🌟 Mentors advise. Sponsors advocate.
Different roles and both are needed to progress your career.
🚀 A Harvard Business Review study found that professionals with sponsors are 23% more likely to advance their careers.
Sponsors are senior leaders who use their reputation to recommend you for stretch assignments, promotions, or leadership roles.
They don’t just guide you. They open doors and speak your name when you are not in the room.
This matters.
📉 According to LeanIn.org, women of colour are over-mentored and under-sponsored, which contributes to slower career progression despite high performance.
For example, in the US, for every 100 white men promoted to manager, 91 white women and 54 black women are promoted.
Let’s break this cycle. Let’s get sponsored. Let’s get promoted.
Sponsorship often grows from your demonstrated excellence and others trust in your abilities.
👉🏽 We have a challenge for you:
Identify one senior leader whose work you admire. Start building a relationship with them and look for ways to contribute to their projects and show the value you create.
❓ Have you sponsored someone or been sponsored? Share your best tips on getting sponsored.
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This is the seventh in a 10-part series on Thriving in the Workplace. Watch this space every Tuesday for inspirational content written by Phaedria for ProWoc.
