Lessons on Mentorship and Sponsorship
For the rest of the year, I’m taking a “research sabbatical”—time to go deep on topics that are interesting to me or that come up for my clients, but are hard to focus on under the pressure of daily to-dos.
(My wife: “So you’re taking a break from your non-job?”)
The first topic I’ve been looking at is sponsorship, which is critical for career success, but is elusive for many of my clients. This Monday Musing highlights some of the key dimensions of this challenge in case it’s helpful for you.
Sponsorship, defined
First, mentorship and sponsorship are commonly confused, in part because we sometimes use the terms interchangeably. But the distinction is important because of the way they contribute to one’s career success.
Catalyst, a nonprofit that works on building workplaces that work for women, captures the distinctions well in this report on sponsorship. “While a mentor may be a sponsor, sponsors go beyond the traditional social, emotional, and personal growth development provided by many mentors. Sponsorship is focused on advancement and predicated on power.”
A handy definition—one that you can use to determine if you have sponsors—comes from Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor. She writes:
“A sponsor is a senior leader who, at minimum:
Believes in me and goes out on a limb on my behalf
Advocates for my next promotion
Provides “air cover” so I can take risks
“And comes through on at least two of the following fronts:
Expands my perception of what I can do
Makes connections to senior leaders
Promotes my visibility
Provides stretch opportunities
Gives advice on “presentation of self”
Makes connections to clients/customers
Gives honest/critical feedback on skill gaps”
Hewlett’s research found that while a majority of people reported having mentors, only about 1 in 5 professionals reported having sponsors when prompted with those specific sponsor actions.
Unfortunately, this drop was more significant for historically excluded groups—only 13% of women and 8% of non-white professionals reported having true sponsors.
Sponsorship is a quid pro quo.
A sponsor advances your career because you advance theirs. Reading the research, this dynamic is perhaps the biggest missing piece from the conversations I’ve had on this topic with striving professionals.
The quid pro quo is an important lens through which to view our actions as protégés. It’s not just turning up to someone’s office periodically to get advice. Rather, it’s about delivering results, keeping the sponsor informed so that they can help when needed, wearing the sponsor’s “brand” well, and showing loyalty to them.
This view also affects how a sponsorship relationship is built in the first place. The sponsor needs to already know that you’ll deliver and be loyal before they’re willing to invest their political capital in your career.
Now, “quid pro quo” can sound icky, but what the sponsor gets in return isn’t always in the same currency of what they give. I asked my business school classmates for their examples of sponsorship, and several shed light on this.
When one person asked the CFO of her company to be a supporter, after a pause he said, “Yes, but only under one condition: that you give me feedback along the way.”
Another described how his sponsors who work in venture capital need to build their “information capital.” That is, they look good when they can say, “I know someone who might be a good fit for that role” or “I know someone who I can call to answer that question.”
Another classmate described how many of her older sponsors have a “network deficit.” They know they need younger, more diverse contacts than in their existing networks or they risk falling behind.
The point is: sponsors need you as much as you need them.
That’s important to remember since one of the mindsets that holds people back from initiating potential sponsor relationships is that they think “That person is probably too busy for me” or “I’m not sure what I have to offer them in return.” Those who are most effective at gaining sponsors get past those thoughts.
Having just one sponsor is risky.
In their research published in Breaking Through, David Thomas and John Gabarro found that having just one sponsor was too thin of a support structure for those looking to get ahead. They write:
“Compared to minority executives, plateaued [minority] managers seemed deficient in broadening their network of supporters. Several found themselves lost when a major mentor left the organization or was unable to continue to affect their career positively. Their lack of other relationships left them vulnerable to what Monica Higgins and Nitin Nohria have coined the ‘side-kick effect,’ in which early attachment to a significant mentor actually undermines one's ability to develop later sponsors and to be successful in the organization.”
While they were looking at minority executives, I suspect this dynamic holds true for all.
How many sponsors does one need? Think “2 +1.”
How many sponsors, and of what type? was the key question for me entering the research. Most of the general literature—and even most of the academic literature—doesn’t actually address this question.
Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s research yielded this helpful guidance:
“The ideal life raft in larger organizations, CTI research shows, consists of three sponsors: two within your organization—one in your line of sight and one in a different department or division—and one outside your firm. The ‘2 + 1 Rule,’ as we call it, holds true for every career stage, from entry level to executive.”
As stated, that guidance is most relevant for those in larger organizations. The right formula might be 2+2 or 1+2, depending on your situation. In particular, for those whose jobs require selling, doing deals, or otherwise securing resources from outside of the organization and for those in smaller organizations, the external network may be relatively more important.
Critically, because one needs to overinvest in their sponsor’s success, there’s a limit to how many sponsors one can have. With too many, one risks being stretched too thin. That is, we can only give 110% to a small number of people.
“Constellations” matter, not just the lead sponsor(s).
In their paper, “Constellations and Careers: Toward Understanding the Effects of Multiple Developmental Relationships,” Monica Higgins and David Thomas discuss their study of lawyers at big law firms and conclude that the power of sponsorship comes from one’s entire network, not just their lead sponsor.
“Our results show that while the quality of an individual's primary developmental relationship does affect short-term career outcomes such as work satisfaction and intentions to remain, it is the composition of one's entire constellation of developers that accounts for longer term career outcomes such as organizational retention and career advancement.”
Higgins and Thomas propose that some of this result they found was based on the importance of external networks on becoming a law firm partner (i.e., they’re almost solely judged on their external book of business).
That said, many research papers have highlighted that one’s external network is increasingly important as people shift companies more frequently throughout their careers.
The more diverse the better.
In the Harvard Business Review article “The Truth about Mentoring Minorities: Race Matters,” David Thomas shares that his research indicates that a more diverse network is more effective. His research was based on minority executives’ career paths, but I suspect it applies generally. He writes:
“First, the network should have functional diversity; it should include mentors, sponsors, role models, peers, and even people whom the protégés themselves might be developing mentoring relationships toward. Second, the network should have variety with respect to position (seniors, colleagues, and juniors) as well as location (people within the immediate department, in other departments, and outside the organization). And third, the network should be demographically mixed in terms of race, gender, age, and culture.”
What if I don’t have and can’t find a sponsor?
In How Women Rise, Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith argue for building allies when a sponsor is not immediately available. They write:
“Sponsors are a valuable kind of ally, but they’re only one kind. So if you’re struggling to find one, your best response might be to pour that energy into building a broad ally network instead. This will not only strengthen you, it will increase the likelihood that you’ll find a sponsor by giving you more visibility and assuring your contributions get more widely known.”
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll share the insights about how people build sponsor relationships and some nuances of navigating these relationships across different identities.