Mentorship: It's Not Optional for Us

January is National Mentoring Month, and at Let’s Shake The Table, we believe mentorship is essential to the success of all employees in their careers -- especially Black women. That's why we tapped mentorship extraordinaire (and Board member), Leslie Burns, to explore the need for mentorship, why she's built her business, Mentor Circle, around it and what the latest trends are.

In 2025, more than 700,000 Black women have voluntarily and involuntarily exited the workforce. Within the field of communication, that loss affects more than careers. It impacts voices, leadership, and the stories shaping our culture. One way you can positively impact this statistic? Get involved in a mentor relationship, be it as a mentor or mentee (or both).

Mentorship provides tools to navigate uncertainty, advocate for yourself, and continue growing in your career. Particularly for those who are unemployed or in transition, mentorship can be a lifeline. It offers hope, direction, and the reassurance that they are not alone.

I’ve seen how intentional, one-on-one mentorship can turn uncertainty into clarity and confidence into momentum. That is why mentorship remains central to how we move forward together.

Now, I want to be clear. Supporting Black women strengthens workplaces, industries, and communities overall; so it's up to us all to dig in and support, not just Black women. When empathy turns into action and knowledge is shared freely, everyone benefits.

A recent trend shaping mentor relationships in today's workplace: micro-mentorship. These are short, focused relationships supported by digital tools that make guidance more accessible, flexible, and timely, especially during career transitions. This helps to limit the sometimes-heavy load of meeting prep, scheduling gymnastics and repeated follow-up that can plague longer, more traditional mentorship efforts.

However you structure your next mentor/mentee interaction, I'm calling on you to step up as a Table Shaker. From my perspective, Table Shakers are people willing to share what they know, offer one-on-one support, and help create space and opportunity for someone else.

This National Mentoring Month, let’s do more than talk.

Let’s mentor.

Let’s support.

Let’s Shake The Table together.

Ready to get involved? Contact me to sign up as a mentor/mentee or explore mentorship programs for your workplace.