The Sponsorship Gap: Why you need more than a mentor

I had quite a few mentors early in my career. They were lovely people who saw something in me and were willing to spend time guiding and advising whenever I asked. I was even a part of a mentorship group where a few of us women met once per month to talk about our careers. I will always value the effort they made and the kindness they showed. The thing is though, none of those mentors had the power to actually get me promoted.

Who did?

My sponsors. Those were the people in senior positions who liked my work and advocated for me to be in high-level meetings, or put on cross-departmental projects, and eventually, recommended me for jobs.

See the difference?

A mentor talks to you. A sponsor talks about you.

If you've been doing everything right — showing up, delivering results, getting great performance reviews, even working with a mentor — and you're still not advancing, there's a good chance you're experiencing the sponsorship gap.

We've all been told the same story: find a mentor, build your skills, work hard, and the promotions will come. But the research tells a different story. Women are over-mentored and under-sponsored. And that distinction is quietly stalling careers at the director level every single day.

Mentorship vs. Sponsorship: Why the Difference Matters More Than You Think

Your mentor helps you reflect, develop your leadership style, and navigate tricky workplace dynamics. That's genuinely valuable. But as was the case with me, your mentor isn't necessarily in the room where decisions get made.

A sponsor is someone with organizational influence who uses their political capital to actively advocate for your advancement. They recommend you for high-visibility projects. They say your name when a VP role opens up. They vouch for your readiness before you've had the chance to prove it in that next role.

The difference isn't subtle.

Mentorship builds your capability. Sponsorship builds your career.

The Real Cost of the Sponsorship Gap

Research from Catalyst and Lean In consistently shows that women receive less sponsorship than their male peers — even when performance levels are equivalent. Men at the director level are more likely to have senior advocates who champion them into executive roles. Women at the same level are more likely to have senior advisors who help them prepare.

Preparation without advocacy is a treadmill.

You can be the most prepared director in your organization and still watch less-prepared colleagues move into VP roles — not because they're better, but because someone powerful is saying their name in the right rooms.

This is especially acute in male-dominated industries, where informal networks, golf games, and long-established relationships often determine who gets considered before a role is ever posted.

How to Identify a Potential Sponsor

Sponsors don't announce themselves. You have to learn to spot them and then intentionally build those relationships.

Look for leaders who have the three A's: Access, Advocacy, and Appetite.

Access means they sit at the table where advancement decisions are made. They're in the executive team meetings, the talent planning conversations, the succession discussions. A director-level ally, however supportive, usually doesn't have the access that creates sponsorship outcomes.

Advocacy means they have a track record of visibly championing others — not just being liked, but actively pushing people forward. Pay attention to who in your organization gets credit for developing talent. Who do senior leaders seem to have come up through? That's often a sign of a sponsor in action.

Appetite means they're genuinely interested in your growth — not because you're useful to them, but because they see potential in you and are willing to spend their political capital on your behalf. This is rare, which is why cultivating it deliberately matters.

Building Sponsor Relationships: It's Not Networking. It's Strategic Visibility.

One of the biggest mistakes ambitious women make is waiting to be noticed. Sponsorship doesn't usually happen because a senior leader observed your excellent work from a distance and decided to champion you. It happens through repeated, meaningful, strategic interaction.

Here's how to start building those relationships with intention.

Talk about your aspirations, as well as your accomplishments. Sponsors need to know where you want to go. If you've never explicitly said "I'm building toward a VP role in the next two years," the people who could open that door may not know to hold it open. Get comfortable naming your ambitions directly and professionally.

Get yourself out there! Volunteer for cross-functional projects, lead presentations to the executive team, and position yourself where potential sponsors can see you think, decide, and lead — not just execute. You need to be seen in your executive range, not just your current role.

Offer strategic value to senior leaders. The best sponsor relationships are reciprocal. Think about what you uniquely know — market insights, team dynamics, emerging trends in your space — that a senior leader would find genuinely valuable. When you add value to their priorities, you become someone worth investing in.

Follow up and follow through. When a potential sponsor gives you advice, act on it. When they make an introduction, honor it. Nothing builds trust with a busy executive faster than demonstrating that their investment in you produces results. And nothing destroys it faster than ignoring their efforts.

Navigating the Comfort Gap

Here's something that doesn't get said enough: sponsorship relationships can feel uncomfortable to pursue, particularly for women who've been socialized to let their work speak for itself. I believe, this is the #1 reason great women get stuck at the director or senior manager level.

Asking for advocacy can feel presumptuous. Naming your ambitions can feel arrogant. Cultivating relationships with power feels transactional.

None of this is true. Advocating for yourself by building strategic relationships is exactly what your male peers have been doing, often without a second thought. It's not politics. It's professional navigation — and you're allowed to be good at it.

If the idea of asking someone to champion you feels like too much, start smaller. Ask a senior leader to include you in a meeting. Ask for feedback on a presentation you gave to the exec team. Ask to shadow a decision-making process. These are legitimate asks that build proximity, and proximity is where sponsorship starts.

What to Do If You Don't Have a Sponsor Yet

If you can't immediately identify a senior leader who actively advocates for you, that's information — not a verdict on your potential.

Start by auditing your current relationships. Who in your organization has real influence over advancement decisions? Of those people, how many know your name, your work, and your aspirations? That gap between "who has influence" and "who knows your goals" is your roadmap.

Then pick one or two people to build toward. Not ten. One or two, with intention and patience.

Meanwhile, expand your network outside your immediate organization. Industry associations, conferences, and peer communities for women leaders are places where sponsorship relationships begin — and where other ambitious women can make introductions that open unexpected doors.

The Mentor Isn't Enough — But They're Not Irrelevant

Of course, mentorship still matters. A good mentor helps you develop the executive presence, strategic thinking, and self-awareness that make you someone worth sponsoring. Think of mentorship as the foundation and sponsorship as the lever.

You need both. But if you've been investing heavily in mentorship while assuming sponsorship would follow naturally from great work, it's time to rebalance your strategy.

Your career advancement isn't just a product of how good you are. It's a product of how visible you are to the right people — and whether those people are actively working on your behalf.

Now go get'em.

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