemed to appear
unexpectedly.
While there were a number of women who were surprised by the onset of mentoring in their
early careers, there were also some who expressed regret that mentoring had not been more
readily available earlier in their lives. Within the context of growing up in a disadvantaged
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family, P12 expressed the regret that: “perhaps if I’d been exposed to a mentor earlier on in my
life, who knows what I may have been able to achieve. My outlook may be so different.” This
sentiment was echoed by P1, who recalled uncertainty and desire for guidance during an early
career transition: “My biggest challenge, at that time, is that I was always concerned that I was
not further developing. I felt like I wasn’t really growing. And I felt that I’m early in my career, I
really need to bed down real skills…. I felt like there was more, and that’s why I made the
change. I didn’t really have anyone to bounce this off…. in fact when I told my parents that I was
making a career change, they were quite worried, they were like, ‘well nothing really seems to
be wrong with where you are at, why would you want to change?’ Because I had a fairly
successful career there, well, within my early years. But anyway, I think it was the right thing to
do in hindsight.” Several women expressed regret at the absence of mentorship in their early
years in relation to academic choices, paths or endeavours, as they felt, perhaps due to their early
life circumstances, that their families were also not able to provide them with adequate guidance.
There was a consensus that the guidance programs within the schools they attended were non-
existent or inadequate.
There is a unique circumstance reported among the respondents who were over 40 years old and
came of age during the Apartheid struggle and the resulting transition within the country from
minority white rule to a more integrated society. Several of those women reported that the ANC
party had played a strong role in their educational development. As P7 reported from her
secondary education in the late 70’s: “they didn’t have guidance, or what today is called school
guidance, or career guidance… at the time, the political leaders in our townships would
encourage us further our education, because the only way for us to take on the country is for us
to be educated. So we had a lot of those messages.” P8 added: “I wasn’t mentored by anyone, I
just worked hard… the only people I can say ever played a role in my life and in my obtaining
higher education like the MA, was the ANC... when we were in exile. Because the ANC created
an environment where I could go and study overseas, and get a master’s degree. Up to that
point, no one was mentoring me. It was just difficult to be in the corporate world, as a young
black educated woman.” P9 was the child of parents in exile, and recalls “So for me, the people
that I always looked up to were struggle people. People who were rooted in politics. Who lead
movements…. studying for me has always been like, I always assumed that I'm going to go to
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university, I didn't how, I didn't when, didn't where the money is going to come from but
everybody aspires to go to university, it's like it's a prerequisite. So for me there was never any
question around whether academic pursuits was going be a part of my life because that's just
what one does. You wake up recognising that if this is the political situation at home, I mean you
get out of this and work on the issues. So that is what you pursue. You get out of this and issues
with no money by pursuing education. So my mentorship, when I kind of look at it now, really
came from people who always told me about what is it that you need to do in order to get out of
where you are. And you do that by working hard, so you work very hard to get to where you need
to go and that's there currently what you have.”
Many women described mentoring relationships as part of their formal employment, either as
programs for new graduates or as something a supervisor suggested they seek out. The
effectiveness of these types of arrangements, where mentors and mentees are matched, seemed to
garner mixed results. More often participants in this study described situations wherein there
may have been group mentorship, or introduction to company culture/buddy programs that
resulted in more organic and informal mentorship relationships beginning. This was reflected by
P16: “When I joined the bank I actually did join them on the graduate program, and part of that
activity was that you would have, I guess it was called a buddy, someone who had been on the
program perhaps a year or two prior to you and would help guide you, but it was more peer
mentorship and you’d also have like a senior executive sponsor who would support you through
the process. So that was kind of part of the program and how it worked. It was more... to help
you navigate, and help if you can approach challenges or difficulties… but helped you navigate
and connect the dots. Who needs to know you, who do you need to know, ect.” P16 further
elaborates: “When I was on the graduate program…. that was very unsuccessful for me. [My
assigned mentor] was a woman, and she was very senior in the organization, and a white
woman… it had all the perfect makings of what you may want, but again, we just didn’t arrive at
a connection. I really struggled to relate to her. We had very little in common, it was really
intimidating cause she was very senior, and she was also kind of very quiet, to herself kind of
person….. there wasn’t a natural connection. And that made it kind of challenging and
uncomfortable because it wasn’t a place I would go naturally. If I had a challenge I would
probably try to tackle it with her if I had a session with her, but it wasn’t my first go-to place.
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The kind of disconnect you get when you’re paired with people you don’t know well, based on
paper descriptions perhaps. It’s that formal mentoring.”
The differences between formal and informal mentorship were best outlined by P13, who noted
that with informal mentorships there is a sense of: “I’m guiding you, I’m advising you, take it,
don’t take it, use it or don’t, but we don’t know if there is any tangible behaviour change
happening. Whereas with the formal one it is clear. When you’ve got something measureable and
clear, it accelerates progress. It becomes really clear for the mentee, as it shows them where are
the gaps and what needs to happen and how all of this fits into your career.” The participants
were about evenly split in their preference and beliefs in the effectiveness of formal versus
informal mentoring. There was consensus that more important than whether mentoring was done
formally or informally was that it was part of the culture of the company.
Women who had worked across several companies, careers or industries could identify a
palpable difference between companies that promoted a culture of mentorship and those that did
not. P16 elaborated on the difference in ease of securing a mentor: “If these things [mentorship
programs] are not encouraged by the organisation it can be difficult, when you have to kind of
start your own program, it can be difficult to approach some of these people. When you don’t
have a culture of people just engaging across the organisation, it also creates some insecurity
with line managers or individuals. Or people may perceive this in a different way, they may think
I’m looking for opportunities outside of my area, and it makes people [feel] vulnerable.” This
workplace culture can present challenges for women who seek mentorship in circumstances
when it is not readily offered, and can leave women with a sense that their professional
development is not valued by the company.
Although all participants expressed that they had had some type of exposure to mentorship
within their professional lives, several also expressed that they struggled to find value in
mentorship within the one on one, meetings based paradigm of mentorship. P6 elaborates:
“Generally by the time I'm able to [meet with my mentor] the issue has already been resolved…
I find that some of the questions I might have and situations I might be in, have passed by, if the
person isn't in my place by the time I engage with them, I don't know what to engage with them
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on. I used my line managers quite a bit, because they were in my situation and they could
understand me. The immediacy of the person is important for me…. I suppose I've just been lucky
in that was that I had a lot of good line managers that I could get that kind of feedback and
mentorship from.” P16 concurs: “In my career, people have been interested in me for lots of
different reasons, but I’ve found mentorship quite challenging, and I think it’s a lack of real
opportunity in meeting and engaging regularly with people who can help drive your career. I
don’t know if this is a South African thing, but you have to foster these relationships, and then it
might not flow naturally. I could seek someone out and say ‘could you help me?’ and it becomes
quite formalised.. You would want something more easy and that comes more naturally, where
somebody can say, ‘think about this’ or ‘look at this’ or ‘consider that, there’s an opportunity
coming up or you should put your hand up and engage with these people.’ So I’ve always found
them difficult as they are very prescribed and formal, and I do also think that because you are
looking for something specific so you engage with this person, but you should have a very wide
network.”
