Mentoring indigenous women: strategies from South Africa and New Zealand

Abstract

This paper presents an indigenous perspective on mentoring, a familiar success strategy in the women in management literature. The broader context for the paper is an examination of the relationships between race and gender in top management, symbolised in the metaphor of the 'concrete ceiling'. The subjects of this study were indigenous women who were top managers. Twelve were Black women from the private sector in South Africa, and 15 were Māori women from the New Zealand's public sector. Qualitative interviews were used to explore the mentoring strategies that they implemented to enhance their opportunities to advance into top management roles. To be successful in top jobs, participants used a variety of mentors who represented an aspect of their identity - race, gender, top manager role and political ideology. Their indigenous status and the political histories of their countries meant that these participants had some perspectives on mentoring that were new to the women in management literature, as we...