Grace Chon

How to Do Sponsorship Right

Herminia Ibarra Career Management,   Leadership Harvard Business Review

Mentoring programs operate under the promise that matching seasoned executives with up-and-coming professionals will produce all sorts of benefits. Unfortunately, relationships often remain superficial and transactional. These problems have only gotten worse with remote and hybrid work, which makes meaningful personal interaction difficult.

To reap the full benefits of developmental relationships and create “authentic sponsorship,” companies must focus on two vital qualities: public advocacy and relational authenticity. Public advocacy is a one-way process by which “seniors” use their power to help “juniors” get career opportunities. It produces visible and measurable outcomes, such as promotions and stretch assignments. Relational authenticity is a two-way process in which both parties share their perspectives and make themselves open to hearing and learning from each other. Juniors get the support and validation they need to take on new challenges, and seniors understand where their juniors’ capabilities and talents lie and care enough about them to put their own reputations on the line.

This article lays out the various stages of the journey to authentic sponsorship: mentor, strategizer, connector, opportunity giver, and sponsor.

Reinventing your career in the time of coronavirus

HERMINIA IBARRA Career Management HBR

Unexpected events or shocks disrupt our habitual routines, jolt us out of our comfort zones, and lead us to ask big questions about what matters and what is worth doing. It’s no wonder, then, that during the current pandemic, many people are rethinking their careers. But is this really the right time? Even for those of us lucky enough not …

A 5-Part Process for Using Technology to Improve Your Talent Management

Herminia Ibarra and Patrick Petitti Career Management HBR

At the law firm Allen & Overy, the idea of replacing traditional, annual performance appraisals with a technology-enabled continuous feedback system did not come from human resources. It came from a leader within the practice. Wanting something that encouraged more-frequent conversations between associates and partners, the senior lawyer read about what companies like Adobe were doing, and then asked his …

Work pressure demands more downtime than a fleeting week off

Herminia Ibarra Career Management The Financial Times

Sabbaticals are one sign of a need for respite but even they can be too busy, writes Herminia Ibarra The month of August, that hallowed time when Latin Europe grinds to a sunny halt, concludes with September’s good intentions to sustain the summer’s healthier habits. Rapidly we revert to form. Finnish researcher Jessica de Bloom’s analysis shows the feelings of …

Freedom or identity crisis? The portfolio career mystery

Herminia Ibarra Career Management The Financial Times

Taking on a variety of roles is not easy, especially when young, writes Herminia Ibarra “My friends tell me I’m too young to have a portfolio career,” confessed one of my former MBA students when I asked what he was up to. Recently, he had left a lifetime career in finance to pursue a mix of things: some private investments, …

Why Companies Are So Bad at Treating Employees Like People

Herminia Ibarra Career Management Harvard Business Review

Few disagree that the time is ripe for reimagining complex organizations so that they are more human and more agile. But existing models for how to make the shift seem to offer a choice between a rock and a hard place. Take the thorny problem of developing people. Anachronistic annual performance appraisal systems, everyone agrees, must give way to more …

Between a rock and a hard place

Herminia Ibarra Career Management Drucker Society Europe Blog

Few disagree that the time is ripe for reimagining complex organizations so that they are more human and more agile. But, existing models for how to make the shift seem to offer a choice between a “rock and a hard place.” Take the thorny problem of developing people. Anachronistic annual performance appraisal systems, everyone agrees, must give way to more …

How HR should reinvent leadership development

Herminia Ibarra Career Management,   Leadership HR Magazine

HR professionals rely too much on formal training for leadership development. More strategic ways of learning and experiences outside the norm will help create future leaders. While study after study shows that increasing leadership capacity remains at the top of most firms’ strategic priorities, the same reports find that most companies’ leadership development efforts fail to deliver on expectations. HR …

Tech tools to measure performance can fall short

Herminia Ibarra Career Management The Financial Times

Benjamin Franklin could be considered a pioneer of the modern “quantified self” approach to personal improvement. In the late 18th century, he famously used a chart to monitor his behaviour, including acts of virtue, and reviewed his record of daily activities every night. In the Fitbit era, companies have a dizzying array of tech tools for setting and tracking work …