‘Sponsors’ can boost women executives

MUMBAI: Behind every successful woman there's a man. Or, more accurately, a sponsor.


A report by consulting firm McKinsey & Co notes that mentors alone cannot accomplish the task of enabling women managers in India to move up the hierarchy. What women managers need are 'sponsors' —because they are often reluctant to promote themselves. These sponsors would not only promote high potential women managers but actually do the talking on their behalf.

Having figured out that sponsors do a better job than mentors in churning out a larger number of women leaders in the corporate world, companies like HCL Technologies, Sodexo and American Express have formalized such programmes internally. Others like Bristol-Myers Squibb plan to gradually adopt the practice.

Last year, American Express India launched a 'Pathways to Sponsorship' programme to enable readiness and progression of high-potential women leaders.

Its results have been encouraging, with at least two of the 13 chosen participants witnessing horizontal and vertical movement, while a few others were fast-tracked.

"Sponsorship is an important relationship, taking a holistic view of aspects that enable growth," said Manoj Adlakha, VP, American Express India, who is also the executive sponsor of Pathways programme. This particular programme brings together selected 'high potential' women leaders and gives them exposure to senior leaders, workshops, coaching and customized interventions.

Unlike a mentor, who typically serves as a sounding board for the mentee, a sponsor is a senior leader who endorses an individual based on merit and potential and advocates his or her protege's advancement. Sponsors thus help create windows to better showcase the individual's talent and enhance leadership readiness.

In her book Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer at Facebook, admitted the importance of sponsors to her career. As an undergrad at Harvard, she caught the eye of Larry Summers who made her his research assistant at the World Bank and the US Treasury, where at 29 she became his chief of staff.

But why do women executives need someone to bat for them? Women, say HR experts, are wired differently. "Men don't need sponsors as they already have the ability to raise their hands and promote themselves. Women, on the other hand, believe that their work will speak for them, and they don't feel the need to promote themselves. This is how women have been conditioned across the world, not just in India," said Rohini Anand, global chief diversity officer at Sodexo.

"There is a long list of often unspoken or unrecognized biases, such as the fact that people are more comfortable with those who resemble themselves—which means that men often rate the performance of other men more highly than that of women. The fact that women can be reluctant to promote themselves only intensifies such biases. Corporations have a role to play in helping to remove or lower all of these obstacles, and more," points out the McKinsey report.

Globally, Sodexo introduced a sponsor programme four years ago. Today, seven of the country general managers globally are women and Sodexo has 38% women on the global board. At HCL Technologies, 34 women were selected in the first year of the women leader sponsor programme. "The direct line manager is usually the sponsor for high potential women managers," said Srimathi Shivashankar, associate VP (diversity & sustainability), HCL Technologies, where the diversity programme is part of the business scorecard and not the HR scorecard.