Leadership Capability

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Guide to Sustaining Organizational Change

Section 1.3: Sponsorship and Mentorship

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Talent Processes

Section 3.0: Mentorship

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1.3 Sponsorship and Mentorship

1.3 Sponsorship and Mentorship

As board members and leaders of the organization, it is important to consider the role you play in equitably sponsoring and mentoring potential board candidates.

A sponsor is someone who talks about you in decision-making spaces and advocates for you using their own professional capital to help progress your career forward. Implementing formal mentorship and sponsorship programs enhances employee engagement and retention, improves employee performance, and promotes a culture of talent recognition and support.

Priority Group
Case Study
Case Study

As board members you can take the following actions within your organization:

  • Support the implementation of a formal sponsorship program, where managers and above are paired with employees from the five priority groups
  • Get board members committed to sponsoring and mentoring board candidates from the five priority groups, with the goal to recruit them to the board
  • Enable and support the success of potential board candidates from the five priority groups
    • For example: Pair yourself with a high potential board candidate and sponsor them when they apply for a board position
    • For example: Help and encourage new board members where you can, such as with board meeting preparation and sharing their points of view
Calling board members and leaders in Western Canada! Sign up to be a mentor to a newcomer to Canada or to learn how to create a mentorship program within your organization

As leaders, you can take the following actions within your organization:

  • Implement a formal sponsorship program, where managers and above are paired with employees from the five priority groups
  • Get managers on board and committed to mentoring employees from the five priority groups by highlighting benefits to both them and the organization
  • Advise mentors to encourage employees from the five priority groups to apply for leadership positions or promotions as they are less likely to do so
  • Promote the skills, talents, and ability of the individual you are sponsoring, and help them work through mistakes
  • Reach in at key moments and encourage, even nudge, towards the next role
Priority Group
Key Action

3.0 Mentorship

Welcome to Mentorship!

Now that you have hired your leader, your next step is to help them grow within your organization.

Mentorship fosters a sense of belonging and ensures your leaders are able to learn from others on how to be successful within their role.

It is critical that mentorship is offered equally to everyone, and that the mentor opportunities cater to the unique identities of all leaders.

3.1 Mentorship: Formal Mentorship Opportunities

Formal mentorship opportunities are organization-developed programs that provide employees with the tools to enhance their leadership capabilities.

leading practices:
  • Focus specific mentorship programs / events on allyship to encourage leaders to support co-workers who identify as 2SLGBTQ+ and/or gender and sexually diverse individuals
  • Facilitate mentor training on how to become an impactful mentor and champion for leaders
  • Encourage senior leaders and board members to open space in their schedules to allow for mentorship opportunities for the next generation of leaders
Specific actions to follow:
  1. Establish formal mentorship programs within your organization to support high-potential and board-ready talent in receiving active feedback and coaching to achieve senior leadership positions
  2. Allow mentorship programs to be sponsored by senior leaders to ensure that junior leaders are receiving visibility and benefit from expansion of their network
  3. Advise mentors to encourage mentees of priority groups and empower them to apply for leadership roles
  4. Provide equal mentorship opportunities to all leaders to remove influence of informal mentorship mechanisms
  5. Mentorship program activities should be inclusionary in nature. All mentees should receive an invitation and options to ensure the activity is not “traditionally exclusionary” (e.g. team-building events rather than golfing or hockey games, dinner at a restaurant rather than drinks after work)
Case Study
Considerations for Intermediate / Advanced Organizations
This article from RevolutionHer discusses the importance of mentorship.

Mentorship: Regional and Industry Considerations

Industry: Technology

The 2020 People of Colour in Tech report demonstrated that less than 5% of the workforce for large technology companies are composed of Black, Latinx and “Aboriginal” and/or Indigenous tech professionals. Employees of Colour find it difficult to access mentors, and Black employees reported it 62% more difficult to find a mentor than white respondents.

Priority group employees in the technology sector often do not see many leaders who look like them, and struggle to progress within the organization due to a lack of exposure.

Consider the following:

  • Design mentorship programs keeping in mind career progression, to enable priority group employees to achieve leadership positions
  • Host priority-group specific technology mentorship events, such as Black Professionals in Tech
  • Partner with community-based organizations to provide mentorship to young professionals looking to enter the technology industry
Region: Atlantic Canada

According to a 2022 report from the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, women are well represented in employment in Atlantic Canada, consisting of approximately 50% of the workforce. Racialized, Black and/or People of Colour however only account for about 1 in 20 workers. The report also indicated that Black employees specifically are less likely to be promoted to manager and leader roles.

