How to Get the Most Out of Your Relationship with a Career Sponsor

These four strategies can help.

July src5, 2024

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Synthetic sponsorship programs are built for action, designed to catalyze moments of advocacy and advancement. But the most effective sponsor-sponsoree pairs start out slow to go fast. In this article, the author shares four strategies that sponsorees can use to maintain momentum in synthetic sponsorship pairings. Especially for pairings where the bond is built mainly through virtual interactions, such as in companies that have adopted hybrid work models or those with dispersed global workforces, these strategies can make a critical difference for establishing durable connections.

Sponsorship, or the tactical moves a leader makes on behalf of junior talent, is essential for advancement to senior leadership. There are times when sponsorship relationships form naturally — but more often than not, they simply don’t. Sometimes the problem is that leaders are just busy. Sometimes it’s that they don’t think of sponsorship as a part of their job. And sometimes (much of the time) it’s that they’re drawn primarily to sponsorees who look and think and act like them — which means that some groups, among them women and people of color, remain persistently under-sponsored. Given how well established the benefits of sponsorship now are, that’s a loss for everybody involved, and to address it many companies are now investing in “synthetic” sponsorship programs, which formally assign sponsors to sponsorees.

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Rachel Simmons is an executive coach, learning-and-development specialist, and the bestselling author of Odd Girl Out and The Curse of the Good Girl.