In our work coaching women, we use “scaffolding” as a metaphor to describe how each of us must create our own access to opportunities and advancement. Our scaffolding is the lattice of support we put into place around ourselves, from sponsors and advocates to peers and family members. Scaffolding supports us, gives us the confidence to think bigger and take chances. It helps us grow and increases our options exponentially.
Several women in our research mentioned the importance of surrounding ourselves with trusted support. One C-suite executive put it this way: “Getting ourselves in a position to achieve support is critical for success. We need likeminded allies by our side.”
So many other women told us, you can’t develop influence without a support scaffolding—period. Once again, we would argue that the degree of difficulty in attaining that support is higher for women than men for several reasons.
First, there are fewer women to pull us up. Research shows that leaders tend to promote people who look and act like them. In other words, men in positions of power are more likely to promote other men. At a time when only 5.8 percent of chief executives in the S&P 500 are women (http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-sp-500-companies), we are much less likely to be pulled up by the collar into leadership positions. Less face time with top leaders and less trust make gaining access and achieving influence more of a challenge for women. The same holds true for establishing support—it’s more difficult for women for these same reasons.
Next, we must forge our own path to leadership. With fewer role models and peers than men and less experience in executive leadership, it’s more difficult for women to decode the rulebook and identify a path to the top. In our research, one female C-suite banking executive put it eloquently: “Women feel like there is a ‘behind the scenes’ they are not part of.” One woman the authors interviewed, Linda, relied on a single supporter, Ed, to guide her along the path to becoming partner. She never sought additional input or asked others if Ed’s perspective was on target. She needed more information to accurately crack the code to becoming partner. Linda needed to gather input, understand the promotion landscape, and work strategically to create her own access to the next opportunity.
Finally, the higher up we go, the less feedback we get. Fully 68 percent of the senior-level women in our previous (2013) research study said they seldom receive any helpful feedback about how they perform in professional settings even when they ask. One male executive in our study admitted, “We talk about them, but not to them.”
Research in 2016 by McKinsey + Company and the LeanIn.org Institute corroborates our findings and experience. They found that women receive informal feedback less frequently than men—despite asking for it more often—and have less access to senior-level sponsors (Women in the workplace, 2016, LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company, 2016; http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/women-in-the-workplace-2016). All of this means that our access to opportunities and information is blocked, and we interact with senior leadership less, making it more difficult to sell our ideas and ourselves. Men have their scaffolding up all the time; it’s a part of the traditional business landscape. Women need to construct their scaffolding strategically in order to access top positions, lead change, and achieve impact. One female executive we interviewed said, “As women, we feel like we are on the outside. We need to reframe the situation to see ourselves on the inside.”
Strategies to Build Your Scaffolding
Building support and sponsorship takes focus. You must be intentional about reaching out beyond the group of people who already support you. Second, your relationships must be authentic and reciprocal. Focusing only on yourself never works and can backfire. Finally, building sponsorship takes time. Look at it this way. You are building trust-based relationships that will last decades. You can’t rush it.
- Create a Personal Board of Directors
Start your scaffolding with a small, manageable number of advocates and add additional supporters over time.
A compatible way to bring this idea to life is by building what we call a Personal Board of Directors. Creating a Personal Board of Directors takes the pressure off when a “big fish” is unable or unwilling to help. It’s yet another way to establish support and buy-in, and avail yourself of advice and counsel, which our interviews highlighted as a crucial part of achieving influence.
This Board is a group of people to whom you go to for support and advice on advancing your career. Ideally, they are individuals who have a strong personal and professional interest in seeing you succeed. While there is no real board table and no official meetings, these hand-picked advocates offer you access to a wider range of ideas, contacts, and support. They also understand you—your strengths as a leader and your gaps in terms of skills, knowledge, and opportunities.
Finally, creating a Personal Board of Directors will give you the confidence you need to drive change and sell disruptive ideas.
- Manage Your Mentor/Sponsor Mix
While both mentors and sponsors are critical toeholds in your scaffolding, each has its own distinct utility. It’s likely you understand that a mentor is a role model—a coach who empowers, educates, and inspires you. She/he offers advice, experience-based strategies, intelligence, and veteran insights. Sponsors, on the other hand, provide not just advice, but also access to opportunities. In other words, sponsors pull you up higher in the organization.
