Blog: Why Mentors, Sponsors, and Allies Matter
Why Mentors, Sponsors, and Allies Matter
Jennifer was just promoted to a Sales Team Lead position at her company after 5 successful years as an Account Executive. She was 6 months into her new role in managing her inside sales team of 5 people who were excited to have Jennifer as their manager. She always aspired to be a manager and it was part of her personal development plan. What she didn’t realize was the challenges she would face once she was invited to the weekly manager meetings. She was the only woman at the table with 8 other managers and leaders, all men.
While she was accustomed to the dynamics being one of the only women in the sales team and primarily all the customer decision makers were men too, this did not prepare her for what she was going to experience in management meetings in her own company.
Situation #1: The Notetaker
The meeting opened with the regular niceties and then the senior leader turned to Jennifer to ask if she would take notes for the meeting. This was not the first time. Why is it that women are often asked to be the notetaker? The stigma of women being the administrators and getting coffee has not changed at all. Jennifer, trying to make her mark, just said yes as she didn’t want to rock the boat. After the meeting she asked one of her male peers if any of them have ever been asked to take notes and he said no.
Why mentoring matters: In this case, if Jennifer had an ally in that meeting, someone would have seen the inequities of the request and may have suggested that someone else take notes or that they take turns in their regular meetings. In many cases, men don’t even realize that this is a gender microaggression. As a new manager, if Jennifer had spoken up, she feared retribution. This is what Richard Branson had to say about this phenomenon.
Situation #2: The Talk Over
I know we have all heard about the combover but let’s discuss the talk over. Jennifer was excited to share her new growth plans for the inside sales team. Before she could even finish her intro, Bob, another senior sales leader, had said they had tried all of that before and it wouldn’t work and proceeded to take the floor for what he wanted to talk about. Jennifer was just talked over.
Situation #3: Your Idea Is My Idea – Hepeating
Next Jennifer took a different tactic as she knew what this team needed to grow the business. She stood up, went to the white board, and shared her plan with facts that were evidentiary for how taking an industry focus aligned with each sales rep would drive greater revenue growth. While some were keenly interested in what she had to say, Darryl from marketing said they had no money to verticalize. Then he proceeded to share how marketing would own the industry strategy and not 5 minutes later used Jennifer’s numbers to justify the need for more marketing budget to drive a vertical industry strategy. He took her idea completely and made it his own. The men leaned into Darryl’s new strategy that was born out of Jennifer’s idea. She sat down deflated as no one acknowledged that he stole her idea.
Why mentoring matters: If Jennifer had a mentor or ally in that meeting, she could have turned to them for support or better, they would have spoken up to support her original idea. We see this all the time. Jennifer could have met with her mentor in advance (if they were going to be in the same meeting) to ensure that they were going to be supportive of her new idea. Why should women have to do this? Who knew there was a whole new term called Hepeating.
Unfortunately, the above scenarios happen more often than we like to think. The WIT Network believes you all need mentors, allies, and sponsors in your life, and they will change throughout your career.
- Mentors are those people who can be your sounding board and help you in situations where you will benefit from their knowledge or expertise.
- Allies will have your back when you are being hepeated, mansplained, manterrupted, or have to listen to a manologue. There is a reason why these terms are being added to dictionaries.
- Sponsors are people who have your best interests in mind and will willingly and actively endorse you.
Join The WIT Network’s monthly mentoring circles. They are a great opportunity to discuss key topics with like-minded women. Maybe you will find a mentor, or someone will ask you to be one. Check out our What’s Happening page where our members can register to attend.