Sponsorship: Defining the Relationship

AMY GALLO: You’re listening to Women at Work, from Harvard Business Review. I’m Amy Gallo.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m Amy Bernstein.

NICOLE TORRES: And I’m Nicole Torres. To get ahead at work, we need support from people besides our boss. Sometimes that comes in the form of mentorship, where a person with more experience gives us advice or guidance on how we can improve. But there is another kind of support that is equally if not more important. Sponsorship, where someone with a lot of power in the company advocates on our behalf.

AMY GALLO: Sponsorship can be a lot less clear cut than mentorship, though. The relationship tends to start informally, the kind of support a sponsor will give you isn’t always defined. The people involved often hesitate to name the relationship, and there is hardly ever any sort of commitment or accountability. So how do you navigate this relationship, especially when you know how important it can be to your career? This episode, we’re getting some clarity on sponsorship from both sides of it, the sponsor and the protégé.

ROSALIND CHOW: I started getting interested in sponsorship because I wanted to know why I wasn’t getting sponsored and other people were.

AMY BERNSTEIN: That’s our guest expert, Rosalind Chow. Later in the show we ask for her advice on certain parts of the sponsorship process that had us puzzled. Like, whether we should explicitly ask someone to sponsor us, and how to know if you have enough juice to be a sponsor yourself. First, we’re going to hear how two women, a sponsor and her protégé, approach their relationship to see what we can learn from them. Cristina Massa and Julia González work at a law firm in Mexico City.

CRISTINA MASSA: I had the antitrust area, and Julia is in the environmental and sustainability practice group.

AMY BERNSTEIN: But their relationship goes back several jobs. Cristina was Julia’s boss when they both worked in government, and Cristina became Julia’s mentor when Julia started her own consulting firm.

JULIA GONAZALEZ: I came to her whenever I didn’t know how to manage certain issues. This, of course, has been key for me in the law firm, because even if Cristina’s not my boss, she was the one to introduce me to my boss.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Aha, so she was your connection in.

JULIA GONZÁLEZ: Yes.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Aha. So, Cristina, what was it that you saw in Julia that made you want to invest in her?

CRISTINA MASSA: I’ve seen her work, even in those positions where I have not managed or supervised her in any way in other positions she had in the federal government. She was very well-known and regarded for being very hardworking, very intelligent, very brave. And she always tackled all her jobs, studying technically and seeking for advice. That’s not something we see all the time.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, I’m really struck by your point that Julia is brave, that she had the guts to come to you and ask for help and advice. I’m wondering if the sponsor-protégé relationship that you two have is something you’ve discussed, or has it simply evolved organically?

CRISTINA MASSA: I think it’s been part just implicit, but some parts we have discussed. This firm, we are 20 partners, and it’s 19 male partners and myself as a female partner. So I’m acutely aware of some of the gender issues that we face in law firms, and I am a mother myself, so some of the specific challenges for women that decide professionally and personally to try to devote substantial resources to both aspects, sometimes you’re just sort of trying to manage it all, and it’s hard just to reach out and say, I don’t know how this works. I don’t know where to get the money or the resources or the plane tickets or whatever it is. It doesn’t have to be anything very big. It can be something as trivial as asking for the resources you need to do your job. So I knew that if I didn’t help her out, it would be much harder for her. But she came forward to ask the right questions. I want to go to this event. I don’t know how to do it. How can I get the support to do this? How can I ask to see this senior partner and tell him what I do? Do I just walk in? Do I need to make an appointment? Do I need to make a call? She didn’t know how to do that, but she knew that she could come forward and ask. And well, I’ve tried to do my part. I don’t know how Julia sees that part of the explicit and implicit relationship.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Julia, how do you see it?

JULIA GONZÁLEZ: Well, without her, I, actually, the first week I was on the law firm, Cristina was not here. She was traveling because she travels a lot for the work. And I, and this is incredible, because I’ve been working for 17 years. I felt lost, because I didn’t know the rules of engagement. So when Cristina finally came back from her trip, the first thing I did was basically harass her. [LAUGHTER] And to ask her about, to ask her everything I didn’t understand, which was most of how the law firm works, because this is a completely different environment of what I’m used to. But Cristina has gone farther, because she saw that I was struggling in certain areas, and she made sure I met with the right people so I could have the exposure I needed to move forward.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m a little bit envious of this relationship. [LAUGHTER] It’s kind of wonderful. Cristina, do you remember the moment when you decided to sponsor Julia?

CRISTINA MASSA: Yes. We both have a government background, and I knew, and I heard very early on after she was hired that she was seen as one of the sort of government implants that don’t really know how to talk the talk. I got a call from another partner saying, I hear that we’ve got one of these other government bombs in the environmental and social impact area. Did you have anything to do with it? And I said, yes, I did. And I’m going to take care of it. And there is also this not so altruistic element to it. Since I introduced her to the law firm, Julia’s mistakes are also my mistakes. If she doesn’t make it here, it’s on me as well. All senior women that come to the firm are seen as potential time bombs. They’re not going to work that hard because they have kids. They are not going to be as committed. They are not going to bring in that much business. So even if she doesn’t work in the antitrust area, I knew that people were watching. So I mean, there’s this part in which I want to help her, but there’s also this part where my position in the firm requires not only that I be a good antitrust expert, but that I build within the firm, and that means bringing talent, and women can be riskier hires than men, just because of the way things work.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So Cristina, what are, give us some examples of some of the support, the kinds of support that you’ve given to Julia to help her advance her career?

