HBR_리더십의 스폰서십이란

If you want to secure a role at the top of your organization, a good first step is to participate in high-stakes assignments - ones that are prerequisite for a shot at the C-suite. Powerful sponsors can be critical in demanding and ensuring that you get these jobs. But many companies have given up their formal sponsorship programs, citing push back from executives who feel they are being asked to advocate for people they don't know well or don't think are ready.

 

Companies need to shift away from seeing sponsorship as all or nothing and instead view it as a spectrum of behavior. On the least publicly committed end of the spectrum is a mentoring relationship, one in which the mentor provides personal advice and support privately, with no more at stake than the time invested. On the most committed end of the spectrum, is a sponsorship relationship, one in which the sponsor advocates for an individual. In between these opposite ends lie a range of helping roles that can, over time, evolve authentically to full sponsorship.

 

Viewing sponsorship in this way may lead to better outcomes than asking executives to tick a box on a formal program. And it can be more effective in connecting employees (especially women, who are underrepresented at the top) to powerful sponsors.

 

- Adapted from "A Lack of Sponsorship Is Keeping Women from Advancing into Leadership," by Herminia Ibarra.