Sponsorship as a Tool for Closing the Innovation Gender Gap
The Agenda article, “Sponsorship as a Tool for Closing the innovation Gender Gap,” authored by WIN: Women in Innovation’s Aubrie Fennecken and Zoia Kozakov emphasizes the importance of creating a pipeline of diverse talent through sponsorship. The article is excerpted below.
The business case for gender equality is one that’s been widely documented and discussed. Yet, women continue to be underrepresented in leadership across sectors and industries. This persistent gender gap has worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic. In September, four times the number of women dropped out of the labor force as did men. Of the 140,000 jobs that were cut in the U.S. economy in December, 156,000 belonged to women — primarily Black and Latina women (while men gained 16,000 new jobs). These statistics are daunting but should challenge us into action. By collaborating with CEOs and C-suite leaders to promote strategies proven to help women advance in the workforce, boards can augment a diverse talent pipeline at all levels of an organization — unlocking innovation and driving the market growth.
Sponsorship over mentorship. The first step is re-targeting time and resources that are spent on mentorship to sponsorship. According to HBR, “Sponsorship is a kind of helping relationship in which senior, powerful people use their personal clout to talk up, advocate for and place a more junior person in a key role. While a mentor is someone who has the knowledge and will share it with you, a sponsor is a person who has power and will use it for you.”
To close the gender gap, boards and their members have to continuously prioritize their time and resources. They themselves can use their social capital and status to advocate for diverse candidates and women to take on more senior roles. If they are unable to individually sponsor, they should set expectations for their CEOs and C-suite leaders to comply, creating KPIs and other measurement systems around implementation.
Sponsorship is a “win-win” and a driver of innovation. Employees who feel ownership over their work are engaged and have a stake in the success of their respective organizations. By sponsoring and opening doors for others, the senior executive expands his or her impact across the organization, while also embedding themselves across multiple functions of the company. In return, they reap the benefits, as a sponsor is 53% more likely to have received a promotion in the last two years if they have a protégé, according to The Sponsor Effect by Sylvia Ann Hewlett.
When evaluating what it means to be performing and determining the fit of a C-suite leader in an organization, boards of directors must account for the type of legacy and pipeline those leaders are establishing and learn more about the individuals they are choosing to sponsor (and why). After all, the CEO/C-suite leader’s commitment (or lack thereof) to the next generation of talent signals their vision for the future of the company.
Sponsorship creates longevity. Part of the reason many lip-service diversity initiatives fail is because they are not based on a long-term plan to embed individuals into the organization, training them to meet (and exceed) the standards set by the governing bodies and executives. Inherently, diverse talent is not competing on an even playing field, which impacts both recruiting and retention.
To read the full article, click here.