The primary responsibility is to coach the protege by providing good, sound career advice and to help develop leadership skills necessary for a successful management career. Mentoring is especially important in progressing from middle management to upper level management, especially for women because only 26 percent of vice presidents and other senior managers of Fortune 500 companies are women. However, the protege should not try to become just like the mentor; we all need to learn from others, yet we need to be ourselves to be effective.