Dr. Brad Johnson, a White male clinical psychologist who has spent most of his professional life learning and teaching how to encourage female talent.
At a Glance
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TRANSCRIPT FOR THIS WEEK’S INTERVIEW
Jean 00:00
Jean, Hello, I'm Jean Latting, thank you for joining me today. Are you ready to learn how men can become better mentors to women in the workplace? Meet Dr. Brad Johnson, a clinical psychologist, a former Naval Academy instructor and now the founder of Workplace Allies. He has written extensively on how men can become better allies, sponsors and supporters of women in the workplace. Dr. Johnson is on a mission to help men understand and develop the skills to better support women at work. He's equally committed to helping women understand how to gain the mentorship so many are desperately seeking.
Here is Brad Johnson. Hello, everybody. I am beyond excited to bring you Brad Johnson, who has written umpteen books and papers and taught on the subject of mentoring women. Now, what fascinated me about this is he—there’s not that many men who even talk about it, much less White men, much less write books about it. So when I read what he had to say, and he was really so on target, I immediately started salivating, wondering how can I get him to the podcast? And to my delight, he's here. So welcome, Brad.
Brad 02:02
Great to be here. Dr. Jean, thanks for including me.
Jean 02:05
Yes, and I didn't mention he's at the Naval Academy. Shout out to my brother-in-law, who also went there a long while ago. So I feel a connection to that. I have a niece there now. So let's begin mentorship of women. Tell us about your journey. Where do you come from? How did you even get to this topic as an area of interest?
Brad 02:38
Great question, and for me, I think there are two answers here. Number one, there's the personal experience for me. I have exactly one sibling. It's a younger sister. Mysister and I both entered the Navy as officers. I served just four years before I switched and went over to become a civilian professor at Annapolis, my sister stayed 30 years on active duty, and so I had 30 years of conversations with my sister to hear about gendered headwinds that she encounters every single day as a woman in senior leadership positions that I never did, right? And so talk about an eye opening education. You know, we were in the same career, same job as clinical psychologists in the Navy, but she contends with stuff almost weekly, if not daily, that I never had to, right?
And so I think that was kind of the beginning. That was my foot in the door to have some better what we call gender intelligence, some awareness that women experience the workplace really differently, especially than majority men, people who look like me, White men. So that's the personal side.
Dr Jean, the other is academic. You know, for 30 years, I've been researching and writing about mentoring relationships, and I've always seen the data, the women get less access. And it's exacerbated for women of color, Black women in particular, have far less access to really healthy, positive, useful, developmental relationships. And I've always been really curious about why, what keeps men on the sidelines? Why don't men engage? Why are they uncomfortable? So it was some academic curiosity, in addition to my personal experience, that I think you know, maybe about 15 years ago, kicked off my collaboration with David Smith, and he and I have been doing research and writing about cross gender developmental relationships ever since.
Jean 07:10
Okay, so you write about Black women, also, not just women generally, you have enough, I don't know, uh, cultural intelligence, let's call it that, to even recognize the difference. What in your background gave you that level of sensitivity? Because I know a number of men who are sensitive to women, but not to racial.
Brad 07:36
Yeah. Well, that's a good question. I don't know that that anything in my background specifically prepared me for that. I think that's been more of an education since I became a professional. And some of it, again, gets back to my academic nerd, you know, personality. I love the data, and so I look at things like, and you probably see this, the McKinsey women in the workplace, studies that come out almost every year. One of them, a couple years ago, just focused on the experience of women of color. And what I took away from reading that report was
that women of color have far less access to people in the organization that are in leadership roles, right? I mean, the gap between a woman of color and a White woman just in terms of the frequency of her chance conversations with an executive in the company, far less for women of color. They just don't have this access. They don't have these chance encounters that often lead to mentoring, sponsoring, other opportunities.
Jean 08:45
Chance encounters.
Brad 08:49
Yeah. Exposure, right? It's so powerful when it comes to, you know, just organically beginning a developmental conversation with someone. If you don't even have access, if you don't even have these, what I call mentor of the moment encounters with people, then you don't have the opportunity to grow these developmental relationships. So McKinsey's research.
But then there was another book I read a few years ago that really was powerful for me. Minda Harts is a Black woman who has written two very powerful books. The first one was The Memo, and I happened to be on a panel with Minda for some reason. I don't remember what the topic was, but I found her to be so eloquent and powerful in her articulation of the experience of women of color that I picked up The Memo. I read that; it was such an education for me about the multiple headwinds that you know, double jeopardy women of color have both the headwinds of both their gender and their race that White women simply do not.
