Sponsorship and Women in Leadership

“Sponsorship is focused on advancement, predicated on power” (Foust-Cummings & Dirello, 2011)

The following is a summary of readings and thinking that I completed in the summer of 2017, as a directed study of sponsorship as an alternative to mentorship for promoting women into leadership positions in higher education.

Sponsoring vs. Mentoring

Both mentors and sponsors may provide advice, guidance, and feedback to the protege. They may also make introductions between the protege and their personal or professional networks.

A mentor-protege relationship is inwardly focused, aimed at improving the protege’s skills, knowledge and confidence in a specific context such as a new position or activity. The mentor may be a sounding board for the protege, may offer empathy/sympathy when things go wrong, and is generally supportive.

A sponsor-protege relationship is externally focused, aimed at promoting the protege into new roles or responsibilities. The assumption is that the protege is already skilled but needs more exposure to senior leadership. The sponsor advocates for the protege and provides “cover” and protection by staking their political capital on the protege.

In mentoring relationships, the protege drives the relationship by asking for help, and the mentor reciprocates by providing advice. The mentor invests time and energy, but not necessarily their reputation. As a result, the mentor does not expect a lot in return. Dissolving the relationship is relatively simple and usually happens when the protege outgrows the mentor.

In sponsoring relationships, the sponsor drives the relationship by advocating for and investing reputation/political capital in the protege, and the protege reciprocates by being loyal, trustworthy, and a high performer. The sponsor invests political capital as well as time and energy. As a result, the sponsor expects loyalty and high performance from the protege. Dissolving the relationship can be difficult and usually happens when the protege ceases being worthy.

Why is This Important for Women and Minorities?

• Continue to see a lack of women and minorities being promoted to higher levels.
  • Possibly because of the double bind: women who do not advocate for themselves are not seen by senior leadership, and do not get promoted. Women who do advocate for themselves are seen in a negative light, and do not get promoted.
  • Possibly because they do not see themselves in the senior leaders (especially when those leaders are men/white) and so do not try for promotions.
  • In a Catalyst study, women who made their achievements known and nurtured their access to powerful leaders saw better career growth. (Carter & Silva, 2011)
• Women start behind men in rank and salary. Mentoring does not close the gap. Women who are mentored rise to the same level as men who are not mentored.
  • “Men are paid for potential while women are paid for (proven performance)… Are men able to translate their human capital into greater pay for the potential they bring to the table, … whereas women must first demonstrate their abilities, achieving greater compensation growth only when their abilities are proven?” (Carter & Silva, 2011, p. 10).Men tend to get sponsors; women tend to get mentors.
  • In various studies, a majority of women in CEO or other high level positions report having had a sponsor.
  • Women’s mentors tend to be lower status than men’s mentors. This hurts promotion and salary growth. Women with sponsors at the same level as men get promoted at the same rate as men.
• Not many people have sponsors: 19% of men, 13% of women, 5% of minorities.
  • May be skewed because of self-selection bias; men tend to sponsor men, and women tend to sponsor women.
  • Minorities without sponsors are less content in careers and more likely to leave an organization quickly.
  • Women are far more likely to be sponsoring women than are men (73% of female sponsors are sponsoring women; 30% of male sponsors are sponsoring women) (Dinolfo, silva, & Carter, 2012)
    • This dispels the “queen bee” myth, that women are unlikely to support other women’s career advancement.
    • Anxiety about perception that a senior man sponsoring a junior woman is actually a sexual affair may suppress sponsor-protege relationships. This is a real concern.
• IBM’s sponsorship program for women resulted in a promotion rate twice that of women who were not in the program.

What Does a Sponsor Do?

• Leverages their influence and political capital on behalf of the protege.
• Provides access to and advice about stretch opportunities that could help with career advancement.
• Talks positively about the protege in high-level and closed meetings.
  • Ups the visibility of the protege among senior leaders.
  • This can help to counter implicit bias, particularly for women and minorities.
• Publicly advocates for the protege in decisions about promotions or assignments.
• Makes connections with highly placed people in the sponsor’s network.
• Provides advice and feedback to the protege about executive presence and leadership identity.
  • “People become leaders by internalizing a leadership identity and developing a sense of purpose.” (Ibarra, Ely, & Kolb, 2013)
  • Executive presence: the gravitas (presence, including confidence, decisiveness, emotional intelligence, charisma, etc.), communication skills (tone, grammar, etc.), and appearance (clothing, hair/makeup, posture, etc.) of a person. This is closely tied to the perception of a person as a competent leader.