CRISTINA MASSA: She happens to work in a practice area that is led by a very traditional partner. He is actually the oldest person in the firm. And he was, well, sort of brought up and developed his career in a very traditional way. So I knew that she was going to need help there. And those are very vertical relationships where women are not — not only women, junior associates or associates are not expected to go out and sell and invite people and participate in events and be speakers and be teachers without their boss’s explicit consent. But then you go and ask for consent, and they tend to say, no, I need you to be at the firm, because I am the one that’s going to be speaking in this event, or going to this trip, and you need to cover my back. So I have been very actively pushing for Julia to go to events unaccompanied and unchaperoned. She is the expert on her topic, not her boss. She is actually a more renowned expert in her matters than her boss. And I’ve been answering the questions when the questions of where is Julia, and why is she there, arrive, which they do.

JULIA GONZÁLEZ: That I didn’t know.

AMY BERNSTEIN: You didn’t know that, Julia?

JULIA GONZÁLEZ: No, I didn’t.

CRISTINA MASSA: It does come up. Why does she go places without going through the proper channels? And I’ve said that the proper channels for a grown woman with an expertise is just going.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So didn’t you throw a party, Cristina, for Julia when she first joined the firm, to introduce her to the right people?

CRISTINA MASSA: Well, yeah, I’ve been trying to work in our rising stars or already bright stars, such as Julia, to work together and to be less dependent on the senior partners. Just because there is a generational thing. They still don’t believe that the younger lawyers can do as much as I believe they can. So I knew that Julia would be a great fit with other young stars that we have, and I did throw a cocktail party at my home where I invited some of the senior partners and all of the associates that I have identified as our rock stars, for them to meet Julia. And trying to make sure that they saw that I had her back, and for the partners that were invited to see that she’s a force to be reckoned with, and that she has a true expertise and ability to bring business that could benefit them. I am not running a charity here, and I’m not helping Julia because I like it, her. This is a business. And I think she is key for making this business grow.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, I have so many questions. We’ve been talking a lot here about pay transparency and the gender wage gap, and the importance of sponsors discussing compensation with their protégés. And I’m wondering if that conversation has taken place between you two?

CRISTINA MASSA: It did. And before she told me the number, I tell her, whatever they offer you, because we don’t have lock step compensation. So every, it’s every man for himself negotiating salary. They’re going to expect to pay less because you’re a woman. And they are going to expect you not to negotiate hardball, because good girls don’t do that. They are nice, and they accept graciously whatever they are offered, and they are thankful that they have a job, even if they have kids, and well, husbands or households or anything to take care of. So don’t let them pull that card on you. I’m not part of your compensation committee, because you’re in another practice area. So I will not be able to take care of you. You need to do that yourself. But you really need to play hardball. I take part in some other negotiations, and I see the incredible difference in men negotiating their salaries and women. So I knew that that was going to be an issue.

JULIA GONZÁLEZ: Which wasn’t, because I played hardball, thanks to Cristina.

AMY BERNSTEIN: [LAUGHTER] Good for you.

CRISTINA MASSA: She has one of the highest compensations in the firm, I have to say.

AMY BERNSTEIN: That is fantastic.

JULIA GONZÁLEZ: Thanks to Cristina.

CRISTINA MASSA: Which she deserves. She has a very senior position. This was not a gracious concession. Just typically, they would have said, well, maybe you will need flexibility because of your kids, and that type of thing, and they would have pressed hard.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So Cristina, what do you get out of this relationship? I get that you’re not in it because you’re a nice person.

JULIA GONZÁLEZ: Which she is.

CRISTINA MASSA: I’m not.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Of course she is. But there’s more to it for you. How is it, how does this benefit you?

CRISTINA MASSA: Again, for me, bringing in talent gives me standing in the firm. People that work with Julia are going to be very happy with her job. As people get more senior, also they start bringing in business. That is my biggest challenge for me at the firm is to keep a flow of matters coming in. So I know that in every pitch that Julia goes, she’s going to promote the antitrust area, because I will be very mad if she doesn’t. [LAUGHTER] And if her clients bring their antitrust business anywhere else than here, I will resent it. So I am expecting those clients to come in from her. And there’s a few other female associates that are doing an incredibly good job, and I’ve spent substantial time in making sure that Julia is one of them, that she hangs out with them, that she participates in initiatives with them, because being the sole female partner and not having a pipeline of powerful women behind, it’s a queen bee type of scenario that I don’t want in my firm, where I made it, and I don’t care if anybody else does. That is terrible for the firm, and it’s also bad for me. And also, she has great connections. She’s a good person to have on your side. So that’s what I get out of it. And I like her, too.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, it sounds like you get a lot. And a lot of it is very real, and some of it is potential, but it’s a lot. Julia, I wonder if you are aware when Cristina is behind, has thrown her influence behind an opportunity when it’s presented to you. Are you aware of that when that happens?

JULIA GONZÁLEZ: Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, to be completely honest. For example, I have the support of another senior partner, and I know that Cristina has maybe, because he actually told me. Cristina spoke to me and told me you’re one of the most talented girls she’s worked with. And I’m going to bet for you, because she’s going to, she’s betting on you. For example. But I didn’t know, for example that she has to account for the time I’m out selling, because I’m actually a good seller.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And Cristina, do you tell Julia when you are fighting on her behalf for something?