So I think part of it is, you know, looking at the research. Part of it is reading and listening to women of color that I admire and respect. And then, you know, my next thing, my next recommendation here, Dr. Jean, for men who want to be better in this space, do the self-educating right. Read Minda Hart's great books. Don't put that on her to educate you about her experience. But once you do it, then reach out to some of those women of color you work with and say, Hey, I was reading blank, and it got me so curious about whether women here are experiencing some of this too. Would it be okay if I asked you about that? I call it the "ask to ask".
Jean 10:55
Okay, so let's put flesh on these bones. What is it that women of color experience? No, let's say just women that's different from men. And then let's add women of color that's different from White women. Just paint a vivid picture so people can see it and feel it.
Brad 11:15
Okay, let's just start with women writ large. You know, if we just look at gender. And of course, White women are the biggest group there. Here are some of the headwinds that you just see over and over and over again. And we men don't notice these things because we don't experience them. Number one, the leadership tight rope, right? Women are constantly on a tightrope about how they show up as leaders, if they are too agentic and traditionally masculine, they get labeled your favorite "b" word. If they're more traditionally feminine and inclusive and democratic, they get labeled incompetent, right?
Jean 11:55
So true, yeah.
Brad 11:59
And again, I don't experience that as a male I don't experience it right? I can lead any way I want, and I don't usually get pushback about that. How about the maternal wall? If people find out that I'm a parent, they're likely to say, Oh, that's
amazing, Brad, you're rocking it as a dad and at work. Kudos. Women, not so much. Women get all this, you know, pushback that you're too busy, you're not available, you won't be competent because you're busy with your children. And then if you do lean in at work, then you're labeled in a neglectful mother.
Jean 12:35
Yes.
Brad 12:35
And, and I don't have that experience as a male. And then maybe just one more. Women, by and large, are constantly having to prove themselves over and over again. I don't. I get promoted on my potential, right? Potential for men. It's got to be experience over and over again for women, and even though she may have done this job in another company and already proven herself, we don't trust that she can do it, that she's competent here. And we give men all kinds of leeway based on potential, we don't do that for women.
Jean 13:15
Yeah, let's stay with that point for one minute. I wonder if that occurs, because it's easy for me to recognize potential in someone who is like me, whereas, if they are different from me, I don't know what the cues are that they're not getting off the cues I'm looking for.
Brad 13:39
Well, and that gets to just the broader issue, I think, that we surround ourselves with people who look like us and remind us of ourselves, and that's partly the problem with lack of mentoring across difference. We're just not comfortable, and often we're not even aware that we offer mentoring to people who remind us of ourselves, and it takes some work to remind ourselves that, wait a minute, why are all my mentees White men, for example, and I see people who have diverse experiences and identities around me. Why? Why am I not mentoring any of them that takes some insight, I think.
Jean 14:23
Yes, that takes conscious awareness. That's beautifully said. Yeah, to even be aware, to ask the question.
Jean 14:30
Okay, so now let's talk about women of color.
Brad 14:38
Okay. Well, so the McKinsey, you know, research, I think part of the issue is access. Of course, they simply don't get pulled in to key meetings, to key conversations. They're often not at the table where decisions are made. They're simply not included and I would say that gap for women of color is even wider than for women generally, than for White women.
The interesting thing I learned, you know, and in my own research, was the issue of invisibility, Dr. Jean. I don't experience this, but women of color that I know, and you see this a lot in the research, will say I can be in a meeting, and it's not that I feel that I'm being abused or spoken over or I feel like I'm not even being seen. I feel invisible in that context. And you know, my ideas are not taken seriously. I don't have much air time to express myself. I'm often interrupted. So it can be a very different experience that way.
When women of color are particularly assertive, then they get all kinds of pushback, right? The angry Black woman you know, you fill in the gap with things that we hear often for minoritized women who express themselves deliberately. They're much more likely to get pushback. If I do the same, if I say it almost the same way she did, I'm simply an assertive male. So we see this dichotomy in particular. So I think that the double bind, you know, I got to work twice as hard to get half as far, and the invisibility, are kind of the big things that have resonated with me.
Jean 16:36
Okay, so I'm struggling here. As you were talking, I was thinking, How do I ask this question? Yeah, the question is, do the White men know? What percentage? Some I would think know and it's deliberate. Some don't. Just break out the different perceptions of their own behavior of White men, different prototypes here.
Brad 17:05
So I think in terms of men's, are you sort of asking about men's awareness?
Jean 17:15
I've been, let me just say I have patriarchal men around me, and they literally don't know but what women often say is they do know, and it is intentional and it is deliberate.
Brad 17:34
I see.