Selecting a Sponsor

• Relationship should be based on trust, honesty, communication, and commitment.
• The sponsor should not be a direct supervisor or (necessarily) in the direct hierarchical line.
• The sponsor should be roughly two levels higher in the hierarchy than the protege.
• Choose based on likelihood of effectiveness of advocacy and position within the organization.
  • Do NOT choose based on friendship, affinity with leadership style. Looking for influence and placement in the hierarchy, not a friend.
• In a large organization, select two sponsors from different units within the organization, plus one from outside (such as the local community, the client base, or the professional/scholarly community) – this is the “2+1 Rule”. (Hewlett, 2013)
  • More sponsors means a bigger network.
  • Sponsor-protege relationships don’t scale well, so don’t over-commit.
  • Protects the protege against a sponsor leaving or a relationship going bad.
• First do some self-reflection about career plan, career goals, strengths & skills you have, what you can offer to the sponsor, what you are trying to achieve. See Hewlett, 2013, pp. 62-63 for more recommendations.
• Also do some reflection on the organization, including structure, leaders, promotion-worthy activities/deliverables, where people tend to get “stuck.” See Hewlett, 2013, pp. 69-70 for more recommendations.
• Be visible to the potential sponsor: request a meeting to talk about career development (not to ask for a job), attend networking events/conferences and introduce yourself, offer help with collaborating on a project or other specific task. See Hewlett, 2013, pp. 93-94 for more recommendations.
• If the potential sponsor says no, ask for their help in identifying someone else appropriate.

Selecting a Protege

• Primary consideration: Are you willing to stake your reputation on this person?
• Be very careful about selecting a protege: only the most exceptional performers, who have promise to continue being exceptional.
• Select based on work ethic, skills, personal values.
• Be willing to let go of a protege if they fail.

Benefits of Being Sponsored

• Faster career progression, both in terms of salary and in rank.
• Increased network with senior leaders, particularly with the sponsor.
• Honest advice about executive presence & leadership skills/behaviors.
• Advice about developing skills for going after stretch goals,, as well as which to pursue.
• Increased visibility means new chances to shine.
• Competency is a socially constructed concept, based on visibility and preconditions of reputation. A sponsor influences both the visibility and the reputation of the protege.
• Internal promotions are more likely to improve women’s earning power than external moves (even with a promotion).
• People who have been sponsored are more likely to become sponsors.

Benefits of Being a Sponsor

• Learn new skills, information, corporate intelligence from the protege’s perspective. May help refresh interest in the job.
• Help to stay in touch with the organization at different levels than their own. Shows off the needs of the company, diversity & inclusion at different levels, etc.
• Get trusted feedback from the protege.
• Expands network with rising leaders, which increases status, reach & impact.
  • This is expanded even more if the protege also becomes a sponsor to someone junior to them.
• Faster career progression, both in terms of salary and in rank.
  • “Paying it forward pays off in the form of greater advancement and higher compensation.” (Dinolfo, silva, & Carter, 2012)
  • “High potentials may see helping others, particularly those other than their direct reports, as part of their own advancement strategy within the organization. It can increase their visibility and create a followership that can serve the high potential well when focusing on rising within the organization.” (Dinolfo, Silva, & Carter, 2012)
• Sense of satisfaction, pride, and accomplishment in supporting someone else. Sense of “paying it back” for support received. This improves job and career satisfaction and commitment to the organization.

Benefits to the Organization

• “Successful leaders recognize that investing in talent development is crucial to business success.” (Dinolvo, Silva, & Carter, 2012, p. 1).
• More effective leadership at multiple levels.
• Increased career satisfaction/organizational commitment means lower turnover/better retention, decreased training/recruitment costs, better organizational loyalty.
• Higher team cohesion and efficiency.
• Improved organizational performance because of better overall employee identity and purpose.

Role & Responsibilities of the Protege

• Develop a career plan or diagnostic. Share it with the sponsor.
• Seek out opportunities, risky assignments, and other positions that up your visibility and capital, in order to attract the attention of potential sponsors.
• The sponsor may open the door to a new opportunity; it’s up to the protege to walk through it. Access does not guarantee success.
• Take advice and act on it/incorporate it. This shows you’re listening to and respect the sponsor.
• Follow through with projects. Continue to be the high performer that caught the sponsor’s attention in the first place. Be absolutely reliable. Go beyond the minimum.
  • “The most successful proteges, for their part, recognize that sponsorship must be earned with performance and loyalty – not just once but continually.” (Hewlett, Marshall, & Sherbin, 2011).
• Start with a “yes” – but reserve that for the sponsor (and your boss), so that you do not get overcommitted to other requests.
• Maintain very good communication, especially when you’re in trouble and need help.
  • Biggest complaint of sponsors is when proteges drop out of contact.
  • Share successes with the sponsor.
  • Bring solutions rather than problems to the sponsor.
• Be loyal to the sponsor, trust and be trustworthy. Promote the sponsor within the organization.

