I have some bad news and some good news about mentorship and sponsorship at work. First, the bad news: These two strategies are extremely underused. According to Gallup, only 40% of employees have workplace mentors, and 23% have sponsors. The good news? Improving these numbers is low-hanging fruit and holds huge potential for increasing the number of women in senior leadership, enhancing engagement and retention and even bolstering the bottom line at your organization.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic after serving as one of the mentors at the Dallas Business Journal’s recent Mentoring Monday, a nationwide event sponsored by The Business Journals that brings together successful female business leaders and women who want to tap into their advice and insights.
As a longtime advocate for advancing women, I’m excited that we’re learning more about how to create meaningful results for individuals and their employers through relationships with mentors and sponsors. In honor of Women’s History Month, let’s take a deeper dive into this topic and make the case for your organization to invest in programs that integrate the power of both mentorship and sponsorship.
What Is the Difference Between Mentors and Sponsors?
Mentors and sponsors serve valuable, but not identical, roles in your network. Mentors typically serve as role models, providing advice and perspective to help you develop your skills and navigate challenging situations. Mentors can be at any level in the organization, with peer and reverse mentoring becoming more frequently used approaches.
Sponsors, on the other hand, have clout and yield considerable influence on key decision-makers. Sponsors also give you critical exposure to opportunities and visibility to other influential leaders, and advocate on your behalf.
As a longtime executive coach and the creator of a leadership development platform, I’m not surprised by how underutilized mentorship and sponsorship are. I’ve had many clients fall into the trap of thinking their good work is enough. It often takes people a while to realize that who they know is just as important as the quality of their work. They overlook how much their relationships give them access to resources, information and influence that they need to get work done and to advance their careers.
The Power of Support at Work
While mentorship and sponsorship are good for everyone, I’m especially intrigued by their potential to address an issue that many organizations struggle with: the leadership gap between men and women.
According to the Women in the Workplace 2023 report from McKinsey in partnership with LeanIn.org, women are underrepresented at all stages of the leadership pipeline. While 48% of all entry-level employees are women, only 40% of managers are. The gap keeps getting broader all the way to the C-Suite, where men outnumber women by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
That’s a problem on many levels. Researchers have found that companies with more female leaders make more money, are more socially responsible and have better customer service. Female CEOs can even drive stock prices. Companies recognize these benefits, and many are increasing their efforts around leadership development for women.
These programs must include opportunities to develop relationships with mentors and sponsors. When you look at data from Gallup, the Women in the Workplace report and other recent research, it becomes clear why these relationships can be so beneficial for women’s careers:
Women are more ambitious now than they were before the pandemic. In 2019, about 70% of women wanted to get promoted to the next level. Today, that figure is 81%. (For women under 30 — your organization’s rising generation of leaders —93% want promotions.) In other words, high-potential women want to know that they have a future at your organization. Gallup found that when an employee has a mentor or sponsor, they’re much more likely to feel that they have a clear path forward.
Learning and growth are deeply important to your workforce. More than 9 out of 10 employees said they would stay at their company longer if it invested in helping them learn. Mentorship and sponsorship help address that demand. According to Gallup, employees with mentors are twice as likely to say they’ve had recent opportunities to learn and grow.
Perhaps the greatest potential for mentorship and sponsorship programs lies in helping more women find sponsors. Currently, 25% of men have a sponsor at work, while only 22% of women do. According to Herminia Ibarra of London Business School:
Too few women are reaching the top of their organizations, and a big reason is that they are not getting the high-stakes assignments that are prerequisite for a shot at the C-suite. Often, this is due to a lack of powerful sponsors demanding and ensuring that they get these stepping-stone jobs.
Ibarra has also found that men and women describe their relationships with supporters differently: Women talk about how these relationships increase their self-understanding, while men talk about others endorsing them and helping them plan their career advancement.
How to Improve Mentorship and Sponsorship
So how can your organization maximize the power of mentorship and sponsorship to advance women leaders?
Examine how the rise of hybrid work has affected who receives mentorship or sponsorship in your organization. For example, men are more likely than women to receive mentorship and sponsorship when they work onsite, according to the Women in the Workplace report.
Start thinking about how to weave elements of mentorship or sponsorship into existing programs without overburdening participants or executives. While support relationships that develop on their own are great, formal programs can create even more impressive results, Gallup found.
Whether or not you have a formal program, make sure your organization is teaching coaching skills. Potential mentors and sponsors are more likely to help when they have the right tools to do so.
Consider a tool like the New Lens® platform that facilitates mentoring conversations. Our app leverages the power of both peer learning and manager feedback.
Finally, remember that we understand the power of mentorship and sponsorship at Newberry Solutions and we welcome the chance to answer your questions and share how New Lens and our other tools can empower you to support women leaders. Schedule a New Lens demo now, or get in touch with us for more information.
