The Sponsor Dividend
Sponsorship has long been understood as a powerful accelerator for rising talent. The Sponsor Dividend turns the lens around and asks what leaders gain when they invest in others. The answer is substantial: stronger teams, greater reach, better information, broader capabilities, and a leadership legacy that extends beyond their own performance.
71%
of sponsors say their primary sponsee is the same race or gender as they are
66%
of sponsors are satisfied with their ability to deliver on difficult projects
57%
of sponsors say their talent bench expands their skill sets
RESEARCH REPORT
2020
WHAT WE FOUND
01
Sponsorship is an investment
Sponsorship is more than advice or encouragement. A sponsor puts their influence and reputation behind another person.
They advocate for promotion, create visibility, open doors to important assignments and relationships, and provide air cover as a protégé takes risks and develops.
The relationship carries more risk than mentorship. It also offers greater returns to both people.
02
Sponsorship expands what leaders can do
Strong sponsees give leaders more than another pair of hands. Sponsors are more likely to be satisfied with their ability to deliver difficult projects, the strength of their talent bench, their career prospects, and their understanding of what junior colleagues are seeing and experiencing.
A strong sponsee can extend a leader's reach, bring expertise they do not have, provide candid information, and help them take on work they could not carry alone.
03
Sponsorship still follows familiarity
The benefits of sponsorship are powerful. Access to them remains uneven. Seventy-one percent of sponsors say their primary protégé is the same race or gender as they are.
When sponsorship grows informally from familiarity, leaders tend to invest in people who remind them of themselves. In organizations where leadership remains less diverse than the workforce, that pattern can reproduce existing power structures rather than broaden access to opportunity.
04
Difference can be part of the dividend
The strongest sponsee may be someone who brings something the sponsor does not have: another skill, network, perspective, management style, or understanding of customers and markets.
Yet only 23% of sponsors said they look for skills or management styles they themselves lack.
Leaders leave significant value on the table when they build a bench of people who think and operate just like they do.
FROM THE INTERVIEWS
“It dehumanizes us if we only talk about business. We have human needs. Without good relationships, I couldn't do anything.”
MALE PROFESSIONAL, POLAND
“If our leaders don't demonstrate the organization's values, why would the rest of us?”
FEMALE PROFESSIONAL, UK
“What's made me feel a lack of belonging is when I bring something to the table and get no feedback.”
FEMALE PROFESSIONAL, GERMANY
THE FRAMEWORK
The sponsor dividend
Five ways a strong sponsor-protégé relationship creates value for the sponsor as well as the protégé.
More capacity
Sponsees who consistently perform allow leaders to take on harder assignments and operate at greater scale.
66% of sponsors are satisfied with their ability to deliver on difficult projects.
A stronger bench
Sponsors are more likely to have people around them who add capabilities they themselves do not possess.
57% of sponsors say their bench of talent expands their skill sets.
A wider view
Sponsees can become trusted sources of information from parts of the organization a senior leader may no longer see clearly.
Sponsors were more than twice as likely as non-sponsors to be satisfied with their awareness of junior colleagues' concerns.
New customers and markets
A bench built across difference can expose leaders to networks, customers, and market perspectives outside their own experience.
Sponsors were more likely to say their talent bench expands their knowledge of both existing customers and potential new markets.
A lasting legacy
For senior leaders, sponsorship can become part of what they leave behind.
Employees with protégés were more than 50% more likely to be satisfied with their professional legacy than employees without.
Who advances is shaped by more than performance. It is also shaped by who is willing to put their influence behind someone else's potential.
METHOD
A national survey of 3,213 full-time white-collar professionals in the United States, an Insights In-Depth virtual focus group, and one-on-one interviews with more than 30 women and men.
The survey was conducted in January 2018 by NORC at the University of Chicago, with CTI conducting the analysis.
HOW TO CITE
Center for Talent Innovation. The Sponsor Dividend. 2019.