Role & Responsibilities of the Sponsor

• “The primary role of sponsors is not to develop their proteges but to try to place them in positions that maximize their talent.” (Paddison, 2013)
• Offer guidance to the protege on executive presence, leadership development, assignment/task selection. Helps the protege expand their leadership identity/self-efficacy.
• Advocate for the protege both publicly and in closed meetings. Introduce the protege to your professional network. Call in favors to support the protege.

Role & Responsibilities of the Organization

• Make sponsoring junior high-performers an expectation of senior leadership.
  • Tie it to the mission, vision, and values. Make it a strategic focus.
  • Reward senior leaders who do it well, with public recognition.
• Make sure sponsors select proteges that don’t necessarily look just like them – make sure male leaders and white leaders select women and minorities.
• Provide training to both senior and junior leaders on what sponsorship is.
  • Provide training on career planning that includes sponsorship as a component.
• If there is a formal sponsorship program, make the goals clear, strategic, and transparent, be intentional in matching, coordinate efforts with direct supervisors, provide training for both parties, hold sponsors accountable for outcomes.
• Increase visibility of junior leaders by increasing diversity on committees & teams, supporting job rotation and leadership development programs.
• Form networking groups for women and minorities.
• Sponsorship support is only one part of supporting diversity in the leadership pipeline. Organizations also should focus on equity in performance evaluation, robust talent development, and succession planning.

References

Carter, N. M., & Silva, C. (2010). Mentoring: Necessary but insufficient for advancement. New York: Catalyst. Retrieved from: http://www.catalyst.org/system/files/Mentoring_Necessary_But_Insufficient_for_Advancement_Final_120610.pdf

Carter, N. M., & Silva, C. (2011). The myth of the ideal worker: Does doing all the right things really get women ahead? New York: Catalyst.  Retrieved from: http://www.catalyst.org/system/files/The_Myth_of_the_Ideal_Worker_Does_Doing_All_the_Right_Things_Really_Get_Women_Ahead.pdf

Castellano, S. (2012). Sponsoring career success for minority workers. T+D, 66(11), 18. Retrieved from: https://www.td.org/Publications/Magazines/TD/TD-Archive/2012/11/Intelligence-Sponsoring-Career-Success-for-Minority-Workers

Create formal sponsorship programs to retain talented staff. Disability Compliance for Higher Education, 19(3), 8. doi:10.1002/tsr.20065/pdf

Dinolfo, S., Silva, C., & Carter, N. M. (2012). High potentials in the pipeline: Leaders pay it forward. New York: Catalyst. Retrieved from: http://www.catalyst.org/system/files/High_Potentials_In_the_Pipeline_Leaders_Pay_It_Forward.pdf

Foust-Cummings, H., & Dinolfo, S. (2011). Sponsoring Women to Success. New York: Catalyst. Retrieved from: http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/sponsoring-women-success

Helms, M. M., Arfken, D. E., & Bellar, S. (2016). The importance of mentoring and sponsorship in women’s career development. SAM Advanced Management Journal, 81(3), 4-16.

Hewlett, S. A. (2013). Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor: The New Way to Fast-track Your Career. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.

Hewlett, S. A., Marshall, M., & Sherbin, L. (2011). The relationship you need to get right. Harvard Business Review, 89(10), 131-134. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2011/10/the-relationship-you-need-to-get-right

Ibarra, H., Carter, N. M., Silva, C. (2010?). Why men still get more promotions than women. Harvard Business Review, 88(9), 80-85. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2010/09/why-men-still-get-more-promotions-than-women

Ibarra, H., Ely, R., & Kolb, D. (2013). Women rising: The unseen barriers. Harvard Business Review, 91(9), 60-67. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2013/09/women-rising-the-unseen-barriers

IBM: Technical Women’s Pipeline Project. training Top 10 Hall of Fame: Outstanding training initiatives. training, 52(3), 60. Retrieved from: https://trainingmag.com/trgmag-article/top-10-hall-fame-outstanding-training-initiatives-mayjune-2015

Paddison, D. (2013). Guided sponsorship: The ultimate tool for internal talent sourcing. Leader to Leader, 2013(67), 13-18. doi: 10.1002/ltl.20056/pdf

Sexton, D. W., Lemak, C. H., & Wainio, J. A. (2014). Career inflection points of women who successfully achieved the hospital CEO position.  Journal of Healthcare Management, 59(5), 367-383.

