The Mentor Gap

Why is access to guidance still deeply unequal and what to do when the room doesn’t have your person in it? 

Arguably the greatest source of inequity in organizations and in the workplace overall is the ongoing and unequal access to mentorship needed to guide one’s career development. Too many of us still do not have the guidance we need to build our skills and power our trajectory forward.   This unequal access to guidance is the “mentor gap” in today’s workplaces.

We’ve become a bit more sophisticated about the “how” of mentorship. Hopefully, we’re building a clearer language to differentially define the relationships that exist between you and those offering you an investment.

You’re more likely to have heard about sponsors, mentors in formal relationships that will put their reputation behind you in a room you’re not in, and instead of mentors as milestone guides, who guide by offering their experience as ways to reconcile mentorship as the you-you having a convenient place to access.

What may be less clear is how this really translates from conversation to workplace relationship. Are you still concerned that others may have a stronger connection to an informal mentor or that they may have an easier time finding the right mentor because they’re already known to the community that you’re trying to connect with? Are these unequitable relationship to the same mentors still being formed?

In the end, the “mentor gap” is really shorthand for one irregularity: the unequal distribution of consequential guidance. Instead of a continuum, the guidance you need to progress comes exponentially as you build quality and credible momentum.

 I’ve seen this phenomenon close-up for over two decades of experience with HR and organizational leadership coaching. I’ve seen this phenomenon close-up and from every angle, whether it’s through talent review meetings, succession planning conversations, or just mentoring opportunities in leadership development sessions.

Such as: “She just needs more seasoning.”; “He hasn’t quite found his executive presence yet.”; “I’m not sure she’s ready, I haven’t really seen her in high-stakes situations.”

That last stated concern is the most relevant part of this conversation and the part that I want to focus on because it’s an organizational architecture problem. It’s a very difficult one to fix, because it’s very systemic. It’s about the way we approach systems, and it’s about our systemic approach to mentoring, which treats it as something organic and self-generating.

That means it requires ambiguity. Efficacy comes in being productive in somewhat nebulous circumstances. That’s about knitting self-organization into the structure. However, that unpredictability reproduces existing power, and that’s not always neutral ground, and that touches your mentor gap problem because in some cases it’s about reproduction of privilege and perpetuating a pipeline.

What do you do when the room doesn’t have your person in it; the person who’s your near-potential mentor, someone you feel connected enough to and make a good enough “pair” with to feel worth investing in?   You seek out those high-stakes situations and do everything you can to buy the favor of those who own the agenda, at least literally speaking. At minimum, you need to reach out and ask for help from an individual involved. You should be volunteering to step into those situations, even if it’s not your comfort zone. Even if you’re shy to the extent of being socially anxious or maybe you want to avoid the “wrong” impression.

Those who tell their stories and describe their needs without fear of misinterpretation are more likely to have their perspectives understood clearly, rather than being misunderstood by those without shared context. This is about human experience, and there’s only one way to know whether that “right” person is “right” for you; through experience, that’s direct or indirect.

Even better, those who carry their experiences through this narrative, especially when they share those experiences with an audience they’ve built through mutual credibility, are arguably more likely to rise to leadership positions and when they do, your connection is in place, and that’s just one less hurdle on the mentor gap.

It’s not unusual to feel a little lonely on the road to professional success, perhaps even a bit silly, but before you tell me your story, let me promise you it’s really not silly that you feel that way. It’s something I’ve heard from many people: other students, young people recently starting out in their careers, and mid-career professionals who feel as though they’ve taken some wrong turn along the way.

No one told them that they’d end up on this road all alone and it makes them feel like there’s something wrong with them, like they’re not doing it right, like they don’t have the “right” kind of “person” in their life or something. Here’s the thing: it’s not you. It’s not about you. It’s about the folks who’ve been there before you…did they take the time to invest in you? If no, then it’s about them, not you.

Right about now, this is where I’d like to tell you all about how you can have a stellar career and all the professional opportunities you want, all on your own, without the help of “your person,” without the perfect mentor. I can’t say that yet, though, because: It needs to be said, and heard loud and clear, that the absence of “your person” is absolutely not a reflection of your potential.

You deserve to have the same institutional investment made in you, through sponsorship and mentorship that folks who look like the “leadership” of that institution do. You deserve to be given the same opportunities to learn, to take risks, and to make mistakes that those folks did. You belong there just as much as they do.

If that’s what you expected, then I can see why you might feel discouraged by this road you’re on.   Odds are, this shortcoming will lead to you feeling even more alone than before. It’s impossible to build a support system designed specifically for you when you feel as though you don’t belong to the institution. The important thing to do is to show folks what it looks like when you don’t invest in those you aspire to join. It’s to make sure the burden of closing the mentor gap does not fall entirely on those who’ve been harmed by it. It’s to remind you that you don’t need “your person” to be successful so you shouldn’t hinge your success on the use of someone else’s tools. Let’s talk about how you can do things differently.