Impact of mentorship:
Each participant was energetic in recounting at least a few positive experiences of mentorship.
This was usually tied with the benefits or opportunities that the participants perceived that their
mentor had made available or introduced them to, as P14 recalled with affection the breadth of
topics she was able to cover with her mentor: “The kind of mentorship I’ve received in this place
is amazing. I’ve never been in a formal mentoring relationship where you sit together and you
write things down. It’s been an on the job mentorship if I can call it that, people seeing potential
in you, giving you opportunities, opening up spaces for you and allowing you to flourish.
Informal guidance, the very first lady who was my boss, she would mentor me across the board,
she would mentor me on work, ‘you see these type of transactions, this is how you structure it,
these are the types of questions you must ask.’ She mentored me on my family life, issues of if you
are a young mother, this is how you balance your life, make sure you do this in regard to your
children. ‘As a woman you have to work 2-3 times harder for you to just get by, but you cannot
just abandon that child.’ Those things she told me made me very effective in terms of work life
balance.”
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All of the women were able to recount how their mentors had impacted them professionally. P6
elaborates on how her mentors helped her successfully navigate the office politics within her
professional experience: “They can help you understand the politics behind the organisation, the
way things work. They understand the people whom you talking about, they understand if they
advise you on these issues, they understand this advice they give is practical... And the
intricacies of the relationships and the politics and the environment so what is mostly what I’ve
found on work-related things. It's very rare that I've had a mentor where that advice would have
extended to personal, that's normally not something I discuss in the work environment.”
Many of the women expressed a great deal of nostalgia in recounting their relationships with
their mentors. P4 expands on what her mentor did for her and how he guided her: “My mentor
was a very good person. He was pushing me, if I go to those sessions I knew that I would be
challenged and I would be pushed and I enjoyed that. It helped me to grow in my role, and it also
made me aware of my own blind spots. That relationship made me to start believing in myself. It
was one of the major issues that I had when I entered that relationship, is not believing in myself,
and thinking that, oh, maybe you just got into this role because you are black and you are
female. And them trying to reach the EE stats. And I think he empowered me to understand….
you do have something to offer, and so he moulded me in the right direction.”
P10 emphasises how her mentor impacted her outlook on how to interface with colleagues and
superiors, both at the time they were in a mentoring relationship as well as in how she
approaches similar situations in the present: “He brought so much out of me in terms of the
process of mentorship, he believed in what I could do more than I did at some times. And
believed in what I could achieve…. I sometimes imagine phoning him [now] and imagine the
kind of guidance he would give, and one of the most important things he said to me once, was
that sometimes when you’re in meetings with senior level or older executives, sometimes it’s not
how they say things to you, but just listen to what they are saying to you, that has stuck with me
for so many years. You deal with different executives, some quite harsh and some quite amiable,
and whenever you’re dealing with a number of really hard people, I focus on what are they
saying, and not how are they saying it. It really helped me grow. It really helped me understand
it’s not about taking things personally, it’s about delivery. And if you can deliver and deliver
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consistently, which is one of the things he always used to say, you can be great at what you do.
But if you cannot deliver a consistently great product, or a consistently excellent product, then it
doesn’t say much for you.”
Rather than being particularly relational, P5 had very specific and structured goals around her
plans for her mentoring experience, and desired the opportunity to gain specific skills and
achieve certain milestones: “It was more around how do I migrate to the next level of leadership;
how do I get to that next level? How do I increase my effectiveness as a leader, how do I build an
effective team, a very engaged team, use my experience to benefit the team?”
Many of the participants expressed varying opinions on what was expected or optimal in a
mentoring relationship, and P9 captured the differences in mentorship type support needs
throughout the phases of a woman’s career: “In my mind, you need different types of support at
different stages of your working career…. So what you need when you're fresh out of university
is not the same thing as you need, 10 years in, it's not the same thing you need in 20 years. It's
very different people you need, so it doesn't work to have one person taking you all the way
through…. because you need somebody to support you technically and to help you figure out the
dynamics. ….You're still trying to unpack what is happening, what is this world of work what it
looks like. When this person does this, what do I need, what do I need to see….. you almost need
a sounding board more than a mentor. You need far more of a sounding board….than a
structured mentorship [early on]. 10 years in, or even 5, 6, 7 years in, you need a far more
structured relationship. Because that’s probably the time you would say ‘okay now I've figured
out what's there’ and then trying to say ‘what's my next move?’ So there's a deliberateness in the
way you need a level of structure… choices that you need to make and that requires probably far
more of a mentorship type of relationship…. 20 years in, what you need is a network …. An
association of people that you kind of pull in in depending upon what you're looking for. So you
need people who know different things… who are working in different sectors. You need people
who are doing really well when they talk. You need people that do really really well technically.
You need people that know how to help you on the emotional side. If that was a company, it
would be a company of associates. All the people that you have, when you know you have access
to what you need it. Who can help you migrate yourself. Because inevitably, the mentor
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relationship would probably be then, also self-driven. Because by that time you basically you
have your own choices….. What do I think I need and what needs to happen in order for me to
get there.”
P10 concurs with this theme with her comment: “Sometimes…. we expect mentorship to be an
ongoing process with one person, but I’ve learned throughout the years that mentorship can
come from different people in different ways…. when you’re coming into the work place, you
don’t have someone guiding you, teaching you the dos and don’ts. In high school you have
teachers, and then you get to university, how to behave, how to study, how to navigate the
system, and when you get to the workplace, everyone expects that you know. I had worked at the
workplace but that was not the same… You’re expected to deliver. This made my mentor a very
important person [in my early career].” P16 links back to the importance of a mentoring culture
within corporate South Africa, and the idea of having more than one mentor, or rather a wider
professional network: “Some people you connect with, but it can be hard to know how to derive
the best value out of people. It’s almost as if the culture should just broadly to engage with
people, and have different people that you draw on for very different things. And know what you
can get from them, whereas I feel like the mentorship is matching two people, and that you both
travel the journey together.”
4.2 What impact have race and gender had on black South African women’s
experiences of mentorship within their careers?
In this section, the participants reflect on the types of similarities (demographic or otherwise)
they shared with their mentors, and how those similarities or differences affected their
experiences of mentorship, or the type of mentorship they pursued. Distinctions between
different forms of mentoring or relationships and actions that may be identified as having the
same career promotional impact as mentoring are discussed, including mentoring, sponsoring,
coaching and the impact supervisors who are not formal mentors have had on the participants.
Variations on reasons participants chose their and ways women utilised their mentoring
relationships are revealed.
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More often than race and gender being of primary importance in the mentoring or coaching
relationships, across the board participants expressed that either values, morals and shared
outlook were more important. There was an emphasis on the mentoring relationship being a
place to be able to display a huge amount of vulnerability, a safe space. P13 expressed that:
“Values are very important, as is the maturity of both parties. Understanding that you cannot
always be around people who share your values, but understanding and accepting that diversity.
