问答题 (1) "I don't know any successful women who haven't had a powerful sponsor in their organization to give them their first big break," says Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, the boss of 20-first, a consultancy that helps companies put more women into senior jobs. That sentiment is echoed by many people who work in this field. But why do women need so much help?
Many men who climb the corporate ladder have sponsors, too. Indeed, they find it easier than women to persuade a senior colleague to sponsor them. But women need help more because they are generally more reluctant to promote themselves. They are also less likely to build up useful networks of contacts.
(2) That may help to explain why women, although they now enter white-collar jobs in much the same numbers as men in many countries, still find it so hard to get anywhere near the executive suite. A new report, "Sponsor Effect: UK", produced by the Centre for Talent Innovation (CTI), a New York think-tank, offers a detailed picture of the female talent pipeline in Britain, based on a survey of about 2,500 graduate employees, mostly of large companies. (3) It notes that although women in Britain account for 57% of new recruits to white-collar jobs, they make up just 17% of executive directors and a mere 4% of chief executives of the FTSE's 100 biggest companies.
It is not that the women lack ambition, says the report. No less than 79% of senior women in the sample said they aspired to a top job and 91% were keen to be promoted. (4) Nor, say the authors, are they necessarily held back by family responsibilities: nearly two in five of those aged 40 or over had no children. Three in five of the over-40s did have children, and talented women who quit work to raise kids are not included in the sample.
Still, the survey's main finding is striking. (5) Only 16% