Diversity And Inclusion
Don’t Just Mentor Women and
People of Color. Sponso
Them.
y Rosalind Chow
June 30, 2021
Summary.
Image Source/Getty Images
Understanding the difference between sponsorship and mentorship is
key to ensuring that women and members of historically marginalized communities
(HMCs) are fully supported in their careers. Mentorship involves direct support of a
protégé, while... more
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Mike Smith, president and COO of Stitch Fix, has long been
committed to recruiting and developing a diverse workforce. His
impetus for doing so came from his mentor, Ken Coleman,
chairman of EIS Group, Inc. and a Silicon Valley veteran, who told
him, “Be successful, hire, mentor, and sponsor those people of
color that come behind you.”
Although Coleman’s words of advice, given from one Black
executive to another, were offered pre-pandemic, they’ve taken
on a new urgency in the wake of a national reckoning over racial
inequity following George Floyd’s and countless others’ murders.
One of the most common recommendations on how to be a bette
ally to members of historically marginalized communities (HMCs)
is to sponsor them.
But what is sponsorship, exactly? Many define it as spending one’s
social capital or using one’s influence to advocate for a protégé.
This definition seems intuitive at first glance, but if you ask
people to unpack what that actually means in terms of concrete
ehaviors, most struggle to do so. Many leaders believe that
they’re sponsoring someone when, in fact, they’re providing
mentorship. Mentoring is important, too. But the confusion
etween sponsorship and mentorship is dangerous — an inability
to differentiate between the two makes it more likely that leaders
will believe they’re supporting their HMC workers to their fullest
extent when they’re actually only giving one form of support.
To clarify what sponsorship is and how it’s different from
mentorship, I zero in on a key word: influence.
Sponsorship vs. mentorship
Sponsorship can be understood as a form of intermediated
impression management, where sponsors act as
and managers
and publicists for their protégés. This work involves the
management of others’ views on the sponsored employee. Thus,
the relationship at the heart of sponsorship is not between
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protégés and sponsors, as is often thought, but between sponsors
and an audience — the people they mean to sway to the side of
their protégés.
Whereas mentorship focuses on help that a mentor can provide
directly, such as guidance, advice, feedback on skills, and
coaching, sponsorship entails externally facing support, such as
advocacy, visibility, promotion, and connections. Seeing
sponsorship as a three-way relationship between sponsors,
protégés, and an audience clarifies the difference between it and
mentorship.
The ABCDs of sponsorship
Understanding sponsorship in this way, we can identify specific,
concrete behaviors for sponsors to use to lift up others. Here, I
take tactics that are typically studied as forms of impression
management and translate them into their sponsorship
equivalents.
Amplifying. Amplifying is the sponsorship equivalent of self-
promotion. When sponsors amplify, they share protégés’
accomplishments with others in a bid to create or increase an
audience’s positive impressions of them.
Consider the story of Sal Khan, the founder of the education site
Khan Academy. Khan Academy was struggling to make ends meet
until Bill Gates used an interview to declare that it had the
potential to change the world. After this unsolicited endorsement,
Khan was inundated with funding offers from Google and
Microsoft, among others. Note that sponsorship doesn’t require a
close relationship with the protégé. Bill Gates didn’t know Sal
Khan personally, but he believed in his product.
To advance in our careers, we need others to know about ou
achievements and accomplishments. But most people don’t like
aggarts. When a sponsor trumpets a protégés’ achievements,
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they sidestep the self-promotion and its potential downsides. This
is particularly important for women since female stereotypes
dictate that they be self-effacing and humble.
Boosting. Boosting is the sponsorship equivalent of self-
assurance. When people put themselves forward fo
consideration for a position or opportunity, they’re in effect
making promises about their future performance. But most of us
know that people are motivated to make themselves look good in
these situations and may not present an accurate view of thei
own capabilities. These claims, then, may not hold as much
weight as when they’re made by a third party who presumably has
a more objective opinion on how the protégé will actually
perform. Here’s where boosting comes into play: When sponsors
oost their protégés, they stake some portion of their own
eputation on an implicit guarantee about the protégé’s future
success. They underwrite it.
If you’ve received a letter of recommendation from a teacher o
enefited from a refe
al made by a friend, you’ve experienced
oosting. Boosting is a particularly important form of sponsorship
for women and members of HMCs. Due to biases in how quality is
evaluated, many of them receive lower performance ratings and
are given lower-quality feedback, making it even more difficult
for them to improve and advance. Given their relative lack of
epresentation in many white and male-dominated industries,
they are especially in need of sponsors who can lend them the
legitimacy they need to be seen as worthy of investment.
