Articles

Sponsorship is a vital mechanism for advancing the careers of junior employees. But it’s not just a one-way relationship in which everything flows from the sponsor to the sponsee. What sponsees bring to the relationship, in fact, is just as important — if not more important — than what sponsors do. This article describes six of the most important attributes of successful sponsees.

Sponsorship initiatives are increasingly popular today, but few sponsors are given any guidance about how best to work with the people they’ve been asked to work with, and as a result the relationships often don’t develop as productively as they should. Aspiring sponsors need more practical guidance. In this article, drawing on their long experience with sponsorship, the authors describe six important steps all sponsors should take.

Mentorship isn’t enough. To develop productive career relationships, you’ve got to be authentic.

Ingrid Covington meets Professor Herminia Ibarra to talk identity and transition across our working lives.

Sponsorship is emerging as a valuable tool for increasing diversity in an organization’s senior ranks. In this piece, Herminia and Nana von Bernuth define a number of dos and don’ts that apply specifically to the use of sponsorship to help the careers of promising employees from under-represented groups, and to boost diversity at the executive level.

In part four of Sifted’s #FutureProofonCulture, some of the most common organisational culture questions are put to Herminia Ibarra.

The lockdown we all lived through created a period in which a lot of people had the opportunity to reflect on plans for a career change. But reflection alone doesn’t get people very far. Those who are mostly likely to act during this kind of period are those who actively engage in a three-part cycle of transition — one that consists of separation, liminality and reintegration.