Being able to respect the other people’s values and they respect mine. Not that they want to
change my values, and I don’t want to change theirs. This is why the [mentoring] contract is very
important. So yes, there are times where I had to sort of say, ‘I’m drawing the line, this is what I
believe and I’m not changing.’ It’s more about the emotional connection. Sometimes you just
cannot connect with people…. When it’s about values and differences, you can set that aside or
it’s not going to work with you. That’s why you have the contract so that you can see if it’s going
to work from the outset.” What P3 valued most about her mentor was that: “she challenged me
without challenging my beliefs.”
The participants often made no distinction past titles in describing their mentors, coaches,
sponsors, managers or bosses. If they did make a distinction within title, they still expressed that
the people in these various roles had contributed to their personal or professional development in
a significant manner, and one which they associated with what they described as the expected
outcomes of mentorship. Various women attempted to describe their functional understanding of
the differences they perceived between coaching and mentorship, with some also making a
distinction from sponsorship. P4 distinguishes mentorship from coaching: “[with coaching] it’s
not about what’s happening in the role, it’s not the day to day ‘show me how this job is done,’
but it’s about actually having that person that you can bounce issues with. And it’s got a time
frame, the time frame is dependent on outcomes that you want to reach. And then mentorship, in
our definition, is that long term relationship with that trusted partner that can take you through
the ranks.” Several women used the terms interchangeably, and generally emphasised that the
element of payment and formality in relation to coaching. A number of the participants indicated
that they saw coaches of being of greater necessity later in their careers, and noted that their
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employers tended to provide coaches to them more often as they progressed in their careers, to
help them grow in specific roles.
Sponsorship, however was often described as something that could either be provided by a
mentor, or as something provided from within the larger scope of the business, and something
that a mentor could potentially influence. Sponsors were depicted as those who could help
promote a woman (or her ideas), both to support her when she was around, in a boardroom
setting for example, or when she was not around, such as when executives would meet to discuss
whom to put forward for new positons or opportunities. In relation to gender, participants
repeatedly described sponsorship as something very imperative for high level males to provide.
P10 describes her experience with sponsorship, while also highlighting a challenge many women
described in their corporate experience around gender: “The idea when you say something, a
male says it later. And you need to get buy in from your male colleagues before the conversation
happens. You need to prepare yourself to say something not only once but twice, and I’ve
experienced it in every place I’ve worked. You need the finance guy to buy in and repeat what
you’ve said in order to get it accepted.” P16 continues: Very often when you look at corporate
for people who have very successful careers, very often those people have been identified very
early in their careers, and they’ve been not only mentored by sponsored as well, and they have a
very set path as to how to get to these leadership roles. I think mentorship is one, but
sponsorship does not necessarily come in a package with mentorship. Sponsorship within this
context sometimes means the person who will support you and that you can go to if you need
assistance in navigating certain types of situations. When I say sponsorship, I’m talking about
people who will push you for different things, so when guys are discussing promotions, or new
opportunities and who should head up businesses or initiatives that they are punting for you.
They’re saying, ‘I know this candidate and I know this woman who would do well in this
challenge, what about this candidate?’ And sometimes you have I guess mentorship relationships
that don’t necessarily create or quantify to work opportunities. Almost like a support and
shoulder to cry on but not necessarily career progression.”
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P9 echoes: “There is very little that you achieve by yourself, especially as a female in working
lifestyle without other people helping you through this process… pure tenacity is not enough… to
put a clever idea [forward in a meeting is] sometimes is not enough. My observation has been
that for women in particular, getting heard isn't accepted. There's better level of acceptance over
the things that they put onto the table when somebody else resonates with what they say. So if
you're sitting in a room and you're in a meeting and somebody makes a proposal that says ‘you
know, I think that the way that we need to approach this client is as follows.’ Actually people
only hear that when somebody else in the room validates it. So somebody else in the room finally
needs to say ‘that's a good idea’.. before people that say "oh okay" and then begin to start
processing it….. There is a limited amount of quantitative value that you can put on the table
until somebody else in the room validates it. So the organization part is also much impacted by
that, of who you had at the table… the organizational dynamics of corporate South Africa are
something else completely.” These characterisations of sponsorship were occasionally
interchangeably used with the term “championing,” and there did not seem to be a big
distinction between them or an agreement as to whether a mentor could provide sponsorship, or
if providing sponsorship was within the expectations of the roles of all mentors. Sponsorship
was, however, repeatedly mentioned as a necessary element for upward career mobility for the
nearly all of the participants.
There was another characterisation of mentorship that came up in several ways throughout the
research. This was most eloquently described by P2 as what she referred to as her “personal
board, [which is] a collection of mentors and sponsors, Jewish, non-Jewish, Afrikaans, male,
white, black whatever. Very mixed. The reason for that is business is very diverse. To get a team
that is very diverse and to learn different things from different people, and making sure that I
have access to those networks and have diversified. You can’t just assume that every black
person I go to is going to help me. They could have their own personal issues or it could be
gender or we just don’t get along…. in qualifying as a CA, I realised much earlier on that there
were very few black females who were chartered accountants, and if I was going to take on this
journey and be successful I was going to need a support [system] around me and just, people
that I can ask and consult on, you know, what to do, what not to do, and that’s what sparked it
for me, from that perspective. And I also knew that I didn’t have a business background and I
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wanted to start at corporate and I wanted to accelerate my career, and I just knew, what better
way than to ask people who were already on the journey?”
P15 echoes desire for diversity in her mentoring experiences: “[there is a] belief that.. your
mentor, or your coach, you must have some formal rapport… with most of my coaches or
mentors, for me it wasn’t about rapport… I forced myself because I thought about the skills and
the knowledge that they have and how I can benefit from that knowledge. That has helped me a
lot in terms of my growth. Because to choose somebody with whom you have similarities, doesn’t
really stretch and grow you. So I’ve chosen to challenge the stereotype mentality that I could
have had about a particular thing, to help that person show me different view from that
stereotype, which has helped me a lot on my journey to growth.”
Another unique approach to the choice of mentor and the goals of the mentoring relationship was
presented by P12, who was directed by a supervisor to find a mentor within her company, and
intentionally chose someone she identified as very different to herself. P12 asserted “I think that
the challenge is that we’re so completely different, but that was quite deliberate on my part. I
wanted someone who would challenge me, and it’s intense. White English male. I tend to be
quite measured, I am quite diplomatic, he’s quite brash….. We are just quite different. But I
thought that that would challenge me, incredibly…… I often think that you learn the most from
people that are completely the opposite from you, which is why I have challenged myself in this
way…….. I wouldn’t even hang out with this person……. But I realise that I need to understand
how people like this think. I need to understand that, because when I do get to that level, I’m
gonna meet a lot of people like this, and so I need to be ready, to kind of tackle, deal, you know,
how do I deal with a personality like this? So in as much as I’m getting guidance in a way, I’m
actually using this as an opportunity to actually learn ‘how exactly do I deal with you in a
boardroom, when I’m your equal?’ What is it that I need to know now? And so that’s incredibly
challenging for me, very tough…… You kind of, at arm’s length, you know these people but it’s
trying to understand, ‘if you were my peer, what would I need to know, what makes you tick,
what are you thinking about me… I see how you cut off women in meetings, I see how you speak
over us in meetings, so what do I need to know?’…. In some ways it makes me understand his
female counterparts right now. Why they behave the way that they do, why they may be brash or
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coarse, why they are exactly like him. Which is incredible. So I guess this comes back to given
what I see, as kind of leadership and I’m actually afraid to succeed at that level because I’m
afraid it might alter who I am, and I don’t want to be that person. So how do I step into my
authentic self, and be me but still get the respect that I need, without conforming to this status
quo? That for me is a huge conflict. Even in dealing with women leaders.”
