Here is a brief excerpt from an article written by Tacy Byham and Linda Miller for Talent Management magazine. They point out that mentors can give women the access, opportunity and confidence they need to ascend to senior-level leadership roles. But there are quite a few misconceptions that stand in the way of formal programming.

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“Women as Mentors: Does She or Doesn’t She?” — a 2013 global study of women at various levels of leadership — helped to answer those questions, provide insight into the dynamics of mentorships, detail the following myth-dispelling results and explore what learning leaders can do to create development opportunities, including mentoring, to help women rise through the ranks.

Myth 1: Women are threatened by one another. There is little evidence to support the stereotype of powerful women as fiercely protective of their authority. According to 80 percent of the women we surveyed, the No. 1 reason women mentor is to support other women.

There’s little of the competitiveness we hear about and much more of a willingness to help other women succeed. This is due in part to positive personal experiences; 74 percent of respondents indicated an eagerness to mentor based on the benefits received from their own mentorship.

Myth 2: Mentoring demands too much time. When we asked women to name the decisive criterion for accepting a mentoring assignment, 75 percent zeroed in on the time commitment (Figure 2).

Figure 2: To Mentor or Not to Mentor? (Source: Development Dimensions International Inc., 2014)

However, when questioned, only 9 percent of women with mentoring experience said the time involved affected their ability to get their own work done. What’s more, only 1 in 10 declined a mentoring invitation because it interfered with family time or other commitments. Clearly there is a disconnect between perception and reality: The time required to mentor is not the obstacle most fear it is.

Myth 3: Subject matter expertise is required. Women are unnecessarily hard on themselves. In the research, they demonstrated a reluctance to mentor when they felt less-than-expert on a topic. While women do thoughtfully consider how much knowledge they can impart to a mentee, most mentees aren’t looking for subject-matter experts.

According to “The Path to the C-Suite,” research conducted by Harvard Business Reviewing March 2011, technical know-how and subject knowledge are not the things protégés are seeking to acquire. At the C-suite level, mentees are more interested in developing critical interpersonal skills and core leadership behaviors.

As mentors, women need to play more of a broker and less of an expert role; they can provide access to other professionals with more specific expertise when needed. Their primary focus should be on modeling behaviors and teaching the nuanced skills required in the mentee’s current job and in future jobs.

Myth 4: Get past the fear of rejection. What is the real reason for the paucity of women mentors? It’s not because there are relatively few female executives. According to the hundreds of women who responded in the study, it’s because they aren’t being asked. Fifty-four percent reported they’ve only been asked to mentor a few times or less in their career; 20 percent said they had never been asked. But why?

One executive summed up the trauma of soliciting a mentor as follows: “It’s like walking up to someone and asking them to be your friend, and no one does that.” The good news is the fear is unfounded: 71 percent of the women in the study stated they always accept invitations to be formal mentors. And the overwhelming majority said they’d mentor more if they were asked.

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Learning leaders can help by promoting a focus on mentoring and developmental experiences for women. When organizations provide access to and strongly support mentoring programs, women spend 25 percent more time on developmental activities — including valuable international and stretch assignments — than their peers. As a result, they rise through the ranks at an accelerated rate (8 percent) and are 1.4 times more likely to receive a promotion within a five-year time frame.

Note: This article originally appeared in Diversity Executive’s sister publication, Chief Learning Officer.

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Here is a direct link to the complete article.

Tacy M. Byham is senior vice president in the leadership solutions group at Development Dimensions International Inc. She can be reached at the firm.

Linda Miller is product manager at Development Dimensions International.