Jean 17:35
I need, I'm asking you to clarify. There's obviously some who do know. I mean, I've had people deliberately look at me the eye, and they let me know, "I will not pay attention to you." It was clearly deliberate. But then there's this other group were just oblivious. So what percentage are, what in your eyes?
Brad 17:56
You know, I I'm always reluctant to assign a number to it because without the evidence, I'm not sure. I can just tell you, in my experience doing a lot of gender equity work in organizations, I find it less and less common that men in those contexts will sort of come out as entirely antagonistic toward women, or women of color specifically, or even come out as purely apathetic, meaning I don't give a rip, I don't care about how women are experiencing the workplace. I see that less often. I know that it's out there. I know that in certain kinds of industries and professions, you see it even more, that you know just outright misogyny or racism and a combination of the two. I hope it is decreasing. I see more men at other places on the continuum. Meaning, yeah, maybe I am vaguely aware women have different experiences, but I have no idea about that, and I don't invest any of my energy in trying to understand or find out more, ask questions, self-educate. Then there's a smaller group of men that are probably on the more active advocacy end of the continuum that are getting it. They're self-educating, they're noticing. They're willing to disrupt a little bit more in real time when they see some of this behavior. But I think, unfortunately, the frozen middle is the biggest group, right?
Jean 19:31
Frozen middle. Haha.
Brad 19:33
This is the group that's not overtly antagonistic, but they're also not doing much, right? And they're just avoiding and to some extent it may be anxiety, right? I don't want to step in it or do the wrong thing or say the wrong thing. You know, there can be a lot of motivations for that, but that's the group I think we've got to reach.
Jean 20:02
Well, that leads me to the question, how do they find you? And when they find you, what do they say? Why are they even reaching out to you?
Brad 20:11
These organizations.
Jean 20:13
Organizations?
Brad 20:14
Yeah, well, so it's funny, Dr. Jean. Dave Smith and I have written two books that are for men on how to be better in workplace relationships with women, Athena Rising and Good Guys. Guess who invites us to speak?
Jean 20:30
The women.
Brad 20:32
It's women. It's, it's, you know, often the women's ERG within a company, or it's a women's conference or something else, but the instigator is typically a women's group. And you know, that's okay, if it gets us in the door and gives us exposure to men, if we can get men in the room, then I think we can have good conversations about being better. But often men see, you know, hey, here's this event that it relates to things like gender and inclusive leadership or inclusive mentoring. And they don't come because they think, well, that's not for me, that must be for some minoritized group or for women. And I think that's a challenge.
Jean 21:20
The challenge is to get the men in the room.
Brad 21:22
Yeah.
Jean 21:23
Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to begin, I'm moving into what to do, and I would like you to begin by talking to the women. Yeah. Because the women have the challenge of the oblivious men or--I'll leave out the openly antagonistic, unless you have a cure, a suggestion for that too. But okay, I'm here. I'm being invisible. My supervisor, my leader thinks he's doing right by me, even though it's John that gets to go to all of those meetings, it's John that gets to go sit in the board. I'm not asked, but he's saying I have no problem with you. I think you're doing a great job. What should she do?
Brad 22:20
Great question. Let me give a few thoughts, and then maybe you'll have other ideas about this. Number one, you know, if I'm a woman, especially who's relatively new in the company or the organization, I might reach out to some other women and ask, who are the guys that are, who are they? Right? I this is such a reliable way to get the intel.
Jean 22:47
Oh, that gives me goosebumps.
Brad 22:50
Because so women know. Women know who are the safe men, who are the men who get it, who are the men who want to be better? Who are the men who, when you give them feedback, they receive it well, and then you can see a change in their behavior. Women know who those men are and I think word gets out, so I would start checking in with your sisters in the workplace and ask them that question.
Second, I don't recommend going up to maybe it's a male in leadership, and say, will you be my mentor? Don't do that. It's a big ask. It's kind of awkward. A lot of men are going to be uncomfortable with that. So I might make what I call the contextualized ask. Meaning, Hey, I saw you had this experience, or you had done blank before in your career. I'm very curious about that, and I'm interested myself, could I get on your calendar for a half hour, take you to coffee and just pick your brain about that? Almost everybody I know will say yes to that, right? It's very contextualized, and then something really fun kicks in. If that 30 minute conversation is enjoyable, and it probably will be. You know, everyone loves everyone loves sharing their experience, chances are something called the mere
exposure effect is going to kick in. That is, once we have a kind of fun interaction with somebody, we're more comfortable, we're much more likely to want to have another conversation. So often that first conversation will lead to another one, right? It'll lead to a follow up, coffee and then another one. This is often how an organic mentoring relationship begins with that contextualized ask and just mere exposure.