White, S. L. (2012). Where mentoring ends and sponsorship begins. Woman Advocate, 17(2), 23-26. Retrieved from: https://www.americanbar.org/publications/litigation-committees/woman-advocate/articles/2012/where-mentoring-ends-and-sponsorship-begins.html

Notes from all of the readings are in two published pages via Google:

• Notes, quotations, and citations for articles, reports, etc. [Google sheet]
• Notes and quotations for the book Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor [Google doc]

Observation: JMUse Cafe – STEM and Society

I attended the second JMUse Cafe session of the academic year on Tuesday, 11/15/2016. The topic was “STEM and Society: Public Roles of Scientists and Engineers.” JMUse Cafe is a periodic open session sponsored by a group of organizations at the university (including LET), that aims to “provide an informal and lively forum for students, faculty, staff and the Harrisonburg Community to explore together topics of public interest.” This year the primary partner is the JMU Civic Engagement Task Force (CETF), so the four topics are all about civil discourse in a different discipline. The first event focused on journalism, this one was about science, and the next two are about the arts and business.

The session was set up with a panel of four experts plus a moderator who is both an engineering faculty member and a member of the CETF (Elise Barrella). Panelists were Brianne Kirkpatrick, owner of WatershedDNA (a genetic counseling firm); Zachary Pirtle, a NASA engineer; Brad Reed, a planner with the Virginia Department of Transportation; and Emily York, a JMU faculty member in Integrated Science and Technology. When I counted, there were 36 audience members, of which 13 appeared to be undergraduates and two were children (one my own). I was surprised that there were fewer students than normal; it is possible that the timing of the event (these are usually held on Thursdays, but with JMU closed starting Friday at 5pm that was an unappealing option) suppressed attendance. Students are also often offered extra credit for attending; we see dramatic swings in student attendance based on this.

The session started in a pretty standard format for a panel presentation; Elise asked four questions that they each addressed. The first question was about what the biggest challenge is facing science communication. Every one of the panelists described some aspect of wickedity, though without directly referencing the theory. They talked about complexity, the inability to identify all of the variables, competing visions of problem and solution, and the problem of unintended consequences. The fourth question, about what the role of facts and scientific literacy in public discourse and planning, resulted in an honest-to-goodness “wicked problems” reference in the wild. The VDOT planner said, “What people don’t realize is that transportation problems are wicked, in which interests are plural and knowledge is limited.” I nearly fell out of my chair I was so excited!

After this section of the session, the room broke up into small groups to discuss an ethical question that had been submitted by one of the panelists. This was a nice way to address some of the comments that the panel had made while applying concepts to a real-world news example. We did this twice, with the whole group coming back together after each one to share thoughts. The first case was about self-driving cars and whether they should be programmed to preferentially protect the driver over pedestrians in the event of a crash, and the second case was about genotyping newborns.

The final question to the panel was “What is the most pressing science issue in your field?” Every one of them talked about policy matters – how to engage the public, how to educate the public about what the difference between “theory” and “scientific theory” is, helping people understand the importance of sustainability, and how to engage the public to make change. It was a very interesting panel, and a nice example of the overlap between science and politics.

Observation: Provost Candidate

JMU’s longtime provost, Dr Jerry Benson, is retiring at the end of this fiscal year. We are in the late stages of a national search for a new provost, and are holding interviews this week. Monday 11/14/16 was the open session by the second candidate; Tuesday 11/15/16 he held a question & answer session for the A-Team (the associate deans) and the Academic Unit Heads (our jargon for department chairs). At present I’m acting AD, so I got to go to both sessions.

The open session was held in the concert hall of JMU’s theater complex, the Forbes Center. This is a gorgeous space with comfy audience seating, lots of honey-colored wood, and a great sound system. Most of the 100+ attendees were deans, associate deans, AUH’s, other administrators, a smattering of the more engaged faculty (many of whom I knew), and a lot of my colleagues from the libraries (about 12; easily more than 10% of the total attendance). The session had been heavily advertised on the faculty announcement lists, and deans and associate deans had been asked to drum up attendance from their units. Apparently we were more successful at this than any other department!

