How to Make Yourself More Visible to Sponsors

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Research shows that male sponsors are more effective than female sponsors regardless of the gender of the person who is being sponsored. For ethnic minorities and for women, 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. Proteges of really senior women actually end up doing just as well as proteges of men. If you're an inexperiencedfemale sponsor, your proteges do not benefit from that.

Having a sponsor — someone who can use their influence to push your career forward — is invaluable. But how exactly they do this, and what your role is in making it happen, isn’t always clear-cut. Who should we be seeking to sponsor us? Should sponsors be candid with their proteges about what they’re doing on their behalf?

We pose these questions and others to Rosalind Chow, a researcher who studies sponsorship. She clarifies some of the ambiguity and talks about what should be transparent and what should stay unspoken. Then we hear how one of these relationships works between two lawyers, as well as between Nicole and Amy B.

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