Final answer:
Women lack mentors of the same gender, but research suggests that cross-gender mentorship can result in better career outcomes. Mentoring is critical for career advancement, job satisfaction, and reducing gender bias. Leadership styles between men and women differ, with women displaying more interpersonal or transformational leadership.
Step-by-step explanation:
Research on women and mentoring has indicated that having a mentor can be particularly beneficial to a woman's career. However, women often lack access to mentors of the same gender, race, and ethnicity, with senior roles predominately occupied by White men. Studies suggest that while same-gender or same-race/ethnicity mentor-mentee pairings show better psychosocial support, cross-gender or cross-racial/ethnic pairings tend to result in better career advancement and higher pay for women and people of color.
The importance of mentoring for women is evident through its association with greater job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and higher salaries and promotions. The lack of mentors for women may contribute to their difficulty in advancing to executive positions, due in part to gender biases and stereotypes that persist in workplaces.
Gender differences in leadership styles have been noted, with women more often adopting an interpersonal or transformational leadership approach, while men tend towards a task-oriented or transactional style. Nevertheless, these differences are not absolute and may vary or lessen depending on the organizational culture.