Connecting. Connecting is the sponsorship equivalent of
impression management through association — that is, claiming
a relationship with a highly regarded individual or group so that
some of the positive feeling others have toward them is
transfe
ed to the person claiming the association. This is often
efe
ed to as a “halo effect.”
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When a high-status sponsor connects, they claim the association
with the protégé, rather than the other way around. This
enhances others’ impression of the protégé because the sponso
has already been “vetted” by the community. Likewise, the
protégé has passed the sponsor’s standard for inclusion into thei
network. Connecting can also involve actively facilitating new
elationships for protégés, giving them access to people that they
wouldn’t otherwise be able to meet.
For example, a sponsor might invite a protégé to an exclusive
event or meeting in order to increase their visibility to important
individuals who might prove instrumental to a future career. Fo
example, when Annie Young-Scrivner, now the CEO of Godiva,
worked at PepsiCo, she benefitted from the sponsorship of Indra
Nooyi, then CEO, who would invite her to attend meetings in
China that proved to be valuable learning and exposure
experiences.
Connecting in combination with boosting is an even more
formidable form of sponsorship. Take ClassPass’s former CEO,
Payal Kadakia, who met David Tisch through their mutual
participation in TechStars, a startup accelerator in New York City.
Tisch recognized that, as a young woman, Kadakia might have
difficulties raising money through the traditional venture capital
processs. He therefore personally introduced her to angel
investors, many of whom went on to seed her company with
several million dollars.
Defending. Defending is the sponsorship equivalent of justifying
or making personal excuses in an attempt to change others’
perceptions of them from negative to positive. In the same way,
when a sponsor defends, they address an audience who dislikes o
dismisses the protégé and works to persuade them to change thei
opinion. Defending is quite possibly one of the most effective
sponsorship tactics.
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Indeed, it is critical for women and members of HMCs, again
ecause of the often biased ways in which they’re reviewed. As an
example, Je
y MacCleary, the former CEO of Covestro LLC, found
himself consistently defending female employees and employees
of color in evaluation meetings because he saw that white male
managers were often criticizing their interpersonal styles as too
outspoken or confrontational. MacCleary countered with
personal examples that directly contradicted the other managers’
claims. In this way, under his guidance, Covestro dramatically
increased the diversity in its leadership ranks; at the time of his
etirement, five of 11 top positions were held by women and
people of color.
Of the various forms of sponsorship, defending is the most costly
for sponsors. Because it necessitates challenging the attitudes and
eliefs of others, it can create conflicts between the sponsor and
the audience, sometimes with material costs. For example,
Kenneth Frazier, the retiring CEO of Merck, tells a story from
when he was working for a law firm in Philadelphia. One of the
firm’s clients asked that he be removed from a case due to his
ace. But Frazier’s senior partner took a stand to support him,
telling the client, “You may take your business elsewhere, but we
elieve in him and we’re not going to replace him.”
Using sponsorship for social equity
Most people have benefited from sponsorship in some form o
another to advance in their professional lives. The recognition of
its power leads many of us to focus on ensuring that we have
sponsors who will amplify, boost, connect, or defend us. But if
we’re truly committed to social equity, we need to start thinking
not only about how we can benefit from sponsorship but also how
we can help others who need it. To do that, we must first contend
with deciding whom to sponsor. Ask yourself: What are my
criteria for sponsoring someone? Are they accurate measures of
performance and talent, or am I using a potentially problematic
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proxy for quality? Am I applying my criteria equitably across all
the people I could sponsor? Are there people I see as high-
performing who seem to be consistently flying under the radar?
Once you identify a protégé, you should then be attuned to
opportunities for enacting sponsorship. If a protégé has an
achievement to cele
ate, amplify it to people who might be
interested. Bragging on behalf of others is often seen as a positive
social skill. If a boosting opportunity presents itself, name the
protégé and advocate for them. Enhance the protégé’s exposure
y inviting them to a meeting or connecting them with important
people. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, if others are
inappropriately impugning a protégé, stand up and defend them.
Mapping the ABCDs of Sponsorship to Specific
Behaviors and Goals
Examples of behaviors that fall under each sponsorship category and the intended
goal of the sponsorship tactic.
Sponsorship tactic Example behavior(s) Intended goal
Amplify Being aware of and
talking up a protégé’s
accomplishments
Create or increase
perceivers’ positive
impressions of the
protégé
Boost Formally nominating a
protégé for specific
opportunities; writing
letters of
ecommendation,
attesting to the
protégé’s future
potential
Increase others’
expectations of the
protégé’s potential and
eadiness fo
advancement
Connect Introducing a protégé to
high-status individuals;
inviting a protégé to
exclusive events o
meetings
Create or enhance
perceivers’ positive
impressions of the
protégé;
increase the