Consider the following:

  • Provide mentorship opportunities specific to diverse talent and leaders new to Atlantic Canada to help them expand their local network, and reduce social isolation that often arises from not being a local
  • Ensure mentors can provide education and learning for those learning French, if required by the role
  • Provide training on intersectionality to mentors, so they are able to support diverse talent
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Men are 50% more likely to attribute their advancement to a senior leader’s support than women are. However, 80% of companies do not have a formal sponsorship program. Women candidates with high potential are often over-mentored and under-sponsored.

Large Organization:

Abbott

Abbott places a large emphasis on mentorship and sponsorship within its organization. The focus is not only on hiring diverse employees, but developing them for growth.

In the organization’s 2020 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Report, an employee who identifies as Latino credits his mentors and sponsors for supporting his career growth. He indicated that the fact they didn’t look like him made their support more meaningful. To pay it forward, this employee now acts as a mentor and sponsor to others in the organization. As a result of his dedication and support, he has won the President’s Award for his work to advance EDI within the organization.

Large Organization:

Bank of Montreal (BMO)

In 2014, BMO launched an Enterprise Sponsorship Program. Senior leaders are paired with employees from priority groups who have been identified as candidates for leadership positions. Sponsors advocate on behalf of these employees, provide them with visibility, and help them foster connections that lead to development opportunities. Different business units across the bank have implemented this program to advance the pipeline of diverse talent throughout the organization.

Engage male employees to be allies. Allies will initiate and participate in open and honest conversations about equity, diversity and inclusion, advocate for gender equity, and encourage greater sensitivity in the workplace.

Think about how you, as a leader in the organization, promote, sponsor, and enable career success.

Small/Medium Organization

McMaster Museum

McMaster Museum of Art launched a curatorial mentorship program, pairing Black, Indigenous and People of Colour art professionals with a senior curator.

Through this mentorship program, senior museum staff can guide the mentee through key activities to help them become leaders within the arts community.

Considerations for Intermediate / Advanced Organizations

Cater mentorship programs for specific priority groups to allow junior staff to see leaders “who look like them” and with whom they can relate

Definition

Microaggression

Microaggression is defined as: “A comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group” – Source: Merriam Webster

Definition

Unlearning

Unlearning is defined as: “To make an effort to forget your usual way of doing something so that you can learn a new and sometimes better way” – Source: Cambridge Dictionary

Definition

Intersectionality

Intersectionality is defined as: A framework for understanding how different aspects of a person’s social and political identities (e.g., gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, physical appearance, etc.) combine to create unique modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies advantages and disadvantages that are felt by people due to this combination of factors – Source: Kimberlé Crenshaw, TIME

Definition

Privilege

Privilege is defined as: “The unfair and unearned advantages individuals are granted for having, or being perceived to have, social identities that align with those deemed to be superior according to societal rules and norms. It is often experienced as an absence of barriers related to a particular social identity (e.g., White privilege, straight privilege)” – Source: Egale

Definition

Safe Space

Safe Space is defined as: “A place intended to be free of bias, conflict, criticism, or potentially threatening actions, ideas, or conversations” – Source: Merriam-Webster

Safe spaces allow individuals to feel comfortable having brave and honest conversations.

Definition

Emotional Tax

Emotional Tax is defined as: “The combination of feeling different from peers at work because of gender, race, and/or ethnicity, being on guard against experiences of bias, and experiencing the associated effects on health, well-being, and ability to thrive at work” – Source: Catalyst

Definition

Tokenism

Tokenism is defined as: “Performative policies that ostensibly promote diversity or equality (placing women or diverse groups in leadership positions), but do not truly have a positive impact on the workplace. Tokenism isn’t progressive, and it especially causes harm to tokenized individuals, causing extra pressure to succeed due to being perceived as representative of a group and often leaving them in an alienating work environment” – Source: Catalyst

Definition

Psychological Safety

Psychological Safety is defined as: “An environment that encourages, recognizes and rewards individuals for their contributions and ideas by making individuals feel safe when taking interpersonal risks. A lack of psychological safety at work can inhibit team learning and lead to in-groups, groupthink and blind spots” – Source: Gartner