Mentoring: The Rationality of Fear

A few months ago, Lean In published the results of a survey by Sandberg and Pritchardshowing a dramatic increase in the share of male managers who fear close interaction with female coworkers. Specifically:

60%of managers who are men are uncomfortable participating in a common work activity with a woman, such as mentoring, working alone, or socializing together.That’s a32%jump from a year ago.

The survey’s creators were dismayed:

This is disastrous. The vast majority of managers and senior...