In the September 2010 edition of Harvard Business Review, an article caught my eye.  The article was titled: Why Men Still Get More Promotions Than Women.  The context of the article was to explore why women in particular need more than 'well-meaning mentors' to advance their careers and promotion prospects.

The themes throughout the article included:

• the need for women to have stronger and more influential sponsors rather than mentors

• an exploration of the differences between mentors and sponsors

• gender differences in mentoring outcomes for males and females

• difference of formal vs informal mentoring on influencing promotions

• more women are being mentored but they are not being promoted

• the emergence of a more sponsorship focussed mentoring approach.

One very interesting aspect to this article was a table that explored the differences between mentors and sponsors.  Primarily this table of information was influenced by the research of Boston's University, Kathy Kram.  The key difference between mentors and sponsors according to Kathy Kram is that 'mentors offer psychosocial support for personal and professional development, plus career help that includes advice and coaching, while sponsors actively advocate for advancement./' (p84, HBR, September 2010).

I think the interesting aspect of this is the 'global' approach to mentoring. Traditionally, mentoring literature emanating from the USA has had more of a sponsorship 'flavour' than literature that emanates from Europe and even Australia. In fact perhaps in Australia we have actively shied away from including sponsorship as an outcome for many mainstream mentoring programs as we've sought to keep the relationship offline and just about career and professional development.  I know that in my own teaching on the role of the mentor, I've always put forward that in fact mentors need to be careful of how they speak about their mentee in any talent management forum so as not to bring a performance aspect into the mentoring conversation. But - perhaps we should rethink this a bit?

So - as you have the mentoring conversation at your workplace - are you seeking advancement outcomes for your mentees?  Perhaps the focus of the mentor role could include elements of a sponsorship role where the sponsor is actively making sure their mentee (?) is considered for opportunities and assignments that could influence their promotional aspirations.  I'll certainly be doing more thinking on this aspect of contemporary mentoring.

This article may be a useful addition for you to consider if you are putting sponsorship on the mentoring outcome agenda. To purchase the full PDF text article - go here: http://hbr.org/product/why-men-still-get-more-promotions-than-women/an/R1009F-PDF-ENG.

I'd love to hear your questions and thoughts on this topic - so do email info@thementoringcentre.com.au.

Yours in mentoring

Gilly Johnson

Director & Founder