Does a Woman need a Sponsor rather than a Mentor?

Sponsorship for Women

A woman protégéeFormal and informal mentoring relationships exist in many organisations. Within these mentoring relationships the mentor may take many roles: being a role model, a sounding board, helping build networks and career support, sometimes simply being there to listen and challenge. However, linked to mentoring, but with clear differences is the role of a sponsor. Is it actually more beneficial for a woman who is seeking to break through the ‘glass ceiling’ to have a sponsor rather than an organisational mentor? Or perhaps she should be greedy and have both!

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Women’s Mentoring and making a crack in the ‘Glass Ceiling’!

Breaking through the glass ceilingSupporting women talent specifically requires a further lens on how you look at your talent mentoring design, so here are some pointers for when you are developing mentoring programmes specifically to allow female talent to break through the glass ceiling.

In our initial experience of designing mentoring to develop senior women, the outcomes included one wedding, five promotions, several large pay increases, cosmetic surgery and a bullied mentor! So with the benefit of a number of women only mentoring programmes under our belts, use this checklist when designing a women’s mentoring programme: Continue reading