Getting sponsors is crucial for women who want to propel their careers into executive roles. It is true that figuring out how to get sponsored is trickier for women than men, but once you set a goal, you can work towards it systematically and consistently.
The basics of propelling your career into an executive level include finding sponsors and creating a very strong brand for yourself.
Some women in the book like to call it a gravitas, while others don’t quite confer with the idea as gravitas is usually associated with being like a man. However, you don’t need to be like a man in order to get that same level of success. You can have your own authentic leadership as a female as well.
What’s important is creating an extremely strong technical and business personal brand for yourself. Secondly, you need to build a strong network, including male allies as this field is generally dominated by men. These male allies will act as your sponsors further down the road.
The final step is taking risks and grabbing opportunities that come your way. You need to give it all your best if you want to make it in this highly competitive field. These are a few of the critical things you need to keep in mind and do if you want to climb these leadership roles. Setting goals are also very important. For instance, if you want to be VP of a company, you need to repetitively tell yourself that within five years, I want to become VP. However, affirming it to yourself isn’t enough. You need to constantly work towards it and come up with a plan, including sponsors you need to network with and influence to get there, what are the resources that you need on the way, and more. This roadmap is similar for men as well- there is not much of a difference. It’s also true that navigating the path to understand how to get sponsored is trickier for women.
The basic strategy should be to set that goal and work towards it every second. You need to be smart, organizationally aware and figure out who can be of help to you in the way and how to get sponsored by them. You need to understand that in the end, it’s a game- it’s a numbers game as well. As long as you want it badly enough, you’ll certainly get there.