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Creating more gender equitable and inclusive cultures is high on the agenda for many organisations. However there is often a disconnect between existing staff development activities and efforts to create the desired cultures. More explicitly linking individual development to organisational change can make a big difference to the return on investment when developing staff. The ‘bifocal approach’ translates this ideal into reality through clear principles and program design.

A better ROI. Spend your unconscious bias training budget on developing your leaders as sponsors →

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I am not an advocate for unconscious bias training. It often lacks context, there can be substantial backlash, and the results are hard to see and measure.

Neither am I an advocate for sponsorship programs, that benefit the few without disrupting normal sponsorship practices.

However, I am an advocate for tackling the biases inherent in leaders’ sponsorship practices. And here’s why.

Sponsorship, as I have discovered in my research and work as an equity practitioner in the last decade, is a replicatory practice. It maintains the status quo. Those who currently hold power and have the capacity to create opportunities, to open doors for others, often choose people like themselves. In fact, my interviews uncovered a consistent tendency to sponsor ‘people like me, with a career like mine’. 

 Sponsorship, as a largely invisible and under the radar practice, that has until recently lacked a name, is often done unreflexively. That means people who sponsor, often do so without stopping to think, without asking themselves: Who do I sponsor and why? Who don’t I sponsor and why not? 

Once sponsorship is named and made visible, we can see how it plays out over the span of a career. The absence or presence of sponsorship has profound effects on who succeeds, and ultimately who leads in your organisation.  (see my popular Career Spiral)

Leaders need to be held accountable for developing their subordinates, and this means becoming accountable for their sponsorship practices. Rather than an under the table, largely unscrutinised (and biased) practice, it is possible to bring sponsorship into the spotlight, and from there to harness the power of sponsorship by making it transparent and strategic. You’ll be able to see and measure results. 

If the ultimate aim of your equality and inclusion work is to build an enabling culture where a more diverse range of people are able to thrive and succeed, and where the career pathways themselves become wider and more diverse, then tackling sponsorship practices will be rewarding. A failure to do so may well be undermining your strategy. 

I’ve found working with leaders to improve sponsorship practices, while challenging work, is well received. Individual leaders can change their practices and there are many ways the organisation can support them to do so. 

For more details on my work visit jendevries.com 

Download the Sponsorship Guide for free jendevries.com/publications and for ideas on training and implementation contact me. Details on my website.