Identity is Important!
A few weeks ago, I was at the equity-minded mentorship keynote organized by the amazing Office of Inclusion and Student Engagement at Cornell University where the impressive Dr. Kimberly Griffin shared her views on mentorship and why identity is so important to be a good professional mentor.
Here’s what I learned from the experience :))
Mentorship often provides aspirational vision thereby making representation and identity a a matter of prime importance. A commitment to professional growth and psycho-social connection are equally crucial components to a mentorship. Evaluating the quality of a mentorship relation comprises a range of metrics. They all matter!
Compatibility
Alignment between the needs of a mentee and the strengths of a mentor is important. Without compatibility, we simply cannot have a relationship of any kind, much less so professional. So how do we evaluate compatibility?
- Expectations: Are your goals aligned? Do y’all communicate in the same language? Do you want the same thing? These are all very important questions
- Efforts: Dysfunction is the death of all relationships, including professional. You don’t want to be yet another “FRIENDS”, do you? It requires active effort to prevent dysfunction in a relationship and that involves constant communication.
Relationship goals and mentorship needs, consequently, become extremely important to make meaningful progress. Identity has a part to play but the approaches to it vary.
I believe in merit. Why even think about identity?
Identity Absent Mentoring is rooted in the belief that meritocracy reigns supreme and everyone should be treated on the basis of their work rather than their identity.
However, this makes fallacious assumptions such as ignoring identity mitigates bias or that identity does not matter in professional domains.
This approach exacerbates inequality, promotes dysfunction, harms trust, and adds on to homophily which further excludes already marginalized groups.
Furthermore, meritocracy in itself is a fallacious construct (ref: The Tyranny of Merit) and all this does is amplify the Matthew Effect. Mentors with such viewpoints tend to ignore ingrained viewpoints, prejudices, and existing biases which might make the mentee feel isolated and disheartened. Overall, this is not a good strategy.
Identity is THE thing that matters
Identity Based Mentoring while noble in its intentions, limits access to mentors and recreates power structures since it places a higher burden on fewer mentors and also creates isolation.
Furthermore, by centering mentorship around identity, this approach tends to ignore the importance of other dimensions to a mentee’s professional life and ends up being sub-optimal as well.
Let’s be equitable, eh?
Equity Minded Mentoring is good practice which takes into account the role of identity without necessarily making it front and center.
A good mentorship relation approaches differences as opportunities for growth rather than as roadblocks, seeks similarity across multiple dimensions which also include a careful consideration of identity, and helps navigate external structures with equity.
This can be an optimal strategy but can require a fair amount of effort in effective navigation such as-
- Being curious about identity without making assumptions of differences
- Being aware of stereotypes and biases that we might have
- Recognizing and validating the significance of the lived experiences of others
- Engaging professionally so as to not forget the importance of the professional goals in the mentoring relationship as that is the prime objective
Again, these are lessons I learned from this event. Overall, it was extremely eye-opening for me and helped me view mentorship as a much more holistic and infromed activity.