This intentional adversarial approach to mentor choice does not appear in the reviewed literature,
and is somewhat different to the emphasis both the literature as well as many of the other women
in this study placed on similarities between mentors and mentees. The sentiment that “race does
not matter” was echoed by many of the participants, but in fact there was specific elaboration
from P2 as to why she often found herself choosing certain demographics in mentors “White
males in South Africa, I pick them because they have been predominantly running the businesses.
They have been running the executive arena. They have a lot more experience… You find that
you get a lot of value out of that, and there are fewer black executives that have the kind of
experience, and even if they do, you find that they are generally quite stretched out. I am open to
both. It’s not about race, it’s more about where the country was and who had more of an
opportunity to be exposed to certain things.”
In terms of cultural background and mentorship, P16 was not alone in this study in describing a
satisfying mentorship relationship with someone from outside of the South African context as a
whole in having a white man of German heritage as her mentor: “I think that that’s important
because I think sometimes in the south African context we have our own issues and biases and I
feel like people that come from an external environment….. are a little more engaging and non-
discriminatory, but not aware of the bias that you would find typically in the South African
context. It was helpful… as a young black woman you don’t always have a lot of people who
have been in these professions that have travelled the same journey and I think you almost lack
those relationships…. but also that guidance. So it was very helpful to have somebody who
obviously didn’t have any issue and [race] was just a non-factor to them.” P2, P3, P8, and P16
also described mentoring relationships with mentors who were not South African.
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That being said, women in this study occasionally found value in having a black female
mentor/coach to help them navigate the challenges of the trailblazing nature of their positions at
the top of companies as outlined by P1 “After I was promoted to Managing Director…. I sought
out a coach, and this time…. I was quite selective in what I felt I needed in a coach. It was a
black lady, a female, who had herself been a CEO within the financial services sector. And I
needed somebody that could kind of relate to the sector that I was in, and most importantly a
black female who could relate to the challenges, who I felt could really get my anxieties about
making Managing Director. She would be able to resonate at some level and be able to have a
meaningful conversation about how do we navigate this? It was really great, and when I look
back on my career from now, this is one of the most powerful relationships that I have had, in
terms of mentoring or coaching”. A white female mentor helped P7 recognise when her pursuit
of her career ambitions meant that her home life was suffering, and reminded her that: “you can
always come back, the work will still be here,” giving her a sense of freedom to attend to the
parts of her life that needed her most at that time.
P4 reveals how her mentorship relationship with a black female mentor as grown and matured
over the years, and become more bidirectional: “when I’m really stuck….. [she has even said],
‘you know when I get that call out of the blue, I know that something is happening’. That is my
sounding board and we’ve partnered together on this journey, and that is a person that I can
trust….. We’re still in touch… That relationship started in 1999 and now we are in 2016 (17
years). What is interesting is that mentorship is also a two-way process, as she’s also a black
female, and she’s also experiencing hardships at times, and she knows, who is the best person to
talk to who will not judge her and will also help her to talk through what she is going through.”
P5 elaborates on how she has progressed with what she perceived had the potential to be
problematic differences between her coach (a white woman) and herself: “We have such an
authentic relationship. In the first few sessions I had to decide if there were any barriers between
us, she comes from a very affluent background, but after a few sessions, but when you get to
know the way she views the world, you actually realised that we actually have a lot in common.
And she would judge the world not from a very aloof privileged stance, because her frame of
reference is totally different from the world in which I come from. She has managed to somehow
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bridge that gap…. It has made our relationship as authentic as it is, very open, quite strong level
of acceptance. I can really truly share anything with her. She’s quite religious, so if there is a
moral disconnect between how I view certain things, and I might feel like she wants to judge me
harshly on matters, I’ve overcome that barrier, because she has made me feel there is absolutely
no limitation to what I can put on the tale. Whether her religious frame of reference, conflict
with that or not, she has a very open minded and liberal way of looking at the world. That is one
of the main things that has brought us to where we are in our relationship.” So, while values are
important, it seems that the most important element of mentoring for a majority of these women
was in having that safe space to open up, be vulnerable and grow with their mentors.
5. Research Analysis and Discussion
This section will provide insight into the meaning behind the responses given by the research
participants in the findings section, as well as to relate the themes of their responses back to
literature to compare and contrast these findings with that which has been previously done by
other academics. The discussion was derived from the qualitative analysis of the interviews
conducted with the 16 participants in this study, who were selected through both convenience
and snowball sampling. Analysis of the transcripts of the interviews included identification of
emergent keywords and commonly shared themes, which provided answers to the research
questions and areas of inquiry. The interviews were guided in a semi structured manner, which
allowed for elaboration and clarification of statements while ensuring that all elements of
research questions were addressed.
5.1 What are black executive South African business women’s perceptions and
experiences of the accessibility of mentorship in their lives?
That women in this study chose not to utilise thematic words that emphasise disadvantage or
marginalisation such as “token,” “queen bee,” or “glass ceiling,” might imply one of several
different circumstances. Although when specifically queried, participants could often comment
on the existence of or their observation of these concepts, they were either unfamiliar with the
academic terms for these concepts, or did not interpret them as true barriers that could restrict
their rise to the top. If participants appeared to be unfamiliar with the academic terms when
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queried about them, the researcher gave a brief explanation and example of the term, so coupled
with their reflections on the terms it can assumed that the general absence of these words and
terms within the interviews in this study is due to the latter.
This is in line with Kiaye and Singh's (2013) work with women in Durban, South Africa,
wherein they found that women in their study did not strongly relate to glass ceiling limitations,
at least partially because of the large amount of employment equity legislation that benefits them
within the corporate realm in South Africa. It’s possible that these positive attitudes and frames
of interpretation could also contribute to participants’ current success, or enhance in them the
embodiment of that “special something” which had caught the attention of their early mentors,
which reflects the work of Higgins and Kram (2001). Across the sample, even when describing
challenges they had encountered, these women more strongly emphasised their capabilities and
belief in themselves. It is interesting then, to contrast this self-confidence with how much credit
they often gave their mentors for their achievements, through such comments as when P4 states:
“one of the things that it did for me was to make me believe in myself. Because without the
mentor, I don’t think I would be where I am today.” Similar sentiments were echoed by a
number of the participants, and it would be interesting to tease out if these types of
acknowledgements are at all attributable to the more typically deeper sense of psychosocial
support and stronger relational intimacy that females were found to have with their mentors as
found in O’Brien, Biga, Kessler, and Allen (2010).
