Sponsorship is using your position and influence to help someone get ahead. It's similar in many ways to mentorship, the topic of my last post. But sponsorship is a bit tricker. Most people understand mentorship and have good feelings about it. Sponsorship is a bit less familiar and might even feel a bit unseemly — at least it used to feel that way to me.

Although I'd heard the concept before, a talk Carla Harris gave at Google in 2022 made an impression on me and brought it to the forefront. (She has a 2019 TED Talk that hits a lot of the same points). She spoke about the value of sponsorship, both on the receiving end early in her career and now as a sponsor herself. More than just her description, what I most appreciated was her candor. It gave me a permission structure to use this concept myself. I started using it with junior engineers when thinking about their careers; I thought about it myself when debugging how some decision played out. It also helped me to think of it less judgmentally. Now I see it as being thoughtful and pragmatic about how decisions are made.

So what it it? Sponsoring is similar to mentoring in that it's an investment in someone, but the mechanism is different. Mentoring is a commitment to problem-solve issues as they come up, teach skills, and serve as a sounding board, amongst other things. Sponsoring is more strategic. The sponsor is committing to understand the sponsored's goals and strengths, and (here's the important part) help them get ahead. The time commitment isn't as large, but the actual commitment is greater. Assuming they see eye-to-eye, the sponsor commits to putting their reputation on the line to help the their person achieve their goals. Some examples would be vouching for the sponsored during a staffing conversations or seeking out and advocating for them when opportunities comes up.

In some ways, sponsorship acknowledges and even co-opts the "you have to know somebody" way that the world actually works. Underrepresented groups can benefit from sponsorship as a way to wedge into existing power structures. If that describes you, consider asking for someone to explicitly sponsor you; if you're in a traditionally privileged group, consider sponsoring someone who isn't so much. My Google peer Rachel observed: "women are often over-mentored and under-sponsored."

Maybe You're Going Up For Promotion

With this in mind, let's apply this to promotions.

Try as we might to bring rigor and de-bias these decisions, they are complicated and are made by real-world humans. Organizations rely on their senior people to bring their experience, knowledge, and judgment to bear.

Consider how the promotion decision will be made for your case. One key question is who'll be in the room? This isn't just who is invited and who will attend, but more who will be influential in the discussion and decision making process, and for what kinds of questions. Not everyone has an equal voice.

Say you're an engineer going up for promotion to senior engineer. Then likely a senior tech lead (not necessarily your tech lead!) will be asked to speak to the quality of your work (e.g. good code, considered alternatives, future-proofing). A senior manager will likely be asked to assess how well you worked with others and made good decisions. And these are just two of the factors — there will be many others depending on your role and level. You need to work down the rubric and think through who'll be asked to attest to each area as it comes up. Who will be asked to speak to concerns when they're raised ("was that really that hard?")?

Sometimes you might know who the key person will be, but often you won't. Enlist your manager or other senior leaders to think it through with you. Game plan the decision out.

And then assess their level of support. This may be something you can do yourself (if you have a relationship already) or maybe you'll need your manager's help. But somehow you need to ask them, as candidly as you can, "If asked about X, what will you say?" It can sometimes be hard to get an honest answer, so you may need to push a little. Reassure them you'd much rather know now if you have their support or not and you're not going to hold it against them.

If you don't have their support yet, that's OK. Think about work you can do to change that over time.

Day-To-Day Decisions

Not all decisions are as high-stakes as promotions. Leaders make decisions all the time, like whom to trust to lead a project or run a meeting. I like to think about these small-but-important decisions too in the context of sponsorship. Is your manager your sponsor? What about your TL?

Thanks to Josh Loftus, Maren Stever, Jane Manning, and Rachel Grey for their reviews.

So you're looking for a mentor, that's great! I've benefitted a lot from mentors in my career. It'll be a valuable experience for both you and your mentor. This post has my tips for finding a good mentor, asking them, and maintaining a good ongoing relationship.

Choosing

These are my three go-to rules for finding a mentor. They've held up across many companies and years.

1. Your mentor should be someone you admire. The best choice is usually someone the same career path as you, but further along by some years. They don't have to be so much more senior, it could just be the next step, but they've shown that they're willing and able to take on more responsibility and how to do it at your company. Ideally they're someone interesting, inspirational, and relateable.

Another type of mentoring relationship is when you're looking to make a change — say from Engineer to Engineering Manager, or Engineering Manager to Product Manager. Then you're looking for someone who made the switch. I find they're often the most eager to talk about how and why they did it.

2. Organizationally close-by is OK, but they shouldn't be one of your leaders. I've gotten the most out of mentors outside my chain of command. That way, I never had to worry about choosing my words (or topics) carefully. I could problem solve or just vent. Sometimes the person you need to discuss is your own boss.

3. Rapport is super important. Maybe the most important thing of all. Your meetings can't feel like a chore for either of you. Even if you've gotten along fine in the past, maybe you'll hit it off in this new relationship, maybe now.

How can you find the right person if it's not obvious who to ask? Use your network, talk to people, ask for referrals. Big companies often have mentoring programs for matchmaking.

Asking

While your mentor will benefit a bit, you'll be the one getting the most out of this deal. So it's up to you to ask. Understand that they're likely busy, so say how much you'd appreciate some of their time. Make sure they know it's OK to say no.

I recommend asking for a trial run to start with: "Let's do three or four meetings and then re-evaluate." That way you can make sure that it's clicking, see the "rapport" criteria above. If it's not feeling great on both sides then it's best to try again with someone else, no harm no foul.

Being A Good Mentee

So you've found someone, great. Here's some things you should do during probation and onward.

1. Respect their time. Be prompt. Work around their schedule and in a way that works best for them (30 min? over a meal?).

2. Come prepared with a topic or two, keep a backlog. It can be something specific, like problem solving a particular situation or relationship. Or it could be getting just-in-time feedback on a draft email or document. Or it could be open-ended, e.g. "if you could advise your former self 10 years ago, what would you have said?"

3. Check in from time to time. Make sure this is still working out for them: the style of meeting, duration, etc.

4. Find an appropriate way to thank them. Nothing big but it's important to show that you appreciate their time. For example at my current employer (Google) we have a system to give shout-outs to peers that come up at performance review time.

Finally, find a way to pay it forward. Introduce mentors and mentees; volunteer in your company's matchmaking service; find people who appear to stranded and offer to help them out. Sending this post might be a fine icebreaker.