The Role of Sponsorship and Allyship in Promoting Diversity and Inclusion
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How can leaders create diverse and inclusive workplaces? Implement sponsorship and allyship.
McKinsey & Company released their 2021 report on women in the workplace that revealed women and women of colour remain underrepresented in leadership roles, with 4% as C-suite leaders.
The report also states women of colour continue to face bias and discrimination at work. While there has been an increase in the number of White employees who label themselves as allies, the report also states the number of employees taking significant allyship actions has not increased.
As we mentioned in our previous post comparing mentoring and sponsorship, a sponsor is someone who uses their social capital to advocate for an individual’s career development. Coach and thought leader, Salima Valji explains that sponsorship is a key allyship strategy, especially for women and women of colour.
Understanding how allyship works with sponsorship is imperative to promoting Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) and creating opportunities for women and people of colour to advance in your organization.
The Role of Sponsors
Sponsorship is the key to helping underrepresented groups advance within their organizations. A sponsor’s role is to connect their protégé to senior leaders, help them make connections outside their organization, and secure career opportunities. Salima Valji describes sponsors as brand managers and publicists for their protégés.
The role of a sponsor is significant because they have a seat at the table where important decisions are made. Their position allows them to promote the visibility of their protégé and advocate for them behind closed doors.
While sponsors offer career advice and contribute to expanding the perceptions of their protégé, the difference between a sponsor and a mentor is that a mentor advises and a sponsor acts.
Harvard Business Review describes four core behaviours that sponsors can follow:
Amplifying: is when a sponsor shares the accomplishments of their protégés.
Boosting: is when a sponsor uses their reputation to advocate for their protégé such as writing a letter of recommendation.
Connecting: involves helping their protégé form new relationships with people they wouldn’t be able to meet without a sponsor. This also helps increase visibility to key individuals who can help them advance in their career. This can be achieved by inviting their protégé to exclusive events or meetings.
Defending: involves challenging negative perceptions and defending their protégé from individuals who don’t support their protégé.
The Role of Allies
Similar to sponsorship, allyship involves taking action from a position of privilege. Allyship refers to the actions and behaviours an individual takes to support those who belong to a different social identity group than their own. An ally is an individual who is not a member of a historically excluded group that supports and advocates for others who belong to that group.
The most important action an ally can take is understanding their power and privilege, and educating themselves on the discrimination and microagressions women and people of colour continue to experience.
The role of an ally in the workplace involves speaking up for historically excluded groups and placing a spotlight on their achievements, strengths, and contributions to a company. Allies are instrumental in challenging the discrimination and racial bias that prevents women and people of colour from advancing in their organization and acquiring leadership positions.
The McKinsey report revealed the most meaningful allyship actions for women of colour include: advocating for new opportunities; mentoring or sponsoring one or more women of colour; publicly giving credit to women of colour for their ideas and work; educating oneself about the experiences of women of colour; and confronting discrimination against women of colour.
How Sponsors Can Be Valuable Allies
Creating diverse and inclusive workplaces doesn’t stop at hiring employees from diverse backgrounds. It is also creating equitable opportunities that’ll diversify leadership and promote inclusion in your organization. Sponsorship is one of the most significant allyship actions because sponsors remove the barriers that prevent women and people of colour from advancing to leadership positions.
Research conducted by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and the Centre for Talent Innovation shows the impact of sponsorship for women and people of colour. The research revealed that 38% of women with a sponsor who requested a pay raise were granted the raise opposed to the 70% without a sponsor who were unable to make the request. For people of colour, 65% were reported more likely than those who were unsponsored to be satisfied with their rate of advancement.
Research by Payscale also revealed people of colour who have a White sponsor experience more advantages than those with a sponsor from the same race/ethnicity. Hispanic female protégés with Hispanic sponsors made 2.1% less than protégés with a White sponsor. Similarly, female protégés with a female sponsor earn 14.6% less than those with a male sponsor.
Sponsors have a crucial role as allies, their position allows them to invite diverse groups to important meetings, publicly amplify their work and accomplishments, and recommend them for valuable opportunities.
Whether your organization implements sponsorship or allyship, both are instrumental in creating diverse and inclusive cultures that support the development of your employees. While women and people of colour need sponsors, they also need allies. It is up to leaders to not only sponsor historically excluded groups but also use their voices to challenge discrimination and bias in the workplace.
If you want to learn more about sponsorship as allyship, we’d love to hear your thoughts at our mentor circle next week on Thursday August 18th 2022 at 12:00 P.M. Register here.