Overcoming Barriers to Finding Sponsorship
The last two weeks (see here and here), I've written about building sponsorship relationships. To close out this topic, here are some notes about the nuances of navigating these relationships across different identities.
It’s worth noting first that creating sponsor relationships is most critical for those from groups that have been historically excluded. For example, Sylvia Ann Hewlett writes in Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor: “...women and people of color stand to benefit the most from this book precisely because sponsorship has long been the inside track for Caucasian men. Men are 46 percent more likely than women, and Caucasians are 63 percent more likely than professionals of color, to have a sponsor seeing to their success.”
Building trust at work and in mentor and sponsor relationships is a minefield, and particularly so for those from historically excluded groups. I won’t cite all of the research, but here are some examples:
If one believes that perceptions of his competence will be affected by bias, it might be harder to ask for help or to admit a weakness out of a fear of confirming the bias.
For professionals raised in high power distance cultures, there may be a reluctance to build intimate relationships with very senior colleagues.
Those who identify as LGBTIQ+ are sometimes reluctant to share details of their personal lives if they are not fully “out” at work or believe they may face bias.
Women may be reluctant to share work-life balance challenges because they don’t want to reinforce stereotypes that these issues will get in the way of their performance.
Mentors and sponsors from dominant identities may hold back critical feedback about their protégé’s appearance or executive presence because they believe the feedback may come across as biased.
Obviously, if either person is holding back, that hinders the building of a strong relationship.
Finally, on average, women, people of color, and those from working class backgrounds value individual achievement less than their male, white, and upper class peers. So given that sponsor relationships are about success, they may also be complicated if the two individuals aren’t on the same page about what success means.
Because of these dynamics, professionals from historically excluded groups often have a preference for sponsors that are more like them, which is generally based on a belief that they can trust those sponsors more.
Herminia Ibarra and Nana von Bernuth address this in their HBR article “Want More Diverse Senior Leadership? Sponsor Junior Talent.” They write:
“Having a similar background can help people click initially. This can be particularly helpful to up-and-coming juniors from underrepresented groups, who, naturally, want advice from seniors who have faced some of the same dilemmas and challenges as they have.”
Of course, there often aren’t that many women, people of color, and LGBTIQ+ leaders at high levels in organizations, which creates a practical problem for a perfect matching of sponsor and protégé.
Furthermore, Ibarra and von Bernuth add that sponsors may find it riskier to support those who match their identities “because they’re more likely to be seen as partisans if they choose to sponsor protégés of the same race, gender, or ethnicity.”
So what’s the solution?
In Breaking Through, Thomas and Gabarro suggest that regardless of the protégé’s preferences, they should build a diverse support network.
For example, they write: “A telling difference between our sample’s African-American executives and plateaued African-American managers is that the latter tended to have less diverse networks. They either relied almost exclusively on members of their own ethnic group for developmental support or they had only whites for such support. By contrast, those who reached the executive level, especially the most successful among them, built genuine, personal long-term relations with both whites and other African Americans.”
The good news is that one doesn’t have to choose. If one adopts a 2+1 strategy and a constellation strategy (see here), there’s space to optimize the sponsor network across multiple dimensions.
That said, in Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor, Sylvia Ann Hewlett recommends deprioritizing commonality or even admiration when choosing a sponsor. She writes: “When scanning your horizon for would-be sponsors... bear in mind that the best candidates are very likely not going to be people with whom you’d want to share your innermost secrets. They may not even be leaders you hugely admire.”
More generally, this gets to the core difference between mentors and sponsors. It’s logical to seek a mentor who shares a common experience, since part of the mentor’s job is to provide emotional support. But a sponsor’s role isn’t to provide that support; it’s to provide opportunity.
In any case, the research I’ve seen recommends bringing the tricky dynamics of identity, culture, and difference into the mentor or sponsor relationship in a forthright way. Ignoring those topics hinders building trust in the relationship, and tactically, it doesn’t help the sponsor provide the support that’s most useful for the protégé.
Leadership Wisdom
“One of the most striking observations we’ve had over the years is that deep, fulfilling, personal connections can happen with a wider range of people than we normally think possible. We can develop an exceptional relationship with someone whom we seem, outwardly, to have little in common with. We’ve seen it happen, again and again, in both personal and professional settings. What it takes are the skills to move beyond surface conversations. These don’t necessarily require a lot of time, but they do require a commitment to truly learn about ourselves and about the other.”
— David Bradford and Carole Robin, in Connect