CRISTINA MASSA: Well, some I don’t. I haven’t told her some of these questions that sometimes arise or when there is a bit of conflict about her time and how she devotes it. And when it is relevant, because I know that it’s going to get back to her, I tell her. When I think she’s not even going to hear about it, and it’s not relevant for her to know, and that’s housekeeping matters, I don’t tell her. I don’t want her to feel more stressed about these things. And in law firms, it’s all about generating work. And then getting the work done. So if in the end everything works out fine, and she ends up landing the account or providing an excellent service to her client, nobody’s going to remember the little bending of the rules that I pushed. So I tell her when I think it’s going to get back to her one way or the other.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Do you guys ever have conflict in your relationship?

CRISTINA MASSA: Well, sometimes Julia can be a bit intense with the help that she needs or the questions she wants answered. And sometimes they imply very late night calls, or very early morning messages, or —

JULIA GONZÁLEZ: Both. [LAUGHTER]

CRISTINA MASSA: Showing up in my office unannounced, and speaking very quickly about nine things that are concerning her. And sometimes I do say, I do not have time for this right now. And I know you expect help, but I can’t do it right now. Or saying, I know you want to push this, but here you would not be bending. You would be breaking the rules, and I cannot help you do that. These are my partners. I can push it this hard, but I cannot push it that hard. It’s too costly for you, and it’s costly for me. So I don’t think this is worth it. And I’m not sure that I’ve been right every time. But she’s been very, she’s been a very good sport about it, and when I say, I think you need to drop this, she so far, and as far as I know, I may be finding out. [LAUGHTER] The way she found out some things right now, I may be finding out right now. But sometimes I tell her, you need to drop this issue. I know that it is bothering you. I know you want to raise it. I know you want to talk about it. But let’s go have a drink and talk about it, you and I. You’re not going to talk to my partners about this. They’re just going to say the word, “crying girls.” So let’s just tough it up. So I wouldn’t call it conflict, because so far she’s been very good about taking that advice. But one of these days, she’s going to say, I don’t know, I really want to fight this. And then maybe some conflict will arise. But I think that we’re ready for it. Bring it on, Julia.

JULIA GONZÁLEZ: Ay! [LAUGHTER]

AMY BERNSTEIN: Julia, what do you say to that? Do you ever feel at odds with Cristina?

JULIA GONZÁLEZ: No. No, no, no, never, because I see Cristina as someone who’s helping me. I do know I can be too strong. And Cristina helps me with my boundaries. So I know if Cristina’s telling me, no, Julia, come on, I need to stop. You know? She’s a reality check.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yep. So Cristina, again, I’m curious about something. You have invested an awful lot of your time and your effort and your capital in Julia — and your social capital, I mean. And I’m wondering if you have other protégés.

CRISTINA MASSA: I do. I don’t think that it’s been as intense as it is with Julia. But there’s a few other associates that I work very closely with to help them advance their careers and to help them provide the type of services that I think will be best for our firm going forward. So I do work with other people. And I try, of course, to work particularly hard with female associates. But some of our rising stars are men, and I work hard with them as well in explaining about some of the rules, helping them with all these implicit assumptions that they’ve taken me the six years that I’ve been with the firm to learn. But I do believe almost everything that I’ve done in my career has been because I had mentors and sponsors myself.

Just one quick example, but when I was at the beginning of my career, one of my, or my biggest sponsors, perhaps, strongly recommended that I should go get a graduate degree in the States, and this was 20 years ago, more than 20 years ago. And it was not well seen. My family did not support that I go and live abroad alone. So I did not have economic support, even to explore the idea of a foreign degree. And this sponsor paid for my applications, for my exams, and even for a trip for me to go to interviews to law schools in the states. So that’s a type of upbringing that I got. I saw the difference that it can make. In that particular event it was financial. But it was not only that. He spoke to my parents. I was a full grownup, and he still, in Mexico, just that was the things that, the way things worked, and he called my parents, and he explained why he believed I needed to get this degree. My father thought that I should get my admission letter to Harvard and frame it and hang it in my bedroom, but never go. And he convinced my father to allow me to go. So that was sort of the kind of influence that somebody had on me at the time. And I haven’t done anything as generous as paying myself for applications, exams and travels. But I have always tried at least to recognize the power that those things can have in someone and sort of give it back.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So you have been, Cristina, both a protégé and a sponsor. What would you say to someone who’s looking for a sponsor like you? What kind of advice would you give this person?

CRISTINA MASSA: You have to be proactive. You cannot wait for people to take care of you. You really need to reach out, ask the questions, don’t take it hard when they say, I can’t do it right now. What I’ve seen the most in the mentorship programs is that they do not fail because of lack of interest of the mentors, but because of lack of proactivity of the mentees. Women in particular, when they are young, they have not faced discrimination at all. It’s half and half, legal, law students in law schools since I can remember. When I went to school, we were already 50/50. And they don’t have to struggle to get a job. It really gets harder as you get more senior, and you’re expected to do a lot of things that you’re not prepared to do. And when families come. So younger women are not necessarily that proactive. And Julia has been, because she came to the firm as a lateral, and she already had three kids. So she already had to make it work. Her income is important. Her work/life balance is really not a question of if. She has to do it. So she has all the motivation. Younger associates that are not facing such an unsurmountable pile of problems as Julia does are not as proactive. They expect you to take them out, you to take care of them, you to explain where to turn on the light. So that’s what I would recommend. Keep a close tab on your mentor or sponsor.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Any thoughts from you, Julia?