Also, if you can collaborate with this person on something, if they're working on a project, is there a role that you could play to help them with their project because they're going to get to know you better if they have more exposure.
Jean 24:57
Now, what you just said is what I have advised women to do is to ask, can I help? In other words, it has to be a reciprocal relationship, so you want to give as much time as you're taking away.
Brad 25:11
Sure.
Jean 25:13
The question the thing of, first, I'm just curious, can I pick your brain at that meeting? I'm trying to get a good sequence. At that meeting, is it then a good time to say, "Can I help?" Do you think asking, "Can I help out?" off the gate would work?
Brad 25:32
I think it could. It could, especially if you know that they're working on something, or they're the chair of some committee, or, you know, who knows what it is. Just say, I know that you're working on this. I'm passionate about that. Is there something I could do to help collaborate or be part of the project? I think that's great. Okay,
Jean 25:52
So you can do one or the other. You don't have to do one before the other.
Brad 25:58
You don't, not necessarily. But I will say, Come on, we're human beings. So if somebody junior comes to me and says, Hey, I heard you did this, or you wrote that, or whatever, I really want to hear more about it. Everyone loves to talk about themselves. So who's not going to say yes to that?
Jean 26:14
Right, okay, that's very cool. Okay, so they have to be proactive in getting the support, rather than sitting around waiting to be noticed. That's your bottom line.
Brad 26:29
That's my bottom line, if, if we want to increase the probability, Dr. Jean, of these relationships beginning. Let me caveat that though, and say, I wish that wasn't the
case. I wish more majority men would take initiative to notice the talented women, women of color around them, and not wait for them. And I mean, I mentioned the mentor of the moment. How much does it cost me to notice a talented woman of color who's just come into the company? Notice her good work. Go up to her for two minutes and just say, "Hey, I saw what you were working on, or I saw you give that talk last week. I was thinking to myself, we were so lucky to hire you. I'm so glad you're here. If you ever want to talk about next steps in the company, or think about how I can leverage that and push you forward. I've got an open door. Feel free to drop by." That cost me one minute, right? And I was able to affirm a junior person. I wish more men would do that. You know these, these quick mentor of the moment exchanges.
Jean 27:40
That sounds like entering the pearly gates to me, what you just said. I can just feel the thrill that some of my women clients would feel if they get noticed and talked to like that. I have to say I know of no one.
Brad 27:57
Yeah, unfortunately, it is not common and we need to work on that. I will just give you quickly a corporate example. A number of years ago, JP Morgan recognized we're bringing in all these talented younger women. We're losing them all because they're all leaving and on exit interviews, these women said no one ever reached out to me for any kind of conversation about my career. So they started asking men, senior men at JP Morgan, to take a 36 minute pledge every week. Will you promise to take, spend 30 minutes taking a junior woman to coffee and just ask about her career, where she wants to go, have a curious conversation. Spend five minutes giving a woman a shout out on some win or achievement, and spend one minute telling more senior people in the company about her win or her achievement. 36 minutes not a heavy lift for men. And within five years, huge turnaround in retention of women, advancement of women, just getting men to make a pledge like that.
Jean 29:09
That is fantastic. I have never heard that. Okay, so I want to ask you a question now, is that illegal in the current climate?
Brad 29:20
Well, I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. I think it's absurd that we have to be worried about that. I think, I think, you know, this is very informal, so I'm not too worried about it. I think the programs that are probably feeling more scrutiny right now, or the more formal programs, like, you know, a woman's leadership program or women a sponsoring women program that's very formal, where there's matching. If it feels exclusive to only one group, I think the current climate is making that harder and harder, but these informal commitments we can all make. Nobody gets to control my own commitments.
Jean 30:05
Yeah, okay, so that you're making a distinction doing informal and formal, and that makes a lot of sense to me. What do you say to a man who says, I don't pay any attention to gender or color or anything. I go just by merit.
Brad 30:27
I would say you're delusional, unfortunately. And you know, this is we've heard all about the meritocracy lately, you know. And I think at this point the year, 2025 with all the data we have on bias around race bias, around gender bias, around a variety of other kind of identities, you can no longer pretend that you're color or gender blind. I'm sorry you can't do that. We have too much evidence that people who identify in those minoritized ways get all kinds of headwinds and push back and they have less opportunity. We simply can no longer deny the evidence of that. And so I would say, if you continue to say that I don't see color, I don't see gender, you've got a lot of self-awareness work to do.
Jean 31:25
I'm just laughing because you said it's so professorial, I would say you're delusional.
