A senior leader is discussed in a succession meeting. Their performance is strong, colleagues trust them, and they have invested seriously in their development. Yet when a significant new role comes up, someone asks whether they have enough exposure to the executive committee. Another candidate is better known because an influential leader has brought them into strategic conversations and spoken for their readiness.

Both candidates may be capable. The difference is that one person’s capability has become visible to the people making the decision. That is where the distinction between mentorship and sponsorship becomes consequential for an organisation.

What mentoring can do, and where it stops

A mentor can help someone make sense of a difficult role, test their thinking and recognise possibilities they might otherwise miss. Those conversations can be formative. A mentor may also make introductions or advocate for someone; real relationships rarely fit tidy definitions.

Sponsorship describes a particular use of influence. A sponsor puts someone forward for an assignment, gives their contribution visibility in a decision room, or argues for their readiness when an opportunity is being allocated. The decisive action may happen when the person being discussed is absent.

Development changes what a leader can do. Sponsorship can change who gets the chance to see it.

This matters when organisations count mentoring relationships as evidence that emerging leaders are being supported. The relationships may be valuable, while the route from development to opportunity remains unclear. Someone can receive thoughtful advice for years and still be missing from the conversations in which stretch assignments, appointments and succession choices take shape.

Who becomes visible to decision makers?

@Lean In and McKinsey People & Organization‘s Women in the Workplace 2025 report offers one view of the access gap in US corporate workplaces. Among entry-level employees surveyed, 31% of women reported having a sponsor, compared with 45% of men. The report also found that women at that level were less likely to have a senior colleague put them forward for promotion or connect them with someone who could help their career. These findings concern an early career population; they do not establish the size of a sponsorship gap in every senior leadership group. They do show why access deserves attention well before a succession decision is made. Source: https://leanin.org/report/women-in-the-workplace/

Catalyst Inc. draws a related distinction in its sponsorship research: mentoring contributes to development, while sponsors use influence to help people obtain visible assignments, promotions or roles. The point is not that every promising leader needs a formally assigned sponsor. It is that organisations need to understand how advocacy actually happens and whose work becomes known through it. Source: https://www.catalyst.org/en-us/insights/2025/why-sponsorship-programs-are-important Source: https://www.catalyst.org/en-us/insights/2025/why-sponsorship-programs-are-important

At senior levels, visibility can be mistaken for readiness. A leader who has repeatedly presented to the executive committee may be easier to imagine in a larger role than someone whose equally work has happened elsewhere in the business. The first leader may well be the stronger candidate. The organisation still needs to know whether it is judging demonstrated capacity or familiarity.

When opportunity depends on informal advocacy

Informal sponsorship can be powerful. Leaders notice strong work, take a calculated risk on someone and put their own credibility behind that person. Trying to remove personal judgment from such decisions would miss something essential about leadership.

The difficulty arises when nobody examines the pattern those judgments create. Who is invited into the meetings where strategic work becomes visible? Who gets a demanding assignment with enough authority and support to succeed? Whose name is raised in succession conversations, and what evidence accompanies it? A sponsorship initiative can increase the number of relationships without changing these underlying choices.

An organisation reveals its sponsorship practices through the opportunities it allocates, not the relationships it names.

This gives sponsors, talent leaders and decision makers a more useful question than whether the organisation has enough mentors. They can look at the path from demonstrated capability to credible opportunity. That includes the criteria used to allocate assignments, the evidence brought into succession discussions and the conditions surrounding a leader once they are given a larger mandate.

Mentorship helps people grow. Sponsorship brings influence to bear on opportunity. Leadership investment becomes more meaningful when an organisation can see how both operate, and can account for who gains access to the work through which future leaders become known.

About the author

Helena Demuynck is the founder of oxygen4leadership. Her executive advisory work examines leadership effectiveness, executive positioning and transitions in the context of the organisational conditions surrounding senior roles.

https://www.oxygen4leadership.com

The Leadership Agenda is published on Tuesdays: https://shor.by/NLLA. Helena also writes oxygen4leadership for executive leaders on Thursdays: https://shor.by/NLO4L, and The Executive Transition Brief on Fridays: https://shor.by/NLETB.