JULIA GONZÁLEZ: Well, I’ve been lucky to have many sponsors throughout my life. And I believe that has also shaped my career. But as Cristina says, I look for her as much as I do because I know no one’s going to help me unless I ask.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, this is great. You guys have been so generous with your insight and your story, and I really appreciate your candor. Thank you both for joining us.

CRISTINA MASSA: Amy, thank you so much for asking all these relevant questions, and we hope that it’s been useful.

JULIA GONZÁLEZ: Amy, thank you so much.

AMY GALLO: Amy B., what a fascinating conversation. These two women clearly have such a unique and powerful relationship between them.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. And I was really surprised by a couple of things. One was how much Cristina did for Julia that Julia didn’t even know about. And how invested Cristina was in Julia’s success, which I guess in itself isn’t all that surprising, because she says it was not just good for Julia, whom she believed in. But it was good for the law firm and good for her, for Cristina. But she really, really did for Julia in ways that I think are fairly unusual.

AMY GALLO: There was so much orchestrating behind the scenes, and I’m curious if that’s typical, if it’s normal that you’re doing a lot that the person doesn’t know about, and are you doing as much that’s as intense and involved as Cristina did.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, I thought that was interesting. The other thing that struck me was that Cristina says she does this for other people, too. So it wasn’t simply about her relationship with Julia. She’s really looking to promote and sponsor in that way people who she thinks have a lot of potential, who can help the team, help the firm, and she’s willing to use her own capital to do that, her own social capital.

NICOLE TORRES: And I liked hearing from Julia, too, about what, like how big of an impact that sponsorship had on her. That really resonated with me. You know, being, having someone advocate for you in that way, even discovering they’ve advocated for you, and you previously not knowing what they’ve done, that makes such a big difference, not just to your career, but to, you know, how you see yourself as a professional, and to how you see your own potential. That struck me as really, really important.

AMY GALLO: I’m curious to know whether this is a typical relationship. Is Cristina sort of an uber sponsor? Or is she, is this what we typically see in sponsor relationships? And also to see, this is two women. Cristina talked about advocating for Julia because she wants to see women succeed at this firm. How does this play out when it’s not two women? When it’s a woman and a man? Two men?

NICOLE TORRES: To answer some of these questions, we talked to Rosalind Chow, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who studies sponsorship and how gender comes into play in this relationship. And why sponsorship matters.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Rosalind, thanks so much for joining us.

ROSALIND CHOW: Thank you for having me.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So you listened to Julia and Cristina’s story. I wonder if anything struck you, made you sort of sit back and say, huh.

ROSALIND CHOW: I think the first thing that struck me was the closeness of the relationship. I was struck at the beginning that it did not seem as though mentorship and sponsorship are being distinguished from one another. I guess as someone who thinks about these things all the time, it’s still striking to me how many people don’t distinguish between the two types of support.

NICOLE TORRES: Can you give us that distinction? What is mentorship versus what is sponsorship?

ROSALIND CHOW: So to me, mentorship is about changing the mentee. It’s about changing either the skill set of the person who’s getting mentored, giving them advice. Whereas sponsorship doesn’t necessarily have to engage the protégé physically in the moment at all, that someone could get sponsorship without them knowing. So it’s a purely external form of support that a sponsor can provide, that it’s not about changing how the mentee thinks about him or herself, but is about changing how other people perceive the protégé, and creating situations where the protégé has opportunities to shine as themselves.

NICOLE TORRES: I love that distinction.

ROSALIND CHOW: Another kind of important distinction I would make between mentorship and sponsorship is that mentorship is more about the provision of time. So you can be a mentor, and you can put a lot of time into someone. But it’s in these one on one meetings with them, where you’re listening to them, or giving them advice on how they ought to proceed in a tricky situation. But sponsorship, and I think, Amy, you mentioned this in your interview, is really about the provision of social capital. Like if you just invite someone to a conference that they would never otherwise have gone to, you may not yourself go to that conference, but you have provided this incredible opportunity that they would never have otherwise had access to. That’s not really you taking extra effort or using time. But it is about putting your reputation in a way on the line, in a way that mentorship doesn’t necessarily require. But I think another way that might also be helpful is thinking about if this person succeeds, does it impact my reputation? And for mentorship, it’s not clear to me that if the mentee succeeds or doesn’t succeed, that the mentor is actually going to be impacted. But for sponsorship, if the protégé does really well, that like actually reflects well on the sponsor, but if the protégé fails, that also has negative ramifications. So the interconnection of the reputation becomes intertwined in a way that I don’t think is true of just pure mentorship.

AMY BERNSTEIN: In the case of Julia and Cristina, Julia never actually asked Cristina to be her sponsor. Is that typical?

ROSALIND CHOW: Yeah, I think that’s probably typical.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Is that what you would recommend? Or do you think that would-be protégés should be, should make an explicit ask?