Brad 31:33
Well, I am a clinical psychologist, so that's my dream. I'm going to go right to the diagnosis, that sounds psychotic to me.
Jean 31:41
Okay, so let's switch from the individual to the system. So we have an organization, the Naval Academy, we have an organization. They want to make changes, but what they say are groups of individuals interaction, they don't see the system that promotes or inhibits a certain interaction, right? What do you say to the leader on what systems to even look for?
Brad 32:14
Yeah, and specifically around mentoring are you thinking?
Jean 32:17
Around mentoring. Yes.
Brad 32:19
So, I have some thoughts about that. I think this goes across almost any kind of organization. I think we have relied for too long on these formal mentoring programs, right where we're going to match individuals. And I would say having some kind of structure can be useful. I think if you just rely on organic relationships occurring, guess who falls through the cracks most quickly? Women, people of color, much less likely because of what we talked about before, we look for people who remind us of ourselves. So some structure can be helpful, but I think you have to look at your culture. And so here are just a few culture systemic recommendations I would make.
Number one, who are you hiring? And I mean, I'm talking about people in leadership. Who are you promoting? And do these people have a track record of mentoring inclusively, meaning you look at the people that they're mentoring, they're diverse, right? They don't all look like this person. You should be finding this out in interviews. You know, in an interview, I want to ask, Can you give me the names of several mentees who don't identify the way you do around gender, race, other differences, we want to reach out to them and find out what that experience was like with you as a mentor. I guarantee you, if we started doing this and candidates for promotion knew that this was going to be an expectation, you would change the system very quickly, because suddenly, I'm very alert to the diversity in the people that I'm mentoring. So that's one.
Jean 34:08
Okay, just hang on a minute. I'm, I'm trying to think about that. I'm in Texas, yeah, where the DEI thing is under severe attack. So coming in here, I knew I would be listening to everything through the lens of the controversy.
Brad 34:27
Gotcha, yes.
Jean 34:29
So even with what you said, that's a beautiful recommendation, and I would think that would be deemed illegal.
Brad 34:39
Illegal to ask about, yeah, well, that's, that's really interesting. I suppose you could frame it different ways, you know? I think you could ask, you could pose scenarios, right?
Jean 34:53
So, yes, but you did what you did that I think would escape, would make it okay. That's what I'm debating in my head. You said any difference. You didn't pinpoint women, you didn't point disability, you didn't--you said just anybody who's different from you. So I think that might be okay.
Brad 35:12
I think it could be. I just finished reading, by the way, I want to give a shout out. I just finished reading Stephanie Chung's book, Ally leadership, and it's how to lead people who are not like you. It doesn't identify one group. It just focuses on your inclusive leader brand. How inclusive are you as a leader? And I think when we're interviewing people, when we're thinking about promoting people, we should put them on the hot seat for them to show us the evidence about how they do inclusive leadership. How do you lead people? How do you mentor people who are not like you?
Jean 35:54
Wonderful.
Brad 35:54
Yeah, yeah. So I don't think that gets us into much trouble. I think 21st century leadership requires that you be able to lead people who are not like you.
Jean 36:07
Okay, let's keep going. Okay, so that's one thing, and for me, let me just say I've participated and I've facilitated mentorship programs, and the White men who've participated in them say they were forever changed, but I had not heard of building it into the structure like you're talking about. So let's keep going. What else?
Brad 36:29
So I think we also need to do training and preparation, right? You know, I do a lot of work around male allyship. You know, we can't expect men to be better colleagues with women if we don't show them the way, show them how to do that. What are those micro skills? We kind of need to do the same thing around mentoring, right? Because people have had different experiences themselves or no experience with being mentored. So we can't just say, Hey, you're paired with Jean, you're going to be her mentor. We got to make sure they have some competence, right? And do the training and development. And I'm just going to go out on a limb and say, I don't believe that everybody can be a good mentor. And maybe you've encountered people like, like I have, and you just think to yourself, yeah, I wouldn't want to see you mentor anybody ever.
Jean 37:22
I don't know why they're still working.
Brad 37:26
Exactly, yeah, because, you know, brother, you just don't have the EQ to do this. You're not emotionally intelligent. You couldn't listen your way out of a box. I don't want you mentoring people here. I think we need to be more thoughtful about competency. So hire smartly, advance people smartly into leadership, and then prepare them for inclusive mentoring.
Jean 37:52
Okay, so what are screening questions you've already given one which is who, who are the people you've mentored before, and how diverse are they? I get that. But what is it? The guy says he signs up. I'm signing up. I'm going to participate. What do I need to know to be an effective cross gender, cross race, cross whatever mentor?
