Why you must have not only a Mentor, but also a Sponsor.
Who are your professional sponsors?
We are often advised that we should have professional and personal mentors—individuals who can guide and assist us in our paths toward success.
However, what we may or may not realize is that there is a distinction between mentorship and sponsorship. To succeed in the workplace, one needs not only mentors, but sponsors.
Mentorship
Mentors are individuals who can provide advice, support, and guidance.
They may be available to you in a professional or personal setting.
They may or may not be within your industry, institution, or department.
They often can help you develop the pertinent skills or mindset.
Dependent upon your professional hierarchy and dynamic of the relationship, they may or may not provide direct feedback regarding your performance.
Perhaps most importantly, they can function as a sounding board for your ideas and goals.
As a result, mentorship can often be informal, and mentoring relationships frequently unfold naturally based on shared interests, personality, or proximity.
For example, in residency, I found myself gravitating towards mentors who helped me develop my clinical skills, shared my interest in cardiovascular disease, and ultimately guided me through the cardiology fellowship application process. The goals in this particular situation were to help me develop as a clinician and to help me match into fellowship.
Sponsorship
Sponsorship, while having many similarities to mentorship, tends to be higher impact.
Sponsors often simultaneously function as mentors. However, they have a few additional qualities:
They take action and actively advocate for their “sponsorees”.
They often have influence (within a company, institution), and use that influence to drive their sponsoree’s success.
They are often more senior, well known, or otherwise well connected within the company or institution.
Another way to think about sponsorship might be--if I were not present in the room, would this person speak on my behalf or act to further my goals? Would this person advocate for me behind closed doors?
The Center for Talent Innovation (CTI) has studied the “sponsor/sponsorship effect” and found that it is sponsorship, not mentorship, that influences advancement in the workplace.
According to CTI’s CEO Hewlitt, effective sponsors have three attributes:
They believe in your potential and are prepared to take a bet on you.
They have a voice at the table and are willing to champion you.
They provide you the cover you need to take the risks necessary for success.
In other words, sponsors are very directly invested in your success.
For example, the individuals who called institutions on my behalf during my fellowship application processes and job hunts--these were sponsors. They not only advised, but took action and made sure my CV was seen!
For many the most obvious (and earliest) sponsors in their lives may actually be family members--people who are willing to act in the direction of our personal and professional success. But as we advance in our careers, we must more actively cultivate those relationships in and outside the workplace.
I have found that all my sponsors are mentors, but not all of my mentors have been sponsors. In turn, I have found that it is particularly difficult to develop sponsors. Many will offer their guidance and advice in the form of mentorship, but to some degree sponsorship requires using some of one’s own reputational capital and “going to bat” for another individual.
But at the end of the day, hard work and job performance speak for themselves--and this can acquire you sponsorship somewhat passively.
Women and Sponsorship
According to Mckinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2016, more than 75% of companies include gender inequality in their top business priorities, yet only 19% of c-suite positions are filled by women. This disparity is likely multifactorial, but sponsorship (or lack thereof) can certainly play a pivotal role.
Moreover, according to the Harvard Business Review, one of the reasons why women do not reach top leadership positions in a company, is due to lack of opportunities and mobility afforded by strong sponsorship.
The “similarity principle” also works against women:
Individuals in leadership positions may gravitate towards others that are similar to themselves--often men.
For example, women at McKinsey reported having fewer meaningful interactions with senior leadership compared to male counterparts. This could translate to fewer opportunities for sponsorship and ultimately advancement.
Women in particular, tend to have many mentors, but not enough sponsors!
Ironically, women actually tend to have higher numbers of mentors than men.
But interestingly, have few sponsors, or lack them altogether.
Overmentored perhaps.
Definitely undersponsored.
As women, we can take stock of our mentors, and identify the ones who are true sponsors . And if there are none:
Attempt to transform those mentorships into sponsorships (sometimes it is only a matter of asking).
Seek new relationships that can function as sponsorships.
Many academic institutions, workplaces, and organizations have formal mentorship programs in place. However these programs do not necessarily translate to sponsorship, action, or promotion.
In order to succeed in the workplace, it may be necessary to have not only irrefutably outstanding job performance, but also to seek out the sponsorship that can help to highlight this performance.
Remember—Mentors guide, Sponsors advocate!