Who Is Showing Off Your Work Behind Closed Doors?

It's easy to settle into conclusions that some of us are luckier than others professionally. I’ve been there and wondered about, "Dan", who was quickly promoted ahead of me. I wondered, is he smarter? Does he work harder? Is he more connected with top management?

These are questions I've had myself, and heard from friends and colleagues when comparing to a peer whose career accelerated faster.

All of the possibilities could be true. That colleague that got ahead could be smart, works hard, and has connections at the top. There could be another reason too. It could be that this individual has a career sponsor in the shadows. Let's talk about what is a career sponsor and how you could attract one.

What is a sponsor?

A career sponsor shines a light on your work so it gets noticed. Getting yourself noticed can be compared to product marketing practices. A great product has to first be made known to its intended market. It is then that its value becomes known. Your work similarly, needs an avenue to be marketed to your management team. The marketing efforts result in awareness, buy-in, purchase intent.

If your work misses the first step, of being shown, it is almost as if your work does not exist at all. A workplace sponsor is a person that could raise your profile and show off your work.

A career sponsor advocates for your work

A sponsor is an on-the-job guardian that advocates, protects and defends you. I’m sure there have been times you have bent over backwards to get a project completed. There would have been only a few people who knew you worked evenings and weekends to get it done. A sponsor makes this extra effort known.

Then think about the times you may have misunderstood a request, or acted out of character, or made a mistake. A sponsor defends you by providing a logical reason for the misunderstanding and helps to lessen the weight of the issue.

Is a sponsor similar to a mentor?

Louise Pentland, EVP at Paypal, said a sponsor is a workplace advocate and makes you more visible. A mentor, on the other hand, gives advice and support, but may not work in the same workplace as you.

The concept of an advocate applies in sports, too. A former coach explained to me his rationale in selecting qualified team mates to form an international competitive crew. The athletes' selection process was discussed among the coach with a small group of team executives. One athlete became the topic of our discussion because he was not going to be named to the competing roster.

I asked the coach, "Why he didn’t make the cut?" Coach answered, "It’s been a few years and he hasn’t been improving." I probed again for more data and asked, "What do your assistant coaches think of him?" The coach responded, "that’s the problem, no one knows much about him."

We both looked at each other and had an ‘aha’ moment. If none of the assistant coaches knew him, then he had no sponsors. No one to champion his work or his reputation.

“Sponsorship: it’s not who you know, but who knows you”— Allyson Zimmerman

So when the head coach drafted the roster without this athlete, the assistant coaches didn’t argue the decision. If this athlete had a sponsor, someone at the roster-making table, he would have had an advocate defending him to influence the head coach to add him to the roster.

A career sponsor is different from a mentor

There are differences between a sponsor and a mentor. A mentor is an advisor that could be outside of your workplace. Sometimes mentors and mentees are paired through a formal mentoring program. Other times, protégés ask a respected individual in their network to become their mentor. In a mentoring relationship, there is an exchange. A mentee asks for advice and a mentor provides it.

A sponsor, on the other hand, is not matched with you. A sponsor does not join a group with the intention to help your career. You can’t ask someone to be your sponsor. You can’t just request a sponsor to speak positively about your work.

What does a great career sponsor look like?

A great career sponsor is someone who is is a respected person at your work. It’s a colleague in your organization that has influence at the management table. It could be and doesn't have to be a leader. It could be someone who has company wide respect. They have earned the support from people across all levels of the organization. This influential person loves your work and will boast about it.

A career sponsor stands up for you and elevates visibility on your work

There are significant benefits for having a work sponsor. They push faster job progression or open you up to projects and work that you are interested in. A career sponsor can accelerate your goals in these ways:

Defends your actions if or when they are questioned

A sponsor doesn’t allow negative thoughts to be left in the air with people you work with. They will stick up for you when you’re not there to defend yourself. Let’s say a comment is made about your delay in joining a meeting. A sponsor would let everyone know being late is out of your character and you are likely stuck at another commitment. They come to your defence to protect you and your reputation.

Raises visibility to your good work

A sponsor admires and respects your work. It's not the you’ve done your job type of compliment. It’s the you’ve done way more than expected impression that they leave with others. The sponsor has a genuine desire to help you without expecting something in return. The CEO of Inforum, a career accelerating organization, said, "the sponsor praises your work publicly and privately."

Finding a career sponsor

You don’t find the sponsor, the sponsor finds you. Unlike the mentorship process where you can search and request a mentor to advise you in the field of their expertise, the sponsorship process is indirect and less transparent. Several years ago, I learned I had a career sponsor at an informal work gathering from my CEO at that time. He had ‘heard’ of me through another executive about a project I worked with her on. He shared the praises she gave about my work, for my ability to balance the details while staying focused on the business strategy.

Although it was a compliment I had not heard directly from her, I appreciated it because she raised the visibility of my work to the CEO. When that project finished, the same CEO approached me to manage a new strategic goal for the organization. The opportunity would not have come my way if it was not for the executive who sponsored my work.

The sponsor is not necessarily someone with a senior-level management job title. Early in career, an executive I worked for encouraged me to pay extra attention to a co-op student that had joined. It was because an engineer she trusted raised the student’s profile about his intelligence and hard work. The engineer was an influencer who was this co-op student's sponsor. Because of the co-op student's raised profile, I offered him full-time employment after he graduated. He rose quickly through the organization and he likely had several advocates for his work.

Work sponsorship happens behind the scenes without your knowledge. The characteristics of an effective sponsor:

1. Sponsor has influence
2. Sponsor likes your work
3. Sponsor endorses your work

While seeking out a career sponsor isn't the same as seeking out a mentor, there are some ways to help a career sponsor see you and your work.

Ways to help a career sponsor find you

The sponsor is someone who has earned the respect of the organization’s leaders and is in a position to help you. Because their words have weight, when they speak highly of your work, others listen. These are some ways to attract a sponsor:

Form relationships

Display your openness to work with others. The Paypal EVP said, “You don’t know who your sponsor will be.” So start forming and nurturing work relationships with many. Take opportunities to find shared interests with colleagues. Seek new projects to work with teams and leaders you have not collaborated with before. The caveat is to create relationships and deliver exceptional work too. Building relationships through chatting or hanging out 'over drinks' alone isn't enough. If the relationships don't open the opportunities for you to show your work, it won't have the positive effect needed to accelerate your career.

Solve problems

Deliver solutions instead of complaints to gain the attention of leaders. Leaders who see you operating in problem-solving instead of problem-serving mode will want to work more with you. They may request for you to join their projects, which opens more opportunities for you to show your work results.

Help others

Assist colleagues inside and outside of your immediate team or department. Doing this raises your name across the company. Managers may talk with each other about you going above and beyond expectations. Since most managers don’t expect others outside of their team to offer assistance, when you do, you will stand out.

Takeaways: nurture relationships, produce excellent work, and help out a colleague

A cue to know you have found your sponsor is hearing a senior management level professional quote your work. Because it’s hard to persuade an authoritative person to share and boast about your work, the best way to get attention is to develop good relationships, produce excellent work, and help others. At my workplace, there are several protégés I see with significant potential and you can bet I talk about them to our executive team behind closed doors.