Brad 38:18
What do I need to know? It's a great question. I'm number one. I'm really pleased he's asking that, so I want to reinforce that he's showing some curiosity. So here, here would be some top things I would love to focus on in a workshop, or, you know, the onboarding training we're going to do. Number one, how about cultural and gender humility? You know, I don't understand her experience. I know that and I want to have really good humility, but I also want to show up with curiosity. So I think, I think too often people who look like me, people with majority identities, will
wait on the sidelines because they believe they have to be competent before they you know. So they're thinking to themselves, Oh, only a woman of color could mentor Dr. Jean. I could never do that, so I would never enter in. Rather show up with some curiosity and humility and just say, you know, I don't know your experience, but I'm really interested, and especially if there are things about your identity or experience that I could know that would make me a better mentor for you, I would really be open to hearing it. It lets my mentee decide, do they want to share that with me or not? I'm not pressuring them to do that. Active listening, generous listening, it would be another biggie for me, and I don't mean listening to help her, to fix her or fix her problems. That's not your job. Be a generous listener, a sounding board. And then here's one more.
Jean 39:58
Let's stay with it. Let's stay with active listening. Yes, okay, you're saying be a generous listener rather than listening to fix. Suppose she's saying something that needs to be fixed. Either she's messing up, she's being inappropriate and doesn't know it, or I need to intervene in some way. So tease that out for me.
Brad 40:21
Tease that out. So I do think you're right. There are times when a mentor's job is to be a little bit more teaching, focused, coaching focused and honest if you see some problems with performance. I think you'd need to be honest with your mentee about that. But, by and large, I think mentees come to us to try things out, to have these safe space conversations. They really want a mentor who's a great sounding board and will just listen first and show empathy, show support, and then I could ask the question, what would be most helpful? What could I do now that would be most helpful for you? Would you like recommendations? Would you like me to share my experience working with this person? I don't want to assume that you want me to solve your problem, but I'm open to hearing what you need from me right now.
Jean 41:22
Whoa. Let me think about that a minute. Okay, so that sounds great. The hesitancy is, I'm the bull in the china shop. I'm the one who rush in where fools fear to tread. So if the woman does not even know what she doesn't know?
Brad 41:52
Okay, yeah. And are you thinking about something about the way she's coming across, or the way she's showing up in the workplace?
Jean 42:02
Yeah.
Brad 42:04
That is interesting. I'll give you an example and I'll tell you what this male mentor did, and I'd love to know your thoughts about whether that feels appropriate, but I thought he was really getting it and trying to be helpful. So he had a woman working for him. She was younger, and she had a problem with up talk, meaning she finished all her sentences with kind of a high-pitched question, you know, kind of, and he said the problem was, she was brilliant, but in meetings, nobody took her seriously, because she came across as a, you know, 18 year old high school girl the way she was talking. And he said, so I went to her, and I said, this is what I'm noticing in meetings. It breaks my heart, because you have so much to contribute, and men especially are not taking you seriously because of this one little speech pattern, the up talk. I would be willing to invest in speech coaching for you, because I think you have a lot to offer, and I'm willing to hire a speech coach just to address that one thing. I'm not going to make you do it. I'm just offering it because I think it could make all the difference.
Jean 43:21
That's magnificent, yeah? Because it's not just saying you have a problem, go fix it. It's saying I'm willing to invest in you to get this thing fixed, and I believe in you enough that I'm willing to invest
Brad 43:38
Yes.
Jean 43:39
So I think that's magnificent. The only thing I would question, I'm assuming they had an established--did they have an established relationship?
Brad 43:49
They did, yes, they had a good mentoring, working relationship.
Jean 43:53
Okay, so they had the established relationship, so he could just go straight to it, and kudos to him that he had laid the ground path for him to be able to offer that to her.
Brad 44:07
Right.
Jean 44:07
They he had to establish that relationship first.
Brad 44:11
Yes,
Jean 44:12
Okay, so that satisfies me, because so many women don't get the feedback in the first place.
Brad 44:21
Yes. And this gets back to men being reluctant to do that, right?
Jean 44:26
Yes.
Brad 44:26
Men are afraid. I Gosh, I don't want her to cry. I don't want to, you know, say something that comes across as sexist. So they stay on the sidelines. But the research shows women, as you're saying, don't get that hard feedback that helps us all get better, and it's a disadvantaging thing for them.
Jean 44:48
Yes, okay, so that's two systems thing, and I really am feeling relieved, because, to me, the big issue is not getting the feedback. People are willing to advance people that they can talk freely to. But if I can't talk freely to you because you're a woman, I'm definitely not going to bring you to this committee meeting, this half hour committee meeting.
