Sponsorship - Part 2

This is Part 2 of my three-part series about Sponsorship. If you haven’t already checked out Part 1, definitely read that before continuing here.

In Part 1 I talked about what Sponsorship means and how it is different from Mentorship or Coaching. I also shared several stories of how I have received sponsorship in my career so far.

In this post, I have a few stories to share about how I have given sponsorship.

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Giving Sponsorship

If you are in a leadership role of any sort, you are in a position to give sponsorship. Here are a few ways in which I have given sponsorship.

First time manager

People management is a big responsibility that often needs learning new skills and letting go of some old ones. You are immediately responsible for other people’s jobs and careers. If you do badly as a people manager it could affect a lot of careers and also derail an organization’s culture.

Even with these risks, I sponsored several folks in my organization to make the switch from IC to manager at various times in their careers. I took the bet that they would take their new role seriously and learn to be a good people manager; that they would put their team first and create a strong culture. I’m glad this has worked out well most times and my sponsorship resulted in more good people managers!

Stretch opportunities

I have periodically given bigger roles or larger scope to high performers in my organization. This was certainly a risk for various reasons each of those times: maybe they had no domain expertise and would need to ramp up in a whole new area; maybe they wouldn’t be able to handle the added responsibilities or maybe they secretly didn’t want a harder job.

As a sponsor, I found that it was important to convey the “I believe in you” message clearly while giving the stretch opportunity to your sponsee. It was also equally important to convey expectations because remember sponsorship is a two-way street.

Preserving career-growth post-Maternity-Leave

For women in tech the “motherhood penalty” is a real thing. You have to transition your high visibility/high impact projects before maternity leave since you can’t work on them while on leave but the projects still need to continue. You may give up your reports before leave since you can’t do stuff like performance reviews and expenses approvals while on leave. The first year after having a baby is also rough for most moms. I remember mine being full of rushing to the mother’s room to pump between meetings, juggling sickness with project deadlines and managing sudden childcare changes alongside work trips.

So I was delighted to sponsor the high-performer new moms in my teams by ensuring that when they returned from leave, they got high impact/high visibility projects that helped them continue their career trajectory.

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More stories of giving sponsorship in my notes!

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Contradicting Myself

You might have noticed that in the stories I shared above, each time I was asking my sponsees to take a big leap and do something they had never done before. Whether it was managing for the first time, tackling a new/larger project or getting back to being an excellent employee right after maternity leave. It is unfair to expect your sponsees to do those transitions magically all by themselves.

In my previous post I talked about how a sponsor is different from a mentor and a coach. Today I’ll contradict myself and say that many times it’s the same person wearing these different hats. Or at least it is the sponsor’s job to also help their sponsees find the right mentoring and coaching support to help them succeed. Remember sponsorship is not a spectator sport, you are an active participant!

As a sponsor you’ll sometimes find that you have to be the sponsor, mentor and coach all at once for someone. That’s ok! The time and space you create to play those other roles for your sponsee/mentee/coachee then become part of the “sponsorship package”.

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Readers, do you have a sponsorship story to share?

Drop me a comment or a note here! Let’s exchange stories and increase awareness of what sponsorship looks like in real corporate life!