Reverse Mentoring: Removing Barriers and Building Belonging in the Workplace

“You can’t help but be excited about what the future will look like, if all businesses embrace Patrice’s passion for reverse mentorship; her passion for a world in which all businesses are 100 percent diverse, inclusive, and equitable shines through on every page.”
—From the Foreword by Holly Branson, Chief Purpose and Vision Officer of Virgin Group
 
Most organizations today strive for goals such as employee diversity, inclusive leadership, and younger and fresher ideas. But how do we get there?
 
In her trailblazing Reverse Mentorship program, world-renowned executive coach and personal development advocate Patrice Gordon creates a safe and engaging culture by having senior leaders learn from junior employees. While typical mentoring programs arrange for a senior manager to teach the more junior employee, Reverse Mentoring is the opposite: it’s all about a leader leaning into their vulnerability, forming a relationship with an underrepresented employee, and amplifying the voice of marginalized people within the company.

Reverse Mentoring offers various tips to make reverse mentorship work. Gordon explores the power of uncomfortable and awkward moments becoming key points of transformation when people have to pause, reflect and assess their past behaviors and current assumptions which are at odds with the topic at hand. She ultimately reveals how bringing more humanity into our organizations allows us to see one another and ourselves in a radically new light.