A sponsor is a special category of mentor who is sufficiently senior that they can pluck you out, advocate for you and provide you with an opportunity that is potentially game changing. In doing so, they use their own political capital and put their reputation on the line on your behalf. For that reason, the sponsor must choose you and not the other way around.
Your job is to put yourself out there so that a sponsor can see you and then, if they wish, choose to sponsor you. Your sponsor may be your boss, or someone higher in your reporting line, or they may be outside of your unit.
You will be lucky to have a sponsor at any given point in your career, and any one sponsor is not forever. Sometimes, in seeking to attract one person as a sponsor, a different one sees something in you and becomes your sponsor instead.
Keep putting your best foot forward as there is serendipity in sponsorship. And if you are in a position to sponsor someone more junior who you believe then, then do it. It’s priceless.
The best sponsor in my career was the head of our division. I was at least 2-3 levels below him, and didn’t even know what a sponsor meant at the time.
I had a big client pitch coming up in Houston, and my client’s CFO was going to join our meeting for the first time. I invited our division head so we would have a senior “heavy-weight” on our side too, put together the best presentation and storyline I could, and off we flew from New York.
The meeting ran over time (a good sign), and the CFO told us in the meeting that our proposal was not only unique, it fit their situation perfectly. He practically awarded us the business on the spot, which is unheard of. My division head called me afterwards to say that if he were a client, he would want me as his banker.
Taking the initiative to invite my division head to the big meeting resulted in him becoming comfortable to sponsor me for new career opportunities, including three promotions in the next six years.
Identify one person you would like to have as a sponsor.
Identify at least one thing you could do to attract their interest in you, for example:
Now all that remains is to go out and put yourself out there!
What other ideas have worked for you?
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May is an executive coach, speaker, advisor, and author of the #1 international bestseller VISIBLE: How to Advance Your Career Without Playing Politics, Selling Your Soul, or Working Yourself into the Ground. She’s a seasoned business executive with a passion for helping leaders be the best they can be.
As an executive coach and mentor, May brings 24 years of front-line corporate experience and expertise, most recently as COO of Morgan Stanley Europe, to help professionals overcome (often hidden) obstacles, advance to the next level in their careers and reach their full potential.
