Mentorship and Sponsorship

To grow our technical leadership skills, it’s critical to lean on one’s network of support. We often find mentors: people who can give us helpful advice. But what can be even more valuable is finding “sponsors”, who help us find new opportunities and improve the visibility of our work. As sponsorship is especially important for members of underrepresented groups in tech, we’ll walk through tactics you can employ today to be a sponsor for those around you, too.

Read more: https://larahogan.me/blog/what-sponsorship-looks-like/

Transcript

1. Mentorship + Sponsorship
   Lara Hogan @lara_hogan
   larahogan.me/sponsors/
   

   View Slide

2. Growing in our careers
   

   View Slide

3. Who do you lean on
   to help you grow?
   

   View Slide

4. “Mentorship” is a
   catch-all term for
   lots of different skills.
   

   View Slide

5. Mentors
   

   View Slide

6. View Slide

7. Mentorship:
   Giving advice, based on
   your experience.
   

   View Slide

8. Mentorship is great
   when you want help
   onboarding or
   getting unblocked.
   

   View Slide

9. Advice is just one thing a mentor
   gives. There are residual benefits
   from visible proximity and
   tangential relationships to be
   gained.”
   “
   — Kristy Tillman
   

   View Slide

10. View Slide

11. Honesty
    Flexibility
    Reciprocity
    Active listening
    Mutual respect
    Personal connection
    Shared values
    Qualities of a successful mentor
    relationship:
    Hilary Sanfey, M.B.B.Ch., M.H.P.E., Celeste Hollands, M.D., Nancy L. Gantt, M.D.
    

    View Slide

12. Mentees should find
    more than one mentor.
    Hilary Sanfey, M.B.B.Ch., M.H.P.E., Celeste Hollands, M.D., Nancy L. Gantt, M.D.
    

    View Slide

13. Be a responsible mentor.
    Hilary Sanfey, M.B.B.Ch., M.H.P.E., Celeste Hollands, M.D., Nancy L. Gantt, M.D.
    

    View Slide

14. It’s okay to end
    a mentor relationship.
    Hilary Sanfey, M.B.B.Ch., M.H.P.E., Celeste Hollands, M.D., Nancy L. Gantt, M.D.
    

    View Slide

15. Mentoring, or coaching?
    

    View Slide

16. Coaching is great
    when you want help
    navigating a challenge.
    

    View Slide

17. Sponsorship
    

    View Slide

18. View Slide

19. Illustration by Catt Small
    

    View Slide

20. Mentors give perspective,
    sponsors give opportunity.”
    — Cate Huston
    “
    

    View Slide

21. The dashboards are slow today. Is there
    someone who knows how to fix that?
    Oh, Max fixed our dashboards before.
    Maybe ask them?
    Sara’s also been doing a lot of perf work
    recently. Ask her too?
    

    View Slide

22. A sponsor confers a statistical
    career benefit from 22%–30%
    (e.g. getting a stretch assignment,
    negotiating a pay raise)
    Center for Talent Innovation
    

    View Slide

23. Finding a sponsor
    

    View Slide

24. 1. Do great work
    2. Find someone who knows your work
    3. Know how you want to grow
    4. Keep them updated
    

    View Slide

25. 1. Do great work
    2. Find someone who knows your work
    3. Know how you want to grow
    4. Keep them updated
    

    View Slide

26. 1. Do great work
    2. Find someone who knows your work
    3. Know how you want to grow
    4. Keep them updated
    

    View Slide

27. 1. Do great work
    2. Find someone who knows your work
    3. Know how you want to grow
    4. Keep them updated
    This is the hardest step!
    

    View Slide

28. 1. Do great work
    2. Find someone who knows your work
    3. Know how you want to grow
    4. Keep them updated
    

    View Slide

29. 5. Give back!
    

    View Slide

30. Multiple sponsors?
    

    View Slide

31. Build your
    Manager Voltron
    

    View Slide

32. Grow your crew.
    

    View Slide

33. Be on the lookout for people who:
    ● will push you out of your comfort zone
    ● have different levels of experience than you (both
    more experience, and less experience)
    ● have experience in a different industry
    ● are good at the things that you’re terrible at
    

    View Slide

34. bit.ly/wherewithall-voltron
    

    View Slide

35. Being a sponsor
    

    View Slide

36. Marginalized people are
    over-mentored, and
    under-sponsored.
    

    View Slide

37. Think about the people you:
    ● Recently asked for advice
    ● Referred to work at your org
    ● Gifted a good book to
    ● Recently promoted, or suggested should
    work on a big project
    

    View Slide

38. With a sponsor, women are
    ● 70% more likely to have their ideas endorsed
    ● 119% more likely to see them developed
    ● 200% more likely to see them implemented
    Center for Talent Innovation
    

    View Slide

39. Sylvia Ann Hewlett with Kerrie Peraino, Laura Sherbin, and Karen Sumberg: The Sponsor Effect: Breaking through the Last Glass Ceiling
    (Cambridge: Harvard Business Review, 2010); Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Maggie Jackson, and Ellis Case, with Courtney Emerson, Vaulting the
    Color Bar: How Sponsorship Levers Multicultural Professionals into Leadership (New York: Center for Talent Innovation, 2012).
    Employees in large companies who are
    satisfied with their rates of advancement
    

    View Slide

40. Have a sponsor:
    8% of people of color
    13% of white people
    Center for Talent Innovation
    

    View Slide

41. Feel obligated to sponsor:
    26% of African Americans
    20% of Asians and Hispanics
    7% of Caucasians
    Center for Talent Innovation
    

    View Slide

42. It’s risky for URMs
    to help others like them
    Study by David R. Hekman, Stefanie K. Johnson, Maw-Der Foo, and Wei Yang
    

    View Slide

43. Examples of sponsorship:
    ● Share feedback with their manager to support
    their next promotion or raise
    ● Shout out/recognize their work in public settings
    ● Recommend them for highly visible projects
    ● Recommend them for company blog posts, talks
    at company meetings, open source work
    

    View Slide

44. Mature engineers lift the
    skills and expertise
    of those around them.” — John Allspaw
    “
    

    View Slide

45. Great teammates lift the
    skills and expertise
    of those around them.
    and names
    

    View Slide