Here are my recommendations as to how you go about finding that success for yourself to build your own guidance architecture. First, I want to remind you to look at your professional support in a different way. “Professional support” feels like it should come in one package with one person, and that’s not a problem it’s just not a necessity. You don’t need “your person” who can and will do everything for you. Instead, the thing to do is to stop looking for them and instead look for several different people who can help you with various parts of your professional journey.

Your challenges aren’t all the same, and they’re not all challenges everyone else has faced. What you’re looking for is a team of people who can all help you with different pieces; folks who can help you break into a certain industry, or work through challenges you face because of your identity, or capitalize on an opportunity to work through a particular challenge.

You’ll want mentors who have made similar sacrifices to get to where they are as there are, for example, particular challenges that arise when you’re young and just starting out in your profession, or when you’re starting a family while trying to move into a higher level role, or from the opposite side you face when you’re just getting started in your profession. You should also seek people who can let you in on the particular doors you’ll have to open to get to where you want to go; you can’t expect to know which ones to open if you don’t know that they’re there!

You’ll want to reach beyond your institution. I’m not saying to cut ties with folks in your network who work at your institution, but many people got to where they are now by getting to know other folks in the professional community in and around their institution: professional associations, affinity networks, and alumni communities. Conference relationships are an excellent way to identify these folks.

You need to find the folks who will help you build and build into your network. The good news is that social media has completely changed the possibilities here; now, it’s possible to reach anyone, and for folks to feel it’s perfectly acceptable to accept even a cold outreach. Use it to your advantage! Use it to reach out to your local associations and network.  Reach out to friends and family of family who have specific connections.

If social media gets you that far, don’t forget about the workhorse of professional networks: public thought leadership. For example, if you’re interested in research on a particular public health challenge affecting your communities, be on the lookout for articles written by leading researchers in that area: connect to them on LinkedIn, and stay in touch with them to see if the chair of their department might still be doing consultations, and make sure to reference their work when you reach out so they know why you’re reaching out. (Pro tip: folks really appreciate it when you tell them why they should want to help you!)

Not only can you reach industry leaders in this way, but this thought leadership also helps keep you updated on the lesson learned in a field. If someone is writing about it, it must be important. If it’s important, you need to know more about what you’re missing, or what you need to keep an eye on for the future. Books, podcasts, and frameworks also serve as proxy mentorship, especially as they relate to your profession and career.

Finally, it’s likely that you can get what you need and your work in your community is an excellent way to do this. Making yourself available to support someone earlier on the same path you’re on is one of the best things to do for your community, and it’s also a great way to keep yourself engaged in your community.

The point of mentorship and sponsorship is to keep reciprocity to a minimum. It’s to ensure that you have a network not just someone to call on when you need something. Building your professional network is as much about getting to know people who can connect you to the opportunities you want in the future as it is about meeting the folks who can help you with what you want right now. Anything else makes it an always transactional relationship, and it’s hard to build a network of connectors and collaborators that way.

Doing that work not only helps you do that but also means that you get to think about your professional legacy: who you’re bringing along behind you. What the world does with your life once you’ve taken the next elevator up and vacated your seat. When you actively participate in the professional development of those whose paths are like yours, you own your legacy, even from the bottom of the pyramid.

Finding professional success isn’t just about what’s taught in the textbook and the checklist of excellent end-of-program experiences in your student handbook. It’s about who has invested in you to show you how to keep going at the end of your own book’s chapter. If you haven’t had that, it’s not a reflection of you, it’s a reflection of those who waited too long to invest in you. It’s a broken system you don’t have to play.

To ensure you’re solving for equity in your talent development methods, you need to lose the buzzwords. I’m talking about actually looking at what you do vs. what you say. What do your mentorship/audit governance structures look like? Who is getting sponsorship and who is placing people in visibility roles? Who is being brought into high-stakes conversations before they’ve been deemed “ready?” Are you offering mentorship without sponsorship by putting a nice D&I bow on it and calling it mentoring?

Look at the equity in the access you provide, it’s crucial that you actively reflect on visibility and who has access to praise and position and create ways to create that access. You can’t have the right people in the right positions without providing the opportunities for them to step in those roles. Use your organizational influence to create active advocates, “Name names in rooms they’re not in.

Reflection Questions:

1.      Who has been consequentially in your corner not just supportive, but actively advocating for your access and visibility?

2.      For whom are you playing that role right now?

 If this issue resonated with you, I invite you to continue the conversation by listening to the Restless Excellence podcast on your preferred platform.

 © 2026 Tonya Richards. All rights reserved.

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