How To Self-Sponsor In A Shifting Corporate Landscape

Advocating for yourself is something of a lifelong skill, especially when it comes to strategically mapping out your professional career. Working professionals looking to climb the corporate ladder are often advised to find a mentor and or sponsor. Due to several factors within the current workplace landscape, it is getting increasingly harder to find individuals who are willing to sponsor within the workplace. Let’s explore a few ways to advocate for yourself and self-sponsor when finding a sponsor seems impossible.

First, let’s distinguish the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. An article published by Augment, a business school, states, “a sponsor in the professional world is a powerful advocate, often a senior leader or executive within an organization, who actively supports your career advancement. Unlike mentors, sponsors don’t just offer advice and guidance; they use their influence and decision-making power to actively advocate for you.”

An article published by Yale Insights shares that, “For promotion prospects, sponsorship matters more than someone’s gender, personality, education, and experience.” The article goes on to elaborate that, “Sponsorship is one of the strongest predictors of promotions and salaries—roughly equivalent to the number of hours someone works”.

Gallup, a global analytics and research firm, published a study citing that currently only 40% of employees report having a mentor in the workplace, and reports even lower rates for sponsorship at a staggering 23%. Competitive job markets and a lack of sponsorship opportunities can make advancing within your career feel like an uphill battle. Instead of throwing in the towel, advocating for yourself, and becoming your own sponsor, maybe the next best thing. Here are a few tips on how.

Highlighting and illustrating your contributions to the organization is a good way to gain viability, even without a sponsor to speak on your behalf. A simple PowerPoint presentation can be used to highlight and summarize your achievements.

It is important to keep track of all your wins at work, even the small ones. Quantifying your work with round numbers or percentages shows the direct impact of your work. The digital file, such as the PowerPoint presentation, makes it easy to quickly update your accomplishments, distribute to colleges via email, and to advocate for yourself within the organization with a mini show and tell.

According to an article published on Yale Insights. Sponsors are advocates and investors. Their support is public, and they use their reputation to support yours. With the absence of a sponsor, networking is the next best thing. Networking can increase your viability within the greater business. Prioritizing visibility within your organization can positively impact the trajectory of your career. Here are a few tips on how to increase viability:

• speak up in meetings
• join high-status projects
• use professional networks such as LinkedIn
• in-person mixers and events
• lead presentations
• work cross-functionally between departments

Leading by example is another way to advocate for yourself and act as your own sponsor. The goal is to not only have others speaking positively about you while you are not in the room, but to be a bridge for others. Benefits of being a mentor include:

• improving communications skills
• positions you as a leader
• expands connections and networks
• builds relationships
• creates community

Being a mentor can “influence the current culture of our organization and ensure that our workplace and our industry reflect our own values”, Louise Howard wrote in an article for The Educause Review.

Not all individual career paths are created equally. At the core, learning how to self- sponsor in a constantly shifting corporate landscape can be the difference in a successful career or a stalled one. Don’t let not having a sponsor interfere with your career goals, network, document all wins, and be a bridge for others within your organization.