Mentoring with company leaders can help women gain visibility for their work and the access to social networks needed to break through the glass ceiling. However, cross-gender mentoring relationships (relationships in which women are mentored by a male leader) that cross the line from a strictly business to a personal relationship can damage the careers and reputations of both the mentor and protégé. Retired Army General David Petraeus resigned as CIA director after an FBI investigation suggested that he had an extramarital affair with his protégé, Paula Broadwell, and she may have had inappropriate access to classified military information. The mentoring relationship became a love affair after he took over as CIA director and ended in summer 2012.
Petraeus was arguably the most important military officer of his generation. He was applauded for developing a counterinsurgency strategy which he used to help turn around the war in Iraq. His circle of advisers included a mix of individuals from the Army as well as civilian analysts. His advisers were encouraged to provide him with critical thinking and were free to offer opinions that differed from his own, which was an unconventional approach for the Army. Military personnel considered Petraeus and his wife's marriage of over 30 years a model for making a marriage work despite the separation and hardship of lengthy overseas deployments.
Broadwell first met Petraeus when she was in graduate school at Harvard and he gave a talk there about counterinsurgency strategy. She was so inspired by his ideas that she decided to write a doctoral dissertation on his leadership style. When Petraeus took command of the armed forces in Afghanistan in 2010 she asked, and he agreed, to let her come observe him and his command team. Broadwell used these observations in writing his biography, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus. Although Broadwell was 20 years younger than Petraeus, they had many similarities and shared common interests. She had traveled to 60 countries, served in intelligence, special operations and with an F.B.I. counterterrorism task force, had a degree from an Ivy-league university, was interested in fitness, and was married with children. It was not unusual for Petraeus to mentor young officers. Petraeus was known for his personnel philosophy "pick good people, pick them young before other pickers get into the competition, help them grow, keep in touch, exploit excellence." He often interacted with lower-ranking officers to get a sense of what was happening on the ground instead of relying on reports that filtered up the chain of command.
The reality in the workplace is that men still hold the majority of leadership positions in organizations. Women need these male mentors to provide the visibility, assignments, and coaching necessary to help them develop the skills necessary for top management positions. However, many senior male leaders avoid mentoring women for fear that they will be accused of having an affair or sexual harassment. What recommendations would you have for how to encourage top company leaders to mentor women and keep the relationship professional (rather than romantic)?