Women are as ambitious as ever , despite making up just 25% of the C-suite roles on average. One of the most popular pieces of advice is find a mentor, but is this really what women need?
Deb Liu, President & CEO of Ancestry, who has held leadership roles at Paypal, eBay, and Facebook is no stranger to what it takes to advance in one’s career. To her, the challenge women face is not a lack of mentors.
“As a woman, you get a ton of mentors. In fact, women are more likely to have more mentors than men in the workplace,” says Liu. Importantly, what most women don’t recognize is the difference between mentors and sponsors.
Understanding sponsors vs. mentors
“Mentors are people who give you advice,” says Liu, who explains that while mentors are great because they can take a step back and give objective advice, they are more “hands-off”. “A sponsor”, she says, “is something that’s completely different.”
“Sponsors are not just there to give advice and take a step back; they’re there to put their reputation on the line for you.”
The distinction is important. Advice can be helpful, but, “a sponsor is willing to use their position and personal reputation to put someone up for promotion, give them a stretch assignment, or have them speak at an event. That political capital is so valuable because now someone’s vouching for you,” says Liu.
A key challenge for women, is that we have many mentors but often no sponsors, so lots of advice, but no one to open the door for us. Men, on the other hand, tend to have far more sponsors than women, and fewer mentors.
The affinity bias
When asked why this is, Liu shares that this comes down to a natural bias we all have, “People tend to sponsor people who look like them; who remind them of themselves 10 or 20 years ago.”
When we consider the impact on the gender gap in senior leadership, this is important to recognize. With male dominated leadership teams comes sponsorship for more young men, which will perpetuate the gender gap that already exists. And the availability of sponsors for women is core to helping more women advance in their careers.
“It’s really hard to be what you haven’t seen,” says Liu, who adds that most people who have been successful have had great sponsors.
The impact of a sponsor goes beyond opening doors. Having someone who believes in you can also increase the likelihood of believing you’re capable of stepping into a more senior role or taking on something new that you have no experience in. In Liu’s own experience, this included taking a board seat at Intuit on the recommendation of Sheryl Sandberg.
Liu shares that having sponsors who believed in her both opened up new opportunities and pushed her to succeed. “If someone believes in me this much, how can I let them down?”
How can women find sponsors?
With the critical role that sponsors play in one’s career progression, the million dollar question is: How can we ensure more women have sponsors? Liu shares that there are things we can do.
Formal Programs
One solution is sponsorship programs, created by organizations who can match senior leaders with younger employees that are seen to have potential. The down side is that these can often feel artificial and forced, so companies need to be very intentional and careful with the way they match people.
Shifting awareness for leaders
As senior leaders, we can recognize that while sponsorship often happens organically, we can be intentional about sponsoring people who don’t look like us. In this case, creating awareness around the affinity bias and encouraging leaders to sponsor people who don’t look like them can result in more intentional sponsorship of women and other minorities. This not only creates more opportunity for underrepresented groups, but also develops empathy in leaders.
Turning mentors into sponsors
According to Liu, women can be proactive about turning new and existing mentors into sponsors through intentional action.
To do this, she encourages women to “close the loop” with mentors after receiving advice, and then ask for their next piece of advice.
Over time this builds trust and a stronger relationship, at which point we can ask for sponsorship. Liu says this is as simple as asking, “Do you think there are other opportunities that I’m missing that you think I should do?”. This opens the door for this person to help in new ways.
Although there’s work to do systematically, women can be proactive about finding sponsors and developing them, which often comes down to simply asking. Many women who have seen success are happy to pay it forward.
“Not everyone will say yes, but a lot of people will.”