This difference is critical because women are “over-mentored, and under-sponsored” (https://hbr.org/2010/08/women-are-over-mentored-but-un) In an article published in Harvard Business Review, noted researchers from INSEAD and Catalyst showed that men in one study were promoted and paid more than female colleagues having the same education and experience, even though more of the women reported having mentors (https://hbr.org/2010/09/why-men-still-get-more-promotions-than-women?referral=00134). What was happening here? The men had sponsors to help them move up into higher-level jobs. The same holds true for men and women: Those who find sponsors have significantly more success in breaking into the higher rungs of a company.
The rub is that effective, high-level sponsors are far harder to find than mentors. The one best piece of advice we offer women to help them find sponsors is this: It’s a reciprocal relationship. When you find the senior executive who is ideally aligned to help you move ahead, determine how you can help him or her by being a strategic ally (https://hbr.org/2013/09/the-right-way-to-find-a-career-sponsor).
Excerpt from “The Influence Effect: A New Path to Power for Women” by Kathryn Heath, Jill Flynn, Mary Davis Holt, and Diana Faison (Berrett-Koehler, November, 2017). Women hold more than half of all professional jobs today, yet they represent just 4 percent of CEOs in the S&P 500. And that percentage has barely budged in a decade. That’s where “The Influence Effect” comes in. Based on recent research by the authors of New York Times bestseller “Break Your Own Rules,” this book begins with the premise that when it comes to political savvy, what works for men at work won’t work for women. Packed with the authors’ coaching insights and their “Big Five” strategies designed specifically for female executives, this book guides women to break past political barriers and get right to what they really want—influence. For more information, visit: https://book.flynnheath.com/
All four authors of “The Influence Effect: A New Path to Power for Women Leaders” are partners at Flynn Heath Holt Leadership (FHHL), a firm dedicated to moving women leaders forward faster. They are inspired by their Red Suit Vision, which calls for women to make up a minimum of 30 percent of all top leadership positions in corporate America by the year 2025.
Kathryn Heath is a founding partner at FHHL who develops leadership programs, coaches executives, and designs training. She specializes in identifying organizations’ specific business targets through customized programs, and working with executives and high-potential leaders at Fortune 500 companies. She co-authored “Break Your Own Rules: How to Change the Patterns of Thinking That Block Women’s Paths to Power,” which landed on the best-seller lists of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Washington Post. Before she co-founded FHHL, Heath was senior vice president and director of First University at the nation’s fourth-largest bank, First Union (now Wells Fargo), where her inventive and results-focused approach won her numerous awards in the field of learning and development.
Jill Flynn is a founding partner at FHHL and a co-author of “Break Your Own Rules.” Her work with corporate clients results in higher retention and promotion rates of their women leaders. Flynn is widely recognized for her coaching, training, speaking, and consulting expertise. She previously served as senior vice president at the nation’s fourth largest bank, First Union (now Wells Fargo), where she established its leadership development, diversity, organizational consulting, and employee satisfaction initiatives. As the corporation grew exponentially during her tenure, Flynn and her team prepared a cadre of high-potential leaders to assume senior positions. Within a three-year timeframe, the number of women in these roles increased from 9 percent to 26 percent.
Mary Davis Holt, also a partner and co-author of “Break Your Own Rules,” is an in-demand speaker who shares her insights and promotes the firm’s new rules for success to a wide range of audiences. Davis Holt is also a facilitator and executive coach, and she works with companies to plan strategies that change the culture to support women leaders. Prior to joining FHHL, Davis Holt held executive positions at Time Warner with oversight that ranged from finance to information technology, marketing, human resources, manufacturing, and distribution. She held a number of leadership roles in the publishing group, including senior executive vice president and chief operating officer of Time Life Inc.
Diana Faison is a partner at FHHL and worked with the firm as a consultant for more than 10 years prior to her partnership. She began her career as a teacher of Leadership Development studies and a dean in Student Affairs at Queens University and the University of North Carolina—Charlotte. Over the span of her career, she has coached clients in a wide range of industries, including professional services, global real estate, financial services, software development, and health care. Faison is a keynote speaker on business leadership topics such as political savvy, brand, personal power, authentic leadership, and well-being.