This study affirmed the notion that acquiring mentorship can be a complex undertaking that can
ultimately have a positive effect on women’s careers (Apospori et al., 2006; Merriam, 1983).
Although several of the women interviewed expressed some difficulty in acquiring mentorship
early on in their lives, a majority of them were able to connect with someone within their
professional sphere in a mentoring capacity, and those relationships resulted in a great deal of
reported success in the participants’ lives. Based on their assertion that many of their mentors
“saw something” in them, it can be concluded that they likely embodied the characteristics a
“rising star” as described by Singh et al. (2009b). Whether mentorship was sought or whether
mentors “discovered” their mentees does not seem to matter with regard to the rising star
hypothesis, because in both circumstances the women were doing something career positive
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which would likely attract a mentor, as found in Allen (2004).
In circumstances such as those of South Africa, where legislation encourages the promotion of
women of colour to the advantage of the firm, it is easy to see why black women here might be
more able here to gain access to mentoring relationships, which is in disagreement with the
literature about females of colour generally (Banister, Bowen-Brady, & Winfrey, 2014; Ortiz-
Walters & Fullick, 2015; Williams et al., 2005). It is in the best interest of the country as a whole
that more people of colour be not only well trained but also well mentored and guided into
positions of business ownership and corporate leadership, despite being previously
disadvantaged (Colgan & Ledwith, 2000; Kengne, 2016; Mathur-Helm, 2005). However, there is
still a perceived shortage of guidance or mentors for women from disadvantaged backgrounds,
and room for programs that might give these young women exposure to various career options
which they could aspire to. Gushue and Whitson's (2006) work with black and Latina girls
indicates a high potential for programs that promote early positive interventions to mitigate
existing ethnic and gender limited role attitudes and model career development goals to
encourage young women to reach for higher career possibilities, and it would be interesting to
see the potential for these types of programs in South Africa.
The identification of the ANC as a liberation movement in playing a mentoring role in women’s
lives appears to be a somewhat unique phenomenon that does not specifically appear in the
reviewed literature. Hammond, Clayton, and Arnold (2012) provide a sense of the educational
disenfranchisement black educationally aspirational students struggled with in trying to become
a part of the growing black middle class during the end of the Apartheid era, but their research
does not speak the potential for this mentorship role by the ANC as described by the women in
this study. It would enrich the narrative to do further research into whether other race based
liberation movements such as the Black Panthers in the United States have also inspired this type
of relational interpretation regarding mentorship, or to determine if this finding could be
replicated in other studies.
The benefits of mentorship that the participants perceived and the positive regard they generally
had for their mentors is reflected in the work of Mysyk (2007), who discusses female identity
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within the world of work in relation to mentoring, and confirms the role that female mentors can
provide in helping females navigate the various types of office relational issues that many of the
women in this study reported facing. Byrne, Dik, and Chiaburu's (2008) work with alternative
forms of mentoring echoes P9 and P10 when they discussed the various types of mentoring
support that was needed through different life and career stages, as well as P2 when she spoke of
her personal board. Blickle, Witzki, and Schneider (2009) provides support for the oft repeated
concept of development networks, which also reflects the wider validity of P2’s personal board
concept (although not in those exact words).
Within South Africa, the Take a Girl Child to Work program (Cell C, 2016) and its affiliated Girl
Child Mentorship Institute provide a corporate supported response to the type of shortfall which
has been reported in this study with regard to in mentorship and exposure to career role models
for young girls in South Africa. These types of interventions were generally not around during
the time when the participants in this study were schooling and beginning their careers, and these
programs may thus provide a context that better serves and prepares young black South African
women for high powered executive careers. Each of the women in this study indicated that they
were currently acting as mentors and guides for younger men and women within their personal
and professional lives, and which is in line with the assertion that Shrivastava et al. (2014) makes
in noting that current managers within South Africa will have to take extra measures to act as
role models and mentors for younger people from under-represented categories in order to make
South Africa more culturally representative.
In the greater world context within recent years in the international development community
there has been an increased attention to educational interventions for young girls as a method to
prevent HIV, sexual violence and early pregnancies, to encourage female education, as well as in
support of the potential economic impact educating young women can have on world economies,
all of which are relevant in the South African context (Chaaban & Cunningham, 2011; Harrison,
Newell, Imrie, & Hoddinott, 2010; Levine, Lloyd, Greene, & Grown, 2009; Petersen, Bhana, &
McKay, 2005). Although none of these programs explicitly indicate mentoring as a vehicle for
intervention, the women interviewed in this study indicated that various forms of mentoring,
both formal, informal, as part of organised programs as well as in various relationships that
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functioned as vehicles for exposure to different ideas were helpful to their professional
development. The fact that there is currently a great deal more interest in investment in female
youth and particularly female education can hopefully provide the type of interventions and
exposure these executive business women indicate would be helpful to promote and uplift future
generations of black South African women in business.
5.2 What impact have race and gender had on black South African women’s
experiences of mentorship within their careers?
While most of the women in this study expressed that within their companies racial and gender
diversity is generally improving, the corporate sector still has a great deal of work to do to ensure
that they as black females are no longer “lonely at the top.” Although the women in this study
repeatedly expressed that race does not matter within mentorship, and that race is not the primary
lens through which they consider the world, they seemed resigned to the fact that they would
have to continue to work harder to integrate themselves into white corporate South Africa, rather
than expecting corporate culture to move toward meaningfully accommodating them. These
sentiments are in line with the assertions of Martin and Barnard (2013), who found that women
they studied in male dominated working environments in South Africa were not aware of many
internal company policies or procedures aimed at improving their integration and that traditional
gender roles and stereotypes pervaded the culture of the workplace.
These assertions should not overshadow the fact that every respondent described positive
mentoring experiences with members of other races and genders. Some respondents indicated
they chose mentors of other races in order to learn more about that person’s background, or
because they had had experiences with other people of that race and those previous experiences
were positive or neutral. Others chose mentors of other races or genders because there were
fewer black women in those higher positions that possessed the power to get them access to
opportunities or provide sponsorship or championing which is represented in the literature by the
work of Booysen and Nkomo (2010). Still other participants were chosen as mentees by
members of other races or gender, and this either had no perceived influence or in some cases
taught them new levels of acceptance or friendship toward other members of different racial
groups, which is in line with what Bozionelos (2004) found.
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Many of the women in this study came of working age either as Apartheid was ending or were
finishing schooling during that era, and although all of them expressed that race differences were
something they felt that they could navigate, all had also experienced discrimination at some
point in their educational or professional lives. A majority of the women in this study expressed
coping with potentially racist behaviour from colleagues by a default interpretation of ignorance
on the part of the colleague, they also expressed having to be creative in taking a unique
approach to dealing with the men in power above them who may be acting in ways that are
varying degrees of misogynist or racist. As Smith and Stewart (1983) noted, to try to separate the
impact of race from gender is futile, thus leaving several of the women to report questioning if
the negative behaviour they were experiencing was due to their race, gender, some form of
personal incompetence, or something else completely, causing their confidence to plummet
during these experiences.
