The Journey to Your Next Role

From left to right: Amina, Sharon and John taking part in their discussion

We all learned so much from this fantastic event thanks to the speakers Amina Folarin and Sharon Whale who graciously shared their story and experiences of their sponsorship relationship and they were wonderfully moderated by John Amaechi.

Sharon and Amina shared their six key traits of a sponsorship relationship. These were:

  • Actively demonstrating the willingness to engage in the relationship

  • Being brave enough to put yourself on the line for the other person when it comes to seeking out opportunities for their career development

  • Publicly advocating for the other person and being their biggest supporter

  • Having the ability to see the potential in the other person

  • Being empathetic

  • Having openess to learn about yourself, the other person and new things

These traits all indicate that the mentoring or sponsorship relationship needs to be an authentic one in order for it to be successful.

There is a fantastic article on HBR by Herminia Ibarra on the same subject and if you can’t access that one then we have another similar one by the same author here.

As Herminia says ‘mentoring often produces very little magic: Relationships don’t click; seniors and juniors misunderstand each other; the armies of seniors told to share their knowledge often lack the power needed to usher juniors into key roles or they don’t know or care about the juniors enough to expend personal capital on them’. These problems plus the fact that many women don’t have any opportunity for mentorship at all led us to create our mentoring platform, that matches women based on their interests, and encourages them to build authentic and meaningful relationships which make a difference to both parties. Whilst we can’t guarantee to match you with a sponsor in your own organisation, we are offering you the opportunity to register for free and get matched with other women who could make the ideal mentor or mentee. Click here to submit your application https://lnkd.in/gvWQbukb

Jane Gibbon