ROSALIND CHOW: I would say that they probably should make an explicit ask, but only after the relationship has already been firmly established. I don’t think this is one of those things where you go in, and you say, hey, I’m looking for a sponsor. Would you want to be my sponsor? And if you say, yes, I promise that I’ll work my hardest on the projects that you give me. It’s more than you have to establish your credibility with the sponsor first. So what that’s really about is value. Right? I mean, the protégé has to establish some sort of value proposition to a sponsor. And maybe that is by demonstrating their exceptional motivation or expertise in the areas that are highly relevant to what the sponsor cares about. But sponsorship is really, the sponsor has to spontaneously, right, like in their own mind see the capabilities of a protégé, believe that those outcomes are due primarily to the efforts of the protégé, and that’s when the sponsor is going to say, OK, I have a deep confidence in the capabilities of this individual that I am now ready to vouch for to other people.

NICOLE TORRES: So I’ve had sponsors in the past, at least in my mind, I don’t, we’ve never called it a sponsoring, sponsorship relationship. I have never asked them to be my sponsors. I don’t even know if they would consider themselves to have been my sponsors. But in my mind, I see what they did as a form of sponsorship. So I’ve never asked someone to be my sponsor. And if I, you know, I’m kind of realizing that that might be something that I need to do to get ahead in some ways, especially if that type of relationship isn’t happening, how do you ask someone to be a sponsor if you have a good relationship with them, you think that they trust your competency, how do you ask them to sponsor you?

ROSALIND CHOW: I think it’s about being really explicit about where you want to go and asking them for their advice on how to get there. And that way you’re not saying, I want your help, right? You’re saying, I’d like your advice on how to reach this goal, but in charting out that path, that then makes them have to think about kind of concrete things that you can be doing. And then when those opportunities arise, they’re more likely to think of you.

AMY GALLO: So it’s more about making yourself, I think you’ve articulated it earlier about making yourself available to be sponsored, or making it clear that you want to be sponsored, rather than saying, hey, will you be my sponsor?

ROSALIND CHOW: Yeah, I think sponsorship is, you know, we can focus on how protégés can make themselves more visible to sponsors. I think another tactic that is relatively underexplored, both empirically and even maybe within the workplace, is how can sponsors to understand what behaviors that they’re engaging in that are particularly helpful to people moving up? Are they treating employees systematically different in terms of how they dole out those opportunities? And how are they determining who they decide they’re going to advocate for versus who they won’t decide to advocate for? For some, for example, I think for ethnic minorities and for women, when you engage in sponsorship, because it’s so difficult to get that social capital, you know, you’re a little more cautious about who you’re willing to lend it to in case it might come back to be a bad decision. But I think there’s a lot of work that could be done on men in terms of understanding how they could engage in sponsorship.

AMY GALLO: Let me ask about that, because your research shows that men are more effective sponsors of women than men. Why is that?

ROSALIND CHOW: So I should, I guess I should be clear for your listeners. So in that research, it’s that male sponsors are more effective than female sponsors regardless of the gender of the person who’s being sponsored. So if you’re a woman working with a man, you’re just as well off as a man working with a man. The people who are, I don’t want to say hurt, because that sounds terrible, but comparatively speaking, female sponsors, regardless of whether or not the protégé is male or female, tend to be less effective. And by less effective, I mean their recommendations are seen as less credible. They’re not as influential in actually getting the people that they recommend hired. So why do I think that is? That is an excellent question that my doctoral student, Elizabeth Campbell, I’m sponsoring her, we are working on this. And one thing that we have found that does seem to mitigate a little bit of the hit that female sponsors take is tenure in the organization. The general gist of the story is that if you take as given that gender discrimination continues to exist, at least in the promotion and retention process, the perception, then, is that women who are able to succeed and get into leadership positions are like especially competent. So there’s a phenomenon called the female leader advantage. So if you think about it in that way, then if the really senior woman who is high powered, is super competent and is willing to recommend someone, it probably means that she sees a lot of value in them. And so protégés of really senior women actually end up doing just as well as protégés of men. But again, the big difference here is that you can be a relatively inexperienced male sponsor and still be really effective for your protégés, but if you’re an inexperienced female sponsor, your protégés do not benefit from that.

AMY GALLO: So what’s the takeaway on that for our listeners in terms of how, who they should be looking to sponsor them? It’s men can be more effective, high-powered women… What’s the lesson for people?

ROSALIND CHOW: Honestly, I really hesitate to give concrete recommendations about how to choose sponsors, because protégés don’t choose sponsors. Sponsors choose protégés. And so for protégés to want to be strategic about it, I just don’t know that I think that that is necessarily the best tactic to take. I think you decide where you want to go, and you make yourself indispensable to the people who are relevant to getting you to where you want to go. And they will typically take it from there. Now, obviously if you’ve been like a real star performer, but you don’t feel as though you’re getting the recognition that you deserve, I think regardless of where you are, that’s an opportunity to talk to your supervisor and to say, hey, you know, I’d like to have a conversation about my future here in the organization. Can we talk together to chart a path forward? And that’s just a very natural way to have that frank, explicit conversation about your career goals and brainstorming and bringing them into the conversation about things they could do.

NICOLE TORRES: Is it fair to say that maybe one lesson for more inexperienced or junior women who are sponsoring, you know, and seeing their protégés not reach the same outcomes as the protégés of an experienced male sponsor, is one lesson or solution for that more junior female sponsor to do what you did and partner with someone more senior to kind of co-sponsor maybe, so that the protégé can get some of the benefits of that relationship? And I’m wondering if you, you know, you told us that you did that with your students. You kind of co-advised them on their dissertations to bring in a senior person who had that social capital. Did you tell your students that you were doing that? Did you make that explicit?

