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Management literature suggests that the values of future organizations may suit women to a greater degree. Self‐knowledge, building relationships, facilitation skills and empowering others are emerging as essential skills for all managers. These skills are increasingly identified as the central ingredients for successful executives – moving from the male autocrat of the 1970s, to the male communicators today, then to the male or female leader/enabler of the future as described by the Karpin report. The paper explores the impact women are having on their organizations, including studies which focus on information technology. The authors also look at whether traditional female values are a help or a hinderance in creating globally competitive organizations and conclude that a blend of traditional male and female values are essential to the success of organizations, in a global context.

Mentoring is frequently cited as playing an important role in the career development of successful women managers. E‐mentoring is relatively new and under‐researched, particularly outside North America. The present research investigates the advantages of e‐mentoring for women through a pilot programme set up with 28 mentor pairs. E‐mentoring is compared with traditional mentoring, and the potential of e‐mentoring for women's management development is evaluated. Challenges included encouraging participants to use all the resources of an e‐mentoring system and to develop fluency in online communication. The quality of the mentoring relationship remained the most important factor in the success of e‐mentoring. The paper identifies areas for further development in e‐mentoring.