What Women Need To Know About Mentorship Vs. Sponsorship

No one climbs the corporate ladder alone; you have to do it in a community. There are two ways to be guided in a corporate organization: mentorship and sponsorship. 

A March 2022 survey of more than 8,000 working adults conducted by the Gallup Center on Black Voices found that mentors and sponsors are crucial to shaping the employee experience, especially when organizations purposefully put them in place.

This piece will explore the intricacies of mentorship and sponsorship and how they affect women of color specifically. 

In a corporate setting, mentorship is a relationship where someone(the mentor) in a superior capacity shares knowledge and guides someone else(the mentee) who learns from their wealth of knowledge and personal experience.

A mentor gives you the knowledge and context to define your career path. They see and put in words for you what you might not have observed about yourself or are not able to articulate. They help you highlight your strengths and weaknesses, and essentially what sets you apart.

A mentor doesn’t need to know all the answers, but has to be a few steps ahead and work with you till the final result.

Sponsorship is the next phase of a successful mentorship. Once the mentor and mentee have worked together for a while, the mentor may see evidence of growth and self-accountability in the mentee, and a certain degree of trust is established. At this point, the mentor can become an actual advocate for their mentee.

A sponsor talks about you in important rooms. As a leader, you are in decision-making rooms that many of your colleagues rarely are in. Sponsors can advocate for their mentee’s advancement – opening doors of opportunity, nominating them for advancement, and inviting them into their professional networks. For instance, a sponsor may put their protégé’s name on the table for a promotion, or have the power to advocate for their work when they are not in the room.

The sponsor risks their reputation and standing as they advocate for their mentee’s advancement.

According to the Women in the Workplacereport by McKinsey & LinkedIn, only 23% of women reported having a sponsor, compared to 30% of men, and according to a LeanIn.org survey, women are 24 percent less likely than men to get advice from senior leaders.  

Similarly, the State of Black Women in Corporate America 2020 report by LeanIn notes that 62% of women of color feel that they are being held back by not having an influential mentor. This causes women of color to be less likely to have sponsors. This highlights a painful truth: women are often over-mentored but under-sponsored.

True mentorship and sponsorship are potential avenues to improving the representation of women and racial/ethnic minority groups in management and leadership positions. Roughly six in 10 CHROs surveyed by Gallup reported having mentoring and sponsorship programs to address DEI.

This lack of access to good mentorship and sponsorship can be explained by the following:

Reluctance and Fear Among Potential Sponsors: Sponsors may hesitate to sponsor women of color because they fear the additional workload, feel unprepared to support them effectively, or worry about navigating organizational biases and challenges unique to women of color. There is also apprehension about being held responsible if the sponsored individual leaves the organization or does not succeed.

Visibility and Access to Power Networks: Women of color often lack visibility in decision-making rooms and strong relationships with those who hold power, which are crucial for sponsorship. This is confirmed by the study by Aparna Kasturi, which explores women of colour’s opinions on workplace culture.

Systemic Barriers and Biases: Institutionalized racism and unconscious biases contribute to women of color being over-mentored but under-sponsored. Feedback given to them can sometimes be insincere or used as a stalling tactic rather than genuine development support. This was highlighted by a study on how women of colour are shattering ceilings with mentorship.

This lack of mentorship and sponsorship can lead to:

Career Stagnation and Limited Advancement: Without true sponsorship, women of color often remain stuck in their current roles for years despite high performance, as sponsorship is crucial for gaining access to promotions and leadership opportunities. This lack of sponsorship directly contributes to their underrepresentation in senior leadership positions.

Feelings of Isolation and Tokenism: Without sponsors who actively champion their careers, women of color may feel isolated, undervalued, and pressured to represent their entire demographic, which harms their sense of belonging and well-being at work.

Reduced Access to Influential Networks: Sponsorship often involves inclusion in powerful informal networks that open doors to key projects and decision-making forums. Without this, women of color have less visibility and fewer opportunities to demonstrate leadership potential.