ROSALIND CHOW: Oh, interesting. Yes, I did. [LAUGHTER] But I guess not in a way that I was kind of like, you should be grateful to me. It was more like, I’m so sorry that I can’t do this for you. And even though I know that I’m the one that you’ve primarily worked with, if we’re resting your career on the basis of my recommendation, I worry that it’s not going to go as far as I would like it to. And so the best way forward in my mind is to get someone else involved so that they can leverage their reputation on your behalf in a way that I won’t be able to. So it was a very explicit conversation, but it was more, it was more apologetic. [LAUGHTER] It was more like, I’m sorry you chose to work with someone who is not [LAUGHTER]. But here we’re going to try and work around that.

AMY GALLO: They sound lucky to have had you.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So in the conversation that we had with Cristina and Julia, Julia learned for the first time about some of the opportunities that Cristina had brought to her, had made available to her. I’m wondering what you thought about that. And are there moments when a sponsor should be more explicit about the work she’s doing on someone else’s behalf? Are there times when that’s inappropriate? Help us navigate that.

ROSALIND CHOW: I don’t know that I think that that needs to happen. You risk turning the relationship into a peer quid pro quo. You know, I think what’s special about sponsorship relationships, especially the one that we heard about before is that it was a close relationship. It was a personal relationship. It wasn’t an exchange transaction oriented relationship, where I’m going to do something for you, and then you’re going to do something for me. And that’s what I worry about. If like a sponsor is constantly cataloging, OK, I did this opportunity for you, so now I need you to do this for me. I would, I feel like that would change the relationship in a way that would not be, that would almost certainly make the relationship less satisfactory to both parties.

AMY BERNSTEIN: But I also think that if the sponsor, you know, insists on cataloging all of the doors she’s opened for her protégé, she risks undermining her protégé’s confidence.

ROSALIND CHOW: Totally, yeah.

AMY GALLO: Well, and I got the sense from the conversation with Cristina and Julia, that Cristina was not cataloging what she’s done for Julia, because she was also protecting her protégé from the office politics that would have just made her more paranoid or been upsetting through it. So there was some real, I think your example, Rosalind, and what we see from Julia and Cristina, is really, you have to be strategic about what you share and what you don’t. But my question is, is that if there is not some sense of what’s actually happening — so you were explicit with your students, this is why I’m doing this. If it’s not explicit, like how do you even know that it’s happening? I mean, I think that’s one of the things I’m trying to wrap my head around, is that it sort of feels like you just sort of put yourself out there. Here are my career goals, and then you sort of hope someone does it. But where is this sort of accountability in all of this?

ROSALIND CHOW: That is an excellent question. People talk about having a sponsor. You don’t want just one. It’s like any other resource in life. You should diversify. You know, like have more than one. And I consider it like coalition building, right, which is, build your coalition of allies. Some of those people are going to end up being sponsors. Some of those people are not. But regardless of what you do, having allies, having supporters is always important. And you also just don’t know how those connections will end up becoming relevant. It’s just like networking in general. You know, the really good networkers, they’re not going around and trying to find kind of like the high value propositions in the moment. That’s not how they’re thinking about the world. It’s, I’m going to get to know you, and I don’t know how I might be useful for you, or you might be useful for me at some point. You may not be useful for me right now. Or I may not be useful for you at this moment. But there will come a time, maybe, in the future where the resource, knowledge, connections, whatever, may become important to me later. And so I’m just kind of going to hold that in the deck and see what happens. And I would approach sponsorship in very much the same kind of way.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So is it possible to overdo it on the sponsorship side? That, you know, that somehow in throwing your weight behind someone, your protégé, that you overspend, that you lose clout?

ROSALIND CHOW: So that’s one of the working hypotheses, actually, around kind of the reduced effectiveness of female sponsors, is that if there are fewer women at the top, and there are, you know, pretty large numbers of women at those more junior levels, but that same-gender pairings, like sponsorship pairings are more prevalent. Like, that’s just true. That means that a senior female might be sponsoring like five different women, whereas a senior man can kind of, I don’t want to say like be more choosy, right? But they are not necessarily feeling pressure to engage in sponsorship for so many individuals. And so I think one kind of open question is, are female sponsors kind of like spreading their social capital thin?

AMY GALLO: Well, we definitely look forward to following your research as you get some empirical answers to these questions.

ROSALIND CHOW: Yeah, thank you.

AMY GALLO: Thank you for talking to us today, Rosalind.

ROSALIND CHOW: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me on.

NICOLE TORRES: This was great. Thank you.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Thanks, Rosalind.

NICOLE TORRES: Can we talk about a specific sponsorship moment involving Amy B. and myself? Because as I’ve reflected on sponsorship, and I’ve only really thought about the term, I’ve only thought about sponsorship looking back and seeing that, oh, I have been sponsored in the past. It was not something I went in asking for or that I thought about consciously. But it feels, this specific instance feels like a textbook case of what Rosalind was talking about in that Amy B and I, we like got together one night, we were having a meeting. And you asked me, you know, where do you want to be in the future, in five years, or something? And I said, I want to be where you are. Like, that’s kind of the trajectory that I want to go towards, you know, in leading people and determining coverage. And you said, like, well, here’s kind of what you need to start doing. You need to start taking these opportunities. You need to manage. You need to do XYZ things. So I was doing the thing of saying, here’s my vision for where I want to go. And then you had that in your mind for, you know, this is kind of what she’s aspiring to. And I think the next day, or a few days later, I found out that you found an opportunity. You put me on a big project, like a big editing project. And that opportunity became available to me. I got to see that. And it was something I’d never done before. So that already helped me, you know, helps, it not only gave me the opportunity, it kind of gave me the confidence to seize an opportunity to do something that I had no like specific prior experience doing before.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So actually, I had not remembered that, that conversation. But here’s what I do remember: I suddenly understood who you wanted to be. And I knew who I thought you could be. Right? And there was a lot of match there. And so, when you said, when you put it out there, what you wanted, it was easy to make a match. That’s what it seemed like. I would never have asked you that initial question if I hadn’t believed in you in a very big way. So it was not the formal, would you sponsor me, or may I sponsor you conversation? I think we’d both puke before we had that conversation.

