A Chief Medical Officer shared a realization with me that stopped me in my tracks. She had spent years cultivating an impressive network of mentors. She attended the coffee meetings and received good advice. She had an “advisory board” helping her think through complex challenges.
Yet, when a seat on the executive team opened up, a role she was perfectly qualified for, her name never entered the room.
She realized she was watching her male colleagues operate differently. They weren’t just exchanging advice over coffee; they were exchanging influence. They were trading political capital.
She told me: “My mentors gave me advice. They didn’t advocate for me.”
That was the turning point. She stopped collecting mentors who could help her skill up, and started serving sponsors who could help her move up. She identified leaders with real power and focused on adding value to their priorities, becoming someone they wanted to champion.
The terms mentor and sponsor are often interchanged. The difference is structural. Mentorship happens in your presence. Sponsorship happens in your absence.
Mentors advise you. Sponsors advocate for you. Mentors give you wisdom. Sponsors give you access.
As that Chief Medical Officer put it, “If you only have mentors, you’ll get good advice. If you have sponsors, you’ll get career-changing opportunities.”
Connection is about who is willing to open a door for you when you aren’t there to push it open yourself.
THE QUESTION
When you review your most important professional relationships, where are you receiving excellent advice, but lacking the advocacy capital required to advance?
“When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.”
– Toni Morrison