Build Your Own Sponsor

Influential leaders in your organization need to advocate for you in order for you to advance up the corporate ladder. This practice is called sponsorship. Some companies have sponsorship programs that match high potential employees with company executives to facilitate sponsorship. That's awesome for employees who are selected for the program, but what about the other employees?

Many of us need the do it yourself version of the sponsorship program. That means being the type of employee that is exciting to the leadership in your organization. Bring new ideas, work on cross functional teams, be interesting (you would be surprised how valuable it is to just be interesting). Engage with the leaders of your organization and be yourself while doing so. You also need to have a understanding of your organization. Early in my career at Lubrizol, I told my boss that I wanted to be CEO one day. She set up 1:1 meetings for me with the CEO and COO. Early in the conversation with our COO, he asked me to explain how Lubrizol makes money. I gave some basic answer. He said "you don't know shit about our business. How are you going to be CEO?" He was 100% right. I did not build a sponsor in that instance. I realized that I needed to first do the work necessary to be worthy of sponsorship.

Leaders want to magnify the rising stars in their organization. This behavior is driven by the expectation that leaders can identify and develop talent in their organization. If you are excellent at what you do and keep your company leadership aware, you are making life easier for them. So for you, figure out how your organization delivers value to the universe, figure out how you help that happen, then create ways to expose your value to company leaders. Eventually your ears will burn as sponsors make you their topic of discussion.