NICOLE TORRES: We’d literally puke. [LAUGHTER]

AMY BERNSTEIN: Right. But you know, it was a really honest moment of, tell me what you want, and when you had the guts to say what you wanted, it made it all very easy, from my perspective.

NICOLE TORRES: I would think that that is how a lot of sponsorship comes to be.

AMY GALLO: Well, that was one of Rosalind’s pieces of advice, was make yourself available to sponsorship. And I think that, if you’d asked me before we were working on this episode, if I had ever had a sponsor, I probably would have been like, no. I’ve had a few mentors. But now, as we’re digging into it, it’s those moments, the moments where I went to someone and said, you know what, this is what I really want. And then never asked, but then people said, oh, by the way, I got you this opportunity. I just thought they had my back. And now I realize, this is actually what Rosalind studies. This is what Julia and Cristina were talking about. This is someone really expending something on my behalf.

AMY BERNSTEIN: But then there’s the other part of it, which is that no one would make an assignment. No one with two IQ points to rub together would assign you to something important unless she really believed that you would succeed at it, because the payoff for this is that the job is done really well. And all of us benefit from that.

AMY GALLO: Right. I think, I have to admit that sponsorship still feels a little like Santa Claus to me. Like it’s out there —

AMY BERNSTEIN: Handing out goodies.

AMY GALLO: Or just like, or even in that, I don’t know if kids are listening or not, it’s imaginary, like it just sort of, I feel like we’re trying to put words to something that just sort of happens out there in the world. I don’t know.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I think you’re right. I think, I mean, that’s the thing I’ve always struggled with, because it feels organic. I’ve been part of a couple of mentorship programs, where you got matched up with people, and man, does that not work. And that’s why I was, I really think like chemistry is a big part of this. The table stakes of competence is part of this. There’s something that’s very hard to program about this.

AMY GALLO: I think one thing that we could do as an organization, as leaders in organizations could do is to just talk more explicitly about this. Because I think, not necessarily set up a program or an initiative, but just be more explicit and transparent about who you’re helping, how you’re getting them initiatives or assignments. I just feel like the transparency about it might sort of demystify it in a way that would make it more equitable.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Except, you know, I agree with the spirit of what you’re saying, but I also think that sometimes all you’ve done is kicked a door open that should have been open in the first place. And what you don’t want is for you protégé to think that she got the gig because of you. And that, and while intellectually, you know, you can dismiss that, that’s a real thing. And you’ve got take care of, you have to make sure people believe in themselves, or else it’s never going to work.

AMY GALLO: Right. You don’t want to undermine someone’s confidence by making them feel like you did it for them.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, and also there’s the other part of it which is, you know, who knows how much credit the sponsor deserves in any of these situations? All you can do is try.

NICOLE TORRES: To me, it didn’t undermine my confidence knowing that some people kicked opened for me. In fact, I think that that kind of instilled more confidence. It gave me more confidence to do things that I’ve not done before. Because I think the sponsorship opportunities that I’ve had, they were doors opened to do certain things that I didn’t have like a previous track record to show, like I will succeed in doing this thing. I kind of had the table stakes competence, and that was the credibility I had. But then the sponsorship itself was like a vote of confidence in my potential and my ability to figure things out and do things I haven’t done before. So in that sense it helped me build confidence.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, and by articulating when you have, you know, where you see yourself and your aspirations, you help break people’s sort of, you sort of fork yourself out of the mental pigeonhole that someone has placed you in. And people, we need to be, we all need to be jogged a little on that one. You know

AMY GALLO: Right. So can we review what we want our listeners to do? Because I feel, I want to make this super practical. So if you are a protégé or a potential protégé, let’s say really be clear about what it is you’re hoping to achieve in your career. So basically, putting, you know, to your point, Amy, making it easier for people to make a match between opportunities they know are available in the organization, and what you want to do.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, or even saying, hey, I’d really love to get that assignment. The worst thing that can happen is, you don’t get the assignment.

NICOLE TORRES: It’s like knowing what the next thing you want to do is, or knowing where you want to go, and being really up front about that, which kind of takes, you have to be brave and do that, and not be afraid of sounding silly. Because someone else hearing that, they might know the next steps for you to take so that you can get to where you want to go.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. But who ever entered a career knowing what, you know, all the steps to get to this aspiration 25 years down the road. Who ever knew that?

AMY GALLO: Well, and who ever knew what they wanted to do in five years.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, God. I have never been able to answer that question.

AMY GALLO: We won’t ask you, then.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Good.