Brad 45:12
Yeah, exactly. So those are some structural things. Maybe one more I would just throw out. Dr. Jean, let's talk about sponsorship. We've got to talk about sponsorship. You know, again, all the data shows that even if a woman has a mentorship.
Jean 45:30
I was just going to say, define the difference between mentorship and sponsorship.
Brad 45:33
Sure. In a perfect world, I would love to see them go together, and I think in some relationships, they they're closely connected. In academe, when I'm mentoring a graduate student, for example, I'm often also writing letters of recommendation, pushing them forward, I'm sponsoring them as well as mentoring. But in the corporate world, maybe sometimes they're very different things. So mentoring is sort of this broader commitment you know, both to your career and your personal health and development. I'm kind of in your corner more globally as your mentor. Sponsoring is more narrowly focused on career advocacy, pushing you forward for opportunities, right? I don't have to have that much of a relationship with you to still put your name in for something, right, and push you forward. So again, I think they those often go together nicely, but they don't always. So women, even if they're mentored, get less sponsorship, right? And part of the reason is men feel anxious about this, again, right? What if I'm loudly telling everyone how great she is, are they going to think something's going on?
Jean 46:48
That's where I was going as soon as you started talking
Brad 46:51
Exactly. So my message to men is you got to be her raving fan. That's the term I would use. If you're not her raving fan, the same way you are for a high talent man, it's not fair, and it's a huge missed opportunity to get to better gender balance and leadership. You need to talk about really successful women, even when they're not in the room. When they're not there to hear you, are you inserting her name into conversations about promotions or opportunities? Are you telling other people what you learn from her? Why she's terrific. If you're not doing this, I think we're never going to close the gender equity gap, because, you know, there just aren't enough senior women to be doing this for all the junior women coming in the door. Men, men need to contribute to this.
Jean 47:49
Yeah, so what can men do to offset the something going on?
Brad 47:57
Yeah?
Jean 48:00
The rumor mill.
Brad 48:01
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are some really clear, tangible things that you can do. Number one, make this part of your leader brand. It's just who you are and what you do. Don't, don't mentor just one woman, right? Don't be a guy who never mentors women, and then suddenly start spending a ton of time with one because that looks creepy, right? It looks like something's going on, and that's kind of your own fault. Mentor several women and several men. There's no story there. It's just who you are. You mentor equitably. Nobody's going to talk about that. Yeah, just make it part of your brand that there's no one's going to talk.
Second, don't keep it a secret. Be very transparent about it, you know, put it right on your calendar. You know, I'm meeting with Theresa this afternoon for our monthly mentoring meeting. Don't hide it.
And then a third thing is, think about the when and the where. We had--I think it was Sheryl Sandberg who actually wrote about this. A VP at Goldman Sachs realized there were a lot of talented women coming in the door at Goldman Sachs. He was mentoring none of them, and did a little soul searching, and realized he was doing all his mentoring over drinks and dinner after work. And he realized, Oh, of course, a lot of women wouldn't feel comfortable with that, so he changed it up and had his assistant only book mentoring for breakfast or lunch. He called it his breakfast/lunch only policy. He did it at this very transparent cafe right there in the building. And he said, within just a year or two, he was up to about 50/50, men and women.
Jean 49:49
Oh really just that tiny thing? Small, small tweak, Okay, well, this has been super delightful. Super informative. Is there any question I have not asked that you think is important to put in?
Brad 50:10
Well, just last thing I would say about this whole anxiety piece, and this can relate to anxiety about mentoring women, sponsoring women. As a clinical psychologist, I spend a lot of time helping men with their anxiety about women, and what I can tell you is there's only one cure for this. Dr. Jean, is called exposure therapy, meaning you have to have more interaction with women, and don't make that her problem, that you're anxious, just start looking for more opportunities to have coffee, have conversations, have mentoring exchanges. If you're really anxious, how about starting with group mentoring, right? Invite three women to coffee and talk about their careers. You know, just make this part of your leader brand and who you are, but you cannot let anxiety keep you on the sideline. I would just tell you, in many professions, there are just not enough senior women, as you know, and so if we're expecting those few senior women to mentor all the high talent women coming in the door, not fair to them. They're going to get burned out and they won't get their jobs done. So men, men need to lead.
Jean 51:25
Yes, I know of a White man in one organization who was disturbed that all of these admins were bright, able to do the work, some of them could do the work of the people that they were supporting because they had been there enough, and he formed a group with the express goal of getting them eligible to be promoted into a professional position.
Brad 51:50
Excellent.
Jean 51:51
Yes. And so when you said form a group, I thought that's an example. Form a group with the mentorship as an express goal.
