ecially clear to me when I went back to speak at
Harvard Business School in the spring of 2011. I was invited by Dean Nitin Nohria, who joined me
onstage and conducted the interview. His first questions centered on Facebook and what it was like to
work for Mark. I told him that I loved it, except on days when coworkers said things like, “Sheryl, can
you look at this? We need to know what old people will think of this feature.” We discussed the Arab
Spring and a slew of other timely topics. Dean Nohria then asked me a question about women in the
workforce. I’m not sure what possessed me, but I turned to look at the audience, paused, and answered
with brutal honesty. “If current trends continue, fifteen years from today, about one-third of the

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women in this audience will be working full-time and almost all of you will be working for the guy
you are sitting next to.”

Dead silence in the large auditorium. I continued, “I’m sorry if this sounds harsh or surprises
anyone, but this is where we are. If you want the outcome to be different, you will have to do
something about it.”

On that strained note, Dean Nohria ended the interview and turned to the audience for a Q&A. A
number of men leapt to the microphone and posed thoughtful, big-picture questions like “What did
you learn at Google that you are applying at Facebook?” and “How do you run a platform company
and ensure stability for your developers?” Then two women rose to the microphone. The first asked,
“Do you think it’s okay to work for a company that competes with the company you worked for
before business school?” The second asked, “How can I get a mentor?” My heart sank.

The men were focusing on how to manage a business and the women were focusing on how to
manage a career. The men wanted answers and the women wanted permission and help. I realized that
searching for a mentor has become the professional equivalent of waiting for Prince Charming. We all
grew up on the fairy tale “Sleeping Beauty,” which instructs young women that if they just wait for
their prince to arrive, they will be kissed and whisked away on a white horse to live happily ever after.
Now young women are told that if they can just find the right mentor, they will be pushed up the
ladder and whisked away to the corner office to live happily ever after. Once again, we are teaching
women to be too dependent on others.

To be clear, the issue is not whether mentorship is important. It is. Mentorship and sponsorship are ~~文~檔~共~享~與~在~線~閱~讀~
crucial for career progression. Both men and women with sponsors are more likely to ask for stretch
2
assignments and pay raises than their peers of the same gender without sponsors. Unfortunately for
3
women, men often have an easier time acquiring and maintaining these relationships. One recent
study shows that men are significantly more likely than women to be sponsored and that those with
4
sponsors are more satisfied with their rates of advancement.

Because it is harder for young women to find mentors and sponsors, they are taking a more active
role in seeking them out. And while normally I applaud assertive behavior, this energy is sometimes
misdirected. No matter how crucial these connections are, they probably won’t develop from asking a
virtual stranger, “Will you be my mentor?” The strongest relationships spring out of a real and often