While nearly all of the women said that race does not matter, at the same time they experience a
paradox of needing to seek mentorship from or otherwise interact with the older white men of
both Afrikaans and English backgrounds that still hold the majority of senior positions in South
African corporations today. The slow rate of what in South Africa is termed “transformation” or
the transition from a minority as a majority was highlighted by Mathur-Helm, (2005) and echoed
more currently by Latchanah and Singh (2016). It was interesting to note the participants’
perceptions that they needed to understand the cultural differences that their white male
colleagues represented, but fewer participants indicated the perception that the same level of
effort was being extended on the part of the older white male colleagues to understand the
cultural differences that they as black women brought to the table. There was a repeated sense
that part of the challenge of working in a majority white office was that the white employees
within the office were not always acclimatised to appreciating black people as equals, which
several of the women expressed something they considered an advantage in their own outlook. It
is interesting that they do not consistently perceive that white mentors and colleagues are
attempting to gain this same advantage in reverse.
As we are only twenty-two years post the fall of the Apartheid regime, a fair number of the older
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executive white men currently in power in the corporate realm may have at the very least
benefitted from the racist and restrictive regime even if they themselves may not have held racist
views. That being said, some of those men may have or still do hold those racist or misogynist
beliefs. Whether they acknowledge those views or that privilege, they may knowingly or
unwittingly act in a discriminatory manner toward the younger black females who are moving up
within their companies and taking advantage of this legislated assistance. An example of this is
demonstrated by P14, who sat on a board of predominately white Afrikaans men who during a
board meeting continued to speak in Afrikaans, a language which she does not speak. She
recounts: “They are very sweet people, very courteous, but set in their ways. It’s things you need
to understand the context, and you need to understand where people are coming from, but you
also need to stand your ground, and nicely…. I remember in one of the conversations we were
having, this guy just switched to Afrikaans, and I just said, ‘whoa, I am struggling to understand
what you are saying, but from your tone I can tell that you’re very passionate about it, because
as sometimes when I want to make I point I feel strongly about I will sometimes switch to Zulu.’
It was a joke but he got my point that he needs to accommodate me, and let’s all speak a
language we can hear.” This finding, that black executive level females in business report some
challenges between race and gender within the corporate world is in conflict with Thomas and
Bendixen's (2000) assertion that within corporate South Africa, there is a “South African”
culture that supersedes the differences between the black and white South African cultures
within the country. It was interesting to observe the study’s participants repeated and clearly
steadfast assertions that race and gender did not matter as a qualifier for these black women
within corporate South Africa, juxtaposed with their simultaneous examples of how for members
of other races it still might.
While Dougherty et al. (2013), Ragins and Cotton (1999), and Ramaswami, Dreher, Bretz, and
Wiethoff (2010a, 2010b) among others have explored the often impact of women having a senior
male mentor, noting the importance of access to power and the positive impact on earning
potential as well as the higher promotional achievement of these women, there seems to be less
exploration of the potentially more strategic reasons these women might have chosen these high
powered male mentors. Ramaswami et al., (2010b) asserts that female success with a higher
positioned male mentor may be due to signalling theory, or the idea that a woman being seen as
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affiliated with a higher powered male mentor legitimises her own claim to competence or ability.
Among the many reasons put forward for why or how this mentoring works in women’s favour,
the role of the reasons for the female’s choice in mentor is not deeply examined, and rather as in
the work of Blickle et al. ( 2009b), this choice of mentor affiliation is purely attributed to the
female mentee’s interest in a male mentor’s power.
However, this paper asserts the possibility that in deliberately choosing a mentor who may have
otherwise been limiting or prohibitive for their advancement due to those mentors’ attitudes and
behaviours of racism and misogyny, these women may be thinking more strategically than
previously considered. She is choosing to put herself in a closer relationship with someone who
may never see her as his true equal in order to learn how he thinks and more deeply understand
how she can have more influence with him and others like him. In short, the senior male may
think that they are strictly in a mentorship relationship while for the female, she also learning
valuable coping and management techniques about how to interface with not only that male but
males similar to him that may make up a large majority of the positions of power within the top
echelons of the company or industry. This basis for mentoring does contradict most reviewed
literature that indicates the importance of comfort, perceived similarity, and intrinsic motivation
are more important factors for a successful mentoring relationship, particularly when mentoring
mentees of colour (Ortiz-Walters & Fullick, 2015). Singh, Ragins, and Tharenou (2009a) offer
the possibility that this type of interaction may not count as mentoring, but might be more
appropriately classified as another form of career capital, perhaps as a developmental
relationship.
5.3 Research limitations
With only 16 participants, the sample size was a somewhat small one from which to draw hard
and fast conclusions on the state of mentorship among black South African female executives.
To gain a better understanding of the future state of black executive business women at the
executive levels of companies, interviewing more mentors rather than mentees about the
mentoring they are doing, as well as gaining a sense of the mentorship they are providing the
younger generations of women of colour would be necessary.
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6. Research Conclusion
This research provides voice to the perspectives of a growing but currently underrepresented
proportion of the population within corporate South Africa, those of black South African
executive level business women, creating a window into their experience during a certain
transitional point in time. Although many of the participants noted that it was lonely at the top
with regard to the lack of black female role models, the women who have found their way to the
top report being generally able to find what they believe they need in terms of mentorship by
expanding their pool of mentors, and using more of a development network approach, while
often being very deliberate in what they want from their mentoring relationships (but also
occasionally being surprised along the way). They have and are continuing to overcome the
lingering effects of a racist system which previously limited their access to quality schooling,
career guidance, mentorship and limited role models who looked like them. They have gone
outside of their racial and gender groups, forming personal boards and networks, and utilised the
premise of mentoring to form relationships with people who can guide them, challenge them,
open up opportunities for them, champion, promote and provide sponsorship within the board
room, and help them learn how to interact with the demographically different people they have
found when they arrived at the top.
14 of the 16 women interviewed in this study reported experiencing mentorship as an important
if not essential element of their career growth and trajectory. The remaining two indicated it
could have been a powerful tool in different circumstances or if it had been more readily
available. Because many of the women had had more than one mentor, it was not possible to
make an accurate analysis of whether in this population mentorship tended to be more sought
after or if it was more common that the subject’s potential had been “discovered” by a mentor or
series of mentors. Several of the women sought out additional mentorship style relationships
after an initial interaction with mentorship. Although fewer women were able to report the
presence of black female professional mentors in their lives, the fact that they also mentioned
entities such as the ANC or family/village members or teachers, along with their admission that
race was generally less of an important consideration for them in accessing what they sought
from or expected from mentors, indicates that there were a multitude of different types of
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mentors whom they considered to be influential in their lives. It can be concluded that mentoring
versus no mentoring is generally helpful to the career trajectory of black South African executive
business women. Unique to this work is the circumstance wherein black women report
deliberately seeking out mentors of a different racial and gender demographic in order to achieve
the same end goals of mentorship. However, they did this while maintaining a slightly different
style of mentorship relationship, that of placing themselves in mentoring relationships with white
male colleagues with the intention of learning how to work as equal colleagues with those men
who occupy powerful positions and yet express lower regard for diversity in the workplace.