The session started with a semiformal talk by the candidate that covered both his background and his response to the prompt (something along the lines of “Describe your thoughts about how JMU can achieve its vision of being the national model of the engaged university.”). He attempted an active learning exercise that I think was meant to illustrate a point about shifting from a profit-maximization to a loss-minimization model. This didn’t work well, I think because it was outside the expectation of the audience for the speaker’s behavior. He then moved into a discussion of Bolman & Deal‘s 4 Frames model (structural, human resources, political, and symbolic), with which I am familiar both because of the Harvard LIAL program and because my dean is a fan. He concluded with a quick discussion of how to get engagement woven into the fabric of the university, through curricular reform, advising guidelines, fundraising and financial development, and diversity.

At this point the session shifted to question & answer. The questions ranged across a variety of topics. The main thing that I noticed was that the candidate did not answer these questions. At the time, I was not clear as to whether this was because he did not understand what was being asked, or if he was overly dedicated to specific talking points.

I got my answer in the A-Team/AUH meeting. He was clearly not expecting the group to be so large (there were about 15 ADs and about 35 AUHs present), and also did not realize that nearly all of us had been present at the open session. First he repeated the portion of his opening remarks that focused on his background, nearly verbatim from the previous session. I started writing notes to myself that I do not choose to report here. Looking around the room, my colleagues were not impressed; they were checking their phones, refusing to look at him, and one person I think may have fallen asleep. It reminded me of a class that has already heard everything I’m trying to teach them before – apparently you can lose the attention of senior faculty just as quickly as sophomores. Things did not improve for him; most of his answers to questions duplicated what he had said the day before. The worst example of this was when a colleague asked him to expand on his question from the open session about the provost’s role – and he got (according to my notes) the same answer as before.

I had a lot of revelations in observing these two sessions. Number one: it’s not enough to be really smart and have a lot of great stuff to say. If you don’t match it to your audience’s interests and needs, you might as well be talking to yourself. Talk about losing internal accountability!

Observation: Kwame Alexander at VLA 2016

I attended the keynote lecture at the Virginia Libraries Association 2016 annual meeting on 10/27/16. Keynote speaker was Kwame Alexander, Newbery award winning author of The Crossover and poet. Mr. Alexander spoke for approximately an hour, completely off-script and without slides or other supporting materials (though he occasionally read from either a journal or from The Crossover, which he had to borrow from a member of the audience). Although there were more than 500 people registered for the conference, I estimate only about 150 were in attendance at the keynote; this was the first event of the conference and I think a lot of people didn’t get to the venue until after lunch when the general sessions started. This is the annual meeting of librarians from across the state (plus people from 6 other states, as far away as Connecticut!). I estimate half of the attendees are public librarians, a third are academic (community college, college, and university librarians like myself), and the remainder are from k-12 school media centers and special libraries (mainly government and corporate libraries). It was held at The Homestead, a 250-year old hot springs spa resort at the western edge of the state, about 90 minutes southwest of me and up to 5 hours drive for folks coming from the opposite edge of the state.

First, Kwame Alexander is a fabulous speaker. He recited poetry for us. He talked about his childhood and how he’d gone from being labeled a “reluctant reader” to winning the Newbery, and about how he now goes to schools to talk to students about poetry and reading. He read to us from his books. He was able to send us on rollercoasters of emotions with funny stories, and painful stories, and stories that made me want to weep for children who are labeled “bad”. Here are three quotes I’m carrying around from this address:

All the kids deserve all the books.

Literature does not segregate; we do that.

Words matter. Words matter for all of us. Words matter for all of our children.

Mr Alexander was saying that by labeling individuals or groups as being “bad” or “reluctant” or “trouble” we limit the support that we’re willing to give them. The goal is to help all people succeed, to engage all students with the world, regardless of how we perceive them.

Second, watching the audience respond to him was very interesting. The VLA population is largely white, female, and over 50 (this is reflective of the profession). Mr. Alexander is black, male, and I’d guess in his 40s. The room was set up lecture-style, with a raised dais at the front and a large screen for slides. Mr. Alexander alternated between standing behind the podium and coming out into the audience to speak from the center. This was a technique clearly meant to engage us; it also clearly made the people sitting on the center aisle uncomfortable. The lack of slides also meant that I had to really engage with him; no crutch to keep up with his discussion was available. At one point he clearly got a little frustrated with us for not being impressed with his award – “Y’all, I WON THE NEWBERY” he exclaimed, to some nervous laughter. This is not to suggest that the audience wasn’t engaged with his talk – I think most people really were. I wish I’d been able to interview some people afterwards about their impressions. The few people I talked to were equally as impressed with his talk.