Who benefits when a manager or executive sponsors someone more junior, offering guidance, advocacy, and support? If you answered, the protégé, you’d be only getting it half right.
Want to Be a Better Manager? Get a Protégé
Sponsorship is a relationship in which an established or rising leader picks an outstanding junior talent and develops that person’s career. And while this is a boost for the protégé, data shows that the sponsor also gains enormous value from this relationship. Senior-level managers who have a protégé are 53% more likely to report having received a promotion in the previous two years, and entry-level managers who have a protégé are 60% more likely to have received a stretch assignment.
Of course, sponsorship does involve risk. It can be tricky not to let the relationship take up too much time, and there’s the risk of a protégé, in whom you’ve publicly invested time, responsibilities, and reputational capital, letting you down by failing to grow the bottom line, impress important stakeholders, or take work off your shoulders.
But what defines a good protégé is that they work effectively and loyally for you, and they have the ability to expand your worldview or skill set. And when managed correctly, the benefits of sponsoring more junior talent are simply too great to ignore.