There is still more to be done, and there is value beyond the formal mentorship that is envisioned
when companies set up mentoring programs. Programs within schools, communities or
companies that aim to provide exposure and experience to those who grow up with fewer
advantages can make a difference by providing a vision for what is possible, and introducing role
models upon which to shape that vision. Creating a culture within businesses wherein mentoring
relationships are encouraged, and a sense of curiosity for people beyond the roles they inhabit
within the offices can help facilitate the growth that can come from mentoring relationships.
To speak to some of the participants’ own ideas of how to increase the number of black South
African women at the top from P11: “For those who believe that we are better at working when
diverse, those people need to make their voices heard. They need to look around themselves to
see what it is that they 1) themselves do that impedes diversity both in terms of race and gender
and to 2) want to do things about those things and 3) to seek out those who have got talent and
potential. And mentor them. Either formally or informally and I think it’s in both. Mentorship
can both be formal and informal. And sometimes the informal works better than the formal
process.”
The concept of mentorship is one of immense nuance and possibility, that continues to evolve,
much like the demographic diversity within corporate South Africa.
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7. Future Research Directions
There are at least two, and often many more sides to every story, and the Rainbow Nation
provides harbour for stories of all shades and colours. To better extract the distinctions within
these stories of mentorship, interviews with the mentors of all backgrounds who supported these
and other aspiring black executive South African women would be optimal. Understanding their
perspective on the mentorship they provided and the endeavours they have made to reach out and
understand the experience of these women and others like them would present a more accurate
and equitable portrait of mentoring efforts in corporate South Africa.
There are several seemingly unique ways in which black female South African executive
business women are using mentoring style relationships to get ahead within the corporate world.
The concepts of personal boards and purposefully adversarial mentorship are models that are
not well explored in the literature, and would thus be ripe for further interrogation.
Additional research to understand if other populations use or have used these same or similar
techniques with regard to mentor selection to cope with entering the corporate world as a
member of a previously disenfranchised population would add value to achieving a greater sense
of which methods of mentorship might best suit those in similar situations. Providing more
evidence of what works could lead to the development of more effective programs and styles of
mentorship to ensure that efforts to transform corporate society are meaningful and effective.
Although an additional inquiry as to whether the participants in this study were also mentoring
young black South African women themselves was originally explored, it was found to be
outside the scope of this study. The women who have made it to the top are reaching back to pull
up others who are on their way there, and are enthusiastically providing guidance, challenges,
and opportunities for growth for the young people within their personal and professional lives. In
doing so, they are carving out more space at the top for future generations of black female South
Africans to join them in positions of leadership within South Africa’s corporate world. Looking
more deeply into this first generation of black South African executive level business women
post-Apartheid and their efforts and relationships with their own mentees would provide a rich
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addition to the narrative of this transition and in fact transformation within the corporate environs
in South Africa.
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Appendix 1: Ethics Form
Commerce Faculty Ethics in Research Application Form Any person planning to undertake research in the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Cape Town is required to complete this form before collecting or analysing data. If any of the questions below have been answered YES, and the applicant is NOT an Honours student, the form it should be submitted to the supervisor (where applicable) and from there for approval by the Faculty EIR committee: Ms Samantha Alexander ([email protected]). It is assumed that the researcher has read the UCT Code for Research involving Human Subjects (Available at http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/educate/download/uctcodeforresearchinvolvinghumansubjects.pdf) in order to be able to answer the questions in this form.
Students must include a copy of the completed form with the dissertation/thesis when it is submitted for examination.
1. PROJECT DETAILS
Project title: Lonely at the top? An exploration on the role of mentorship in the
experience of black South African executive business women. Principal Researcher/s:
Jennifer Katchmark
Email address(es):
Research Supervisor:
Dr. Nceku Nyathi
Email address(es):
Co-researcher(s):
Email address(es):
Department: Graduate School of Business, Commerce
Brief description of the project:
Interviews will be conducted with black female executive South African business women who will serve as the respondents in the study. The respondents will be contacted via email or phone initially to be asked to participate in the study. The first level
of contact will be used to describe the aim of the study and ensure that participants understand what their role is, and how the information will be used. Following consent to participate, an appointment for the interview will be scheduled. The
respondents will sign informed consent and confidentiality agreements prior to the start of the interview.
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Data collection: (please select)
Interviews Questionnaire Experiment Secondary data Observation
Other (please specify):
Have you attached a research proposal OR a literature review with research methodology? (please select) Yes No
2. PARTICIPANTS 2.1 Does the research discriminate against participation by individuals, or differentiate between participants, on the grounds of gender, race or ethnic group, age range, religion, income, handicap, illness or any similar classification?
YES NO
2.2 Does the research require the participation of socially or physically vulnerable people (children, aged, disabled, etc.) or legally restricted groups?
YES NO
2.3 Will you be able to secure the informed consent of all participants in the research? (In the case of children, will you be able to obtain the consent of their guardians or parents?)
YES NO
2.4 Will any confidential data be collected or will identifiable records of individuals be kept?
YES NO
2.5 In reporting on this research is there any possibility that you will not be able to keep the identities of the individuals involved anonymous?
YES NO
2.6 Are there any foreseeable risks of physical, psychological or social harm to participants that might occur in the course of the research?
YES NO
2.7 Does the research include making payments or giving gifts to any participants?
YES NO
If you have answered YES to any of these questions, please describe how you plan to address these issues (append to form): The focus of this research is to get the opinions and experience of a previously disadvantaged group so as to contribute their voice to the academic literature, which is currently missing. I intend to secure the informed consent of all participants in the research. Affiliations of participants: (please select)
Company employees Hospital employees General public Military staff Farm workers Students
Other (please specify):
Race / Ethnicity: Are you asking a question about race/ethnicity in your questionnaire?
Yes No
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Which race categories have been used? Blacl
Have you included the option: “Prefer not to answer” as part of your race/ethnicity question? No, but women
who are not black will not be invited to participate.
3. Provision of Services Does your research involve the participation of or provision of services to communities? If your answer is YES, please complete below:
3.1 Is the community expected to make decisions for, during or based on the research?
YES NO
3.2 At the end of the research will any economic or social process be terminated or left unsupported, or equipment or facilities used in the research be recovered from the participants or community?
YES NO
3.3 Will any service be provided at a level below the generally accepted standards?
YES NO
If you answered YES to any of these questions, please describe below how you plan to address these issues.