Brad 51:59
Yeah. Here's one last thing. This is my final nugget. If you're, if you're a majority male who looks like me, you better lean in and have a reverse mentor. You should be out there and ask a, maybe a junior woman of color, if she would consider being your mentor. I see, I see older men in leadership completely changing their awareness and perspective simply by developing this trusting, reciprocal relationship with a junior woman who lets him, you know, have an inside scoop about what it's like to be a woman in the organization.
Jean 52:50
Okay, so one to three takeaways that you want people to leave with.
Brad 52:58
Yeah, one to one to three. Gosh, that's almost not fair, but I'm going to keep it one to three.
Number one, be a mentor of the moment. Be a mentor of the moment. Take these little precious, not heavy lift moments to notice high talent people, just especially junior people who might have imposter feelings, right? Go out of your way to just say hello, ask what they're working on, treat them with respect, show that you value their performance. This, this makes all the difference in the life of somebody junior, and it often is the beginning of a mentoring relationship.
Two: avoid assumptions about people, very easy to make assumptions, right? But especially when it comes to women and mentoring, don't assume what she wants or doesn't want in her career, I see a lot of men get into trouble with this. Oh, she would never be interested in this because she has children. What? Or how do you know this about her? Have you checked with her? Have you asked her if this would be a good opportunity for her? Let her decide that. So watch the assumptions. And then third, back to the sponsorship. Are you talking about her when she's not in the room? I guarantee you that most men listening to this right now can think immediately of a few very talented junior women that really should be promoted. So when was the last time you told somebody about her performance or introduced her to somebody in your network?
Jean 54:37
Yes, that's beautiful. So I'm all excited. I knew this was going to be worth it. It's beyond my expectation. I've read a lot about mentorship. I've co facilitated a mentorship program, so I've walked into this thing, and I pretty much knew what you were going to say, and I was wrong. You. You gave me tips I did could not have anticipated like the mentor of the moment. I think that's just brilliant. Okay, so how can people who are equally excited reach you?
Brad 55:14
Yes. They can. They can go to workplaceallies.com that's where David Smith and I have kind of our hub for all the things we write and the podcasts and the speaking we do, so you can kind of get a sense of what we're up to.
Jean 55:31
Okay, so I cannot thank you enough. This has been just beyond delightful, and thank you. Dr. Brad Johnson, I'm saying your name for those who might have missed it.
Brad 55:48
Yeah, okay, thank you. Thank you for including me.
xJean 55:51
Okay, hang on a minute. My mind is still willing from that conversation. It's always a pleasure talk with someone who is knowledgeable about their field of expertise. And on a personal note, it's inspiring to talk to a White man who has committed to put himself out to learn about race and gender, and is actively using what he learned to help build a more inclusive world. Here are my key takeaways.
First, I love the concept of mentoring in the moment. It's about taking brief moments to show an interest in someone's career, especially women and people of color. Those small, intentional interactions can leave a lasting impression. I know because it happened to me.
Second, Brad suggests asking candidates doing the hiring process about their experience mentoring people who are different from themselves. This not only provides insights to the person you're trying to hire. But as the word spreads that this is an interview question, then it will inspire people, hopefully, to be prepared for that question by actively gaining that credential. If I know I'm going to be asked about mentoring people different myself, then I better get that skill and that credential under my belt.
Last this conversation gave me hope for the future. People like Dr. Johnson give me hope. I've talked often about the ripple effect. That's what he represents to me. Someone in his sphere of influence, doing his part to make a world that works for all of us. If you have not already picked up a copy of Conscious Change, I encourage you to do so and let us know you've done it and what you think of the book. Many of the principles Brad talked about are in Conscious Change, like challenging assumptions and active listening. Let's spread the word together so that we can collectively build an inclusive world where everyone can thrive. Thank you for listening.
He is an award-winning mentor with distinguished mentor awards from the National Institutes of Health and the American Psychological Association. He is also a fellow of the American Psychological Association. He has served as chair of the American Psychological Association’s Ethics Committee and as president of the Society for Military Psychology. Dr. Johnson is the author of more than 140 journal articles and book chapters—many on the topic of mentoring—and 14 books, in the areas of mentoring, gender in the workplace, and professional ethics. Recent books include: Good Guys: How Men Can Become Better Allies for Women in the Workplace (2020, October, with David Smith); On Being a Mentor: A Guide for Higher Education Faculty (3rd Ed.) (2025, with Kimberly Griffin); The Elements of Mentoring (3rd Ed.) (2018, with Charles Ridley); and Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women (2016, with David Smith). He speaks around the globe on the topics of mentorship and cross-gender workplace relationships.
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