AMY GALLO: And then once you’re in the relationship, you know, Rosalind said it’s good to be transparent. But we’re sort of saying, I mean, you mentioned puking if you actually had like named the relationship. So are we telling people, name it or not name it? I’m confused on that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, I kind of want to go back a step. I think that sponsorship doesn’t, isn’t necessarily, you know, a constant. It’s not necessarily a 24/7/365 proposition. I mean, it can be episodic. But you know, this is just one person’s perspective. Maybe you want to name it, but again, there is this area between, you know, best practices on the one hand, and the way life works on the other. And you’ve got to kind of suss it out. You have to have some emotional intelligence there. Figure out what is going to work for you and for the person who you’re helping, or who is helping you.

AMY GALLO: So you shouldn’t necessarily make a sponsor/protégé matching badges that you wear around the office.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, that’s an excellent tactic, and I’m sure it would succeed 99 percent of the time. But don’t even think about it. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: OK, and then what are we saying for sponsors? What does, I mean, I think we’re all clearly saying, more sponsors, more sponsorship. But what does the sponsor need to think about?

AMY BERNSTEIN: I mean, people in managerial roles and leadership roles should always be looking for opportunities to develop people. And for giving people new opportunities and opportunities to step up and challenge themselves. And there’s really, I mean, as a manager, I find, I love seeing people surprise themselves by what they’ve accomplished. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way.

NICOLE TORRES: And I think it would be great to see more managers, sponsors, kind of even, I don’t know if this falls on them exclusively, but initiate more of those conversations, those development conversations. Like, where do you want to go? Just so that, you know, you have a sense of what that person is thinking and aspiring to, so that if opportunities come up, you can make that match work.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I think you’re absolutely right about that. And too often they happen in the breach. They happen in a moment of crisis. I’m thinking of leaving. I’m not happy here. And that conversation.

AMY GALLO: Well, and, I think that conversations happens in the context of a manager and direct report, not necessarily, I mean, I think the advice for people who have social capital in an organization is, ask lots of people where they want to be in three years, what they want to achieve, so that you can help not just the people you directly manage, but other people beyond that group as well.

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, you know, it’s not just your manager who’s making assignments. I keep talking about making assignments, because that’s where the rubber meets the road in this conversation. It’s where the opportunity shows up.

AMY GALLO: Well, that’s where you helped Nicole. Right? Like, you got her an assignment that you, she would have not gotten probably otherwise. Or who knows?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Who knows?

AMY GALLO: Right, who knows, but you —

AMY BERNSTEIN: The important thing is killed it. And got more great assignments.

AMY GALLO: Right.

NICOLE TORRES: And I think I would vote for not making everything so explicit. Like I remember I kind of found out, because someone was like, oh, you’re going to do this now? [LAUGHTER] And I had like learned that Amy had something to do with it. And it was just kind of like a tickle. It was really sweet.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, my gosh, I remember we rounded the corner and almost ran into each other, and we both knew what was going on. And I think we both just, we may have giggled.

NICOLE TORRES: I think we giggled. [LAUGHTER] It was delightful. It was a giggle that no words —

AMY BERNSTEIN: No words passed between us. [LAUGHTER]

NICOLE TORRES: No words. No puking.

AMY BERNSTEIN: No puking, that’s for sure. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: I love the giggle that means, I gotcha, and thank you.

NICOLE TORRES: Yes.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, it’s also the giggle that means, good for all of us.

NICOLE TORRES: That’s our show. I’m Nicole Torres.

AMY GALLO: I’m Amy Gallo.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And I’m Amy Bernstein. Our editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoch, Adam Buchholz, Mary Dooe, Rob Eckhardt, Erica Truxler and JM Olejarz.

AMY GALLO: If you have ideas, or just want to stay in touch, feel free to email us at womenatwork@hbr.org.

AMY GALLO: Amy B., what do you tell people when they ask why they should subscribe to HBR?

AMY BERNSTEIN: I think that, the answer is so obvious. [LAUGHTER] No one ever asks me that.

AMY GALLO: Really? You’re the editor of the magazine. They have to ask you, why should I get your magazine? No one asks you that?

AMY BERNSTEIN: No one’s gotten that memo. But if someone asked me, I would say that if you subscribe to HBR, you will get the smartest thinking in business and management and leadership published.

AMY GALLO: One of my favorite things that we do is we take research, and translate it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah.

AMY GALLO: For people. And so you’re getting evidence-based ideas in a way that are easy to understand, and put into action.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And these are ideas that we know work. This isn’t a bazaar of cool ideas. These are ideas that have worked for others. That’s why we think they’ll work for you.

NICOLE TORRES: That was a great pitch. I feel like I should subscribe. [LAUGHTER] And I get it free. Something that I tell friends, you know, like one, you should subscribe, but two, if you can’t subscribe, or if you don’t want to, you can ask others to subscribe for you. Really good pitch to your boss, to get you a subscription to HBR to help you with your job or with your managing. Also makes a great gift.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Hey, isn’t your birthday coming around? [LAUGHTER]

NICOLE TORRES: It just passed.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, man. How many subscriptions did you get?

NICOLE TORRES: Not enough. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: I got you three for your birthday. I hope you enjoy them. [LAUGHTER]

NICOLE TORRES: If you like the stuff we talk about on the show, if you find it interesting and useful, there is a lot more research, insight and advice in the magazine and online. So please subscribe at hbr.org/subscribe.

AMY GALLO: It helps support the podcast.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And us.

AMY GALLO: And us. [LAUGHTER]