3. ORGANISATIONAL PERMISSION
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If your research is being conducted within a specific organisation, please state how organisational permission has been/will be
obtained:
Have you attached the letter from the organisation granting permission? (please select)
Yes No, but this will be obtained before commencing the research Not applicable
Are you making use of UCT students as respondents for your research? (please select) Yes No
If yes, have you contacted Executive Director: Student Affairs for permission? (please select) Yes No
Was approval granted? (please select) Yes No Awaiting a response
Are you making use of UCT staff as respondents for your research? (please select) Yes No
If yes, have you contacted Executive Director: Human Resources for permission? (please select) Yes No
Was approval granted? (please select) Yes No Awaiting a response
Contact Emails: Executive Director: Human Resources ([email protected]) Executive Director: Student Affairs ([email protected])
4. INFORMED CONSENT
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What type of consent will be obtained from study participants?
How and where will consent/permission be recorded?
Have you attached an informed consent form to your application? Yes No
5. Sponsorship of Research
If your research is sponsored, is there any potential for conflicts of interest? If your answer is YES, please complete below
4.1 Is there any existing or potential conflict of interest between a research sponsor, academic supervisor, other researchers or participants?
YES NO
4.2 Will information that reveals the identity of participants be supplied to a research sponsor, other than with the permission of the individuals?
YES NO
4.3 Does the proposed research potentially conflict with the research of any other individual or group within the University?
YES NO
If you have answered YES to any of these questions, please describe how you plan to address these issues (append to form)
6. RISK TO PARTICIPANTS
Written Consent
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Does the proposed research pose any physical, psychological, social, legal, economic, or other risks to study
participants you can foresee, both immediate and long range? (please select)
Yes No
If yes, answer the following questions:
1. Describe in detail the nature and extent of the risk and provide the rationale for the necessity of such risks
2. Outline any alternative approaches that were or will be considered and why alternatives may not be
feasible in the study
3. Outline whether and why you feel that the value of information to be gained outweighs the risks
1.
2.
3.
I certify that I have read the the Commerce Faculty Ethics in Research policy
(http://www.commerce.uct.ac.za/Pages/ComFac-Downloads)
I hereby undertake to carry out my research in such a way that
• there is no apparent legal objection to the nature or the method of research; and
• the research will not compromise staff or students or the other responsibilities of the University;
• the stated objective will be achieved, and the findings will have a high degree of validity;
• limitations and alternative interpretations will be considered;
• the findings could be subject to peer review and publicly available; and
• I will comply with the conventions of copyright and avoid any practice that would constitute plagiarism.
Signed by:
Full name and signature Date
Principal Researcher/Student: Jennifer Katchmark
23-8-16
This application is approved by:
Supervisor
25-08-16
HOD (or delegated nominee – for all Honours Projects):
Chair: Faculty EIR Committee (only for postgraduate research at Master and PhD level)
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CHECKLIST SELECT
A full copy of a research proposal or a literature review with methodology is attached in a separate file
Interview schedules / cover letters / questionnaires / forms and other materials used in the study are attached in separate files
Organisational consent letter / UCT student or staff approval letter
NA
On your cover letter to your questionnaire have you included the following?
1. The following UCT Logo
2. A sentence explaining the aim of the research
3. Sentences of a similar nature to below must be included in the cover letter or consent form: This research has been approved by the Commerce Faculty Ethics in Research Committee. Your participation in this research is voluntary. You can choose to withdraw from the research at any time. The questionnaire will take approximately X minutes to complete You will not be requested to supply any identifiable information, ensuring anonymity of your responses. Due to the nature of the study you will need to provide the researchers with some form of identifiable information however, all responses will be confidential and used for the purposes of this research only. Should you have any questions regarding the research please feel free to contact the researcher (insert contact details).
4. Have you scanned in your signature for the last section of the form?
NA
OR
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Appendix 2: Interview Guide
The following open ended questions will help guide the interview. The interview process will
follow a semi structured approach, and thus questions will not be limited to those below in an
attempt to evoke a welcome to personal narrative based story telling. This guide will help ensure
that no important points are left unaddressed.
1. Introduction
• Who I am
• What I do
• My interest
• Background of participant
o Family
o Origin
2. Qualifications
• High school education and achievements
• Degree/Diploma/Certificates/Advanced Degree
3. Experience (work, ect)
• What sector do you work in, and has this been consistent throughout your career?
• What position do you currently hold and how long have you been with this
company/in this position?
• What trajectory/path brought you to this position?
• Would you say this sector is generally more females, males, or no gender imbalance?
• Does your department have more males, females, or neutral and is there any racial
imbalance?
4. Mentorship
• Have you received mentorship throughout your career? At this company?
• Did you seek the mentorship? Have you experienced a greater benefit in a formal or
informal mentorship relationship?
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• Did you experience challenges in finding a mentor, and what preparation did you do
or qualifications did you feel you met in order to become a mentee?
• Was the mentorship formal (organized through a program within the company or
other affiliate) or informal?
• Did your mentors share demographic similarities with you? How important or
relevant was this for your relationship and the success of your mentoring
relationship?
• In which ways other than demographics did you find yourself to be similar or
different to your mentor? How mindful of these similarities were you at the outset
and how did you understand these similarities over time?
5. Challenges and Opportunities
• What challenges, professional or personal, did your mentors help you navigate?
• What opportunities were you exposed to as a result of your mentoring relationship?
• In what ways have your mentoring experiences fallen short of, met or exceeded your
expectations?
6. Additional experiences
• Are you currently mentoring anyone? How did you determine who you wanted to
mentor?
• How would you recommend mentorship be incorporated in a meaningful way in
order to best elevate or serve aspiring black South African executive business
women?
7. Anything you’d like to add or ask me
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Appendix 3: Informed Consent Form
Informed Consent Form
Principle Researcher, to be contacted in case of questions or concerns:
Jennifer Katchmark Email: [email protected] cell phone: 0607574459
Project Title: Lonely at the top? An exploration on the role of mentorship in the experience of
black South African executive business women.
Brief overview of the project and its purpose, and what is expected from the
respondent: The study focuses on the experiences of black South African executive business women on the
presence and impact of mentorship in their lives. The purpose of this research is to explore the
challenges and opportunities that these women have experienced, if any, and what mitigating
factors mentorship may have played in reducing or enhancing the impact of these challenges or
opportunities they were presented with.
The primary assumption is that mentorship is available and that it plays a pivotal role in
successful black South African women’s lives.
You have been approached to participate in this study because of your gender, race, nationality
and status as a business executive. As a participant in this study, it is requested that you commit
at least one hour of your time for the proposed interview, which will be conducted face-to-face,
or via skype, cell phone or facetime.
There are no known risks to participation in this study. Unless you provide explicit approval, the
researcher will not attempt to identify you with the responses to the questionnaire, or to name
you as a participant in this study, nor will they facilitate anyone else’s doing so.
Consent to participate in the study: I acknowledge that I am participating in this study at my own free will, I understand that I may
refuse to participate or stop participating at any time without penalty. If I wish, I will be given a
copy of this consent form. I also understand that any information provided for the purpose of this
interview will be used for academic purposes only, and that my identity will not be revealed at
any stage of this study. This research has been approved by the Commerce Faculty Ethics in
Research Committee. Subject’s signature:___________________________________ Date:___________________
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