We're used to seeing men as mentors. We're used to seeing them mentor other men, and we're also getting used to seeing them mentor junior women. As more women enter positions of leadership, we're also seeing a growing number of senior women mentoring other women.
我们习惯于把男人看作指导者。我们已经习惯看到他们指导其他男性，也习惯看到他们指导年轻女性。随着越来越多的女性进入领导岗位，我们也看到越来越多的资深女性指导其他女性。
But there's a mentor-mentee relationship we're not as familiar with: senior women mentoring junior men.
但是有一种导师-学员关系我们不太熟悉：高职级的女性指导低职级的男性。
"To be honest, most of the research looks into men being mentors to women and whether this is effective," says Andromachi Athanasopoulou, associate professor in organizational behavior at Queen Mary University of London.
“老实说，大多数的研究都是在探究男性做女性的指导者，以及这是否有效。”伦敦玛丽皇后大学组织行为学的副教授Andromachi Athanasopoulou说道。
"Far less research has looked at the opposite — a woman mentoring a man — because more men are in the leadership positions, so they are more likely to be mentors."
“很少有研究着眼于对立面——女性指导男性，因为更多的男性处于领导地位，所以他们更有可能成为指导者。”
But there's something about these relationships that experts say is different, especially for the man being mentored.
但专家们说，这些关系有一些不同，尤其是对男性的接受指导者来说。
When Lori Taylor, a vice president in the risk division at Goldman Sachs, returned to work after a six-year break to raise her children, she noticed both female and male employees approaching her for advice on balancing work and home responsibilities.
洛里·泰勒是高盛风险部门的副主席，她在休了六年假去带孩子后重返工作岗位，她注意到女员工和男员工都向她寻求如何平衡工作和家庭责任的建议。
"I have some men who work for me who have long hours and commutes, and I get them to think about 'Do you want to work from home one day a week?'" she says. "We talk a lot about flexibility and the options you can create for yourself."
“我的一些男性员工，他们的工作时间和通勤时间很长，我让他们思考‘你希望一周有一天在家工作吗?’她说。“我们谈论了很多你可以为自己创造的灵活性和选择。”
Seeing women as the mentors
视女性为指导者
Part of the reason we don't see these relationships as much is because female leaders are still relatively rare.
我们看不到这种关系的部分原因是因为女性领导仍然相对稀少。
A recent study from McKinsey & Co. and LeanIn.org shows that women aren't promoted to management as quickly as their male colleagues are. As a result, there are fewer opportunities for women to mentor junior employees of any gender.
麦肯锡和LeanIn网站的最近一项研究显示，女性不像她们的男性同事那么快晋升到管理层。所以，女性指导任何性别的年轻员工的机会都更少。
But research also shows that because men and women are socialized differently — men to be more aggressive and assertive, women to be more submissive and nurturing — they approach mentor-mentee relationships from entirely different perspectives.
但研究还显示，因为男性和女性的社交方式不同——男性更主动和自信，女性更顺从且有教养，他们从完全不同的角度看待导师-学员关系。
Women are "allowed" to ask more questions about feelings, says Valerie Schwiebert, professor of counseling at Western Carolina University and author of "Mentoring: Creating Connected Empowered Relationships."
女性“被允许”去问更多有关情感的问题，瓦莱丽·施魏伯特说道。她是西卡罗莱纳大学的咨询学教授和《指导：建立相互联系、相互授权的关系》的作者。
"Men, when they do their mentoring, it's very much focused on 'This is how we climb the ladder. These are the steps. Here's who you should know. Here's what you do,'" Schwiebert says.
“男人，当他们指导别人时，非常著注重于‘这是我们该怎样爬梯子。这些是台阶。这是你应该知道的人。这是你该做的。’”施魏伯特说。
"There's not a lot of focus on how you feel about that, on 'What do you need? What's important to you?'"
“他们很少关注你的感受，关注‘你需要什么？什么对你很重要？’”
Women are also more likely to care about chemistry in these relationships, Athanasopoulou says. Men will mentor a junior employee with less thought about rapport or the bond. Meanwhile, women will spend more time trying to establish that trust on the front end of the relationship.
Athanasopoulou说，女性也更关心这些关系中的化学反应。男性指导初级员工时较少去考虑关系融洽。然而，女性会花更多时间试图在关系的前端建立信任。
"When women speak about mentoring another person, they tend to look at mentoring as a two-way process," she says. Men, she says, are more likely to see it as a transaction than a relationship.
“当女性说到指导他人时，她们倾向于把指导视为双向过程，”她说，男人更可能视之为一项交易而不是一段关系。
Seeing men as the mentees
视男性为学员
The messages we get about gender don't just shape how we mentor, Schwiebert says. They also change how we receive mentorship.
施魏伯特说，我们得到的关于性别的信息不仅仅塑造了我们如何指导他人，还改变了我们如何接受指导。
While women have been socialized to nurture and "mother" in the workplace, men have been socialized to value promotions and other symbols of success.
在工作场所，当社会让女性成为“母亲”去养育，而男性在这样的氛围中则只在意晋升和其他形式的成功。
"There's this expectation you should want to climb the ladder as far as you can get," Schwiebert says. "It's a vulnerable place for [men] to talk about things like 'Maybe I don't want to make a lot of money. Maybe I want to stay here.'"
“有这样一种期望，你应该尽量往上爬，”施魏伯特说，“对男性来说，说‘也许我不想赚钱，也许我就想呆在原地。’这样的话是很弱势的。”
Schwiebert points to one example from her research, where a male school counselor was offered a promotion to an administrative position, one that would put him on track to one day being a principal or superintendent.
施魏伯特举了她的研究中的一个例子，一位男校辅导员被提升到行政职位，这使他可能有一天成为校长或主管。
He loved his current job, but he know he should want the step up — it meant more prestige and more power. But when he asked female mentors for their input, they helped him see the experience from another side.
他喜欢他现在的工作，但他知道他应该渴望升职——这意味着更多的威信和权力。但当他向女性导师征求意见时，她们帮助他从另一个角度看待这段经历。
"They said, 'You're so great with the students. You love them so much. If you do become a principal and agree to it, is that what you want? Do you want to go on and be administrator and make changes at the administrative level, or is your real passion working with the kids?'" Schwiebert remembers. "He ended up turning down that position, because his decision was he really wanted to focus on the thing he loved."
“她们说，‘你对学生们非常好，你非常爱他们。如果你真的成为校长并且同意了，这是你想要的吗？你想成为一个管理者，在管理层面上做出改变，还是你真正的激情是和孩子们一起工作？’”施魏伯特回忆道。“他最终拒绝了那个职位，因为他决定他真的想专注于他喜欢的事情。”
Walking a mentee through that kind of decision making, she says, and helping him or her find the choice that's best for them — that is exactly what good mentorship is all about.
她说，指导学员做出这样的决定，并帮助他们找到自己最好的选择——这才是好导师制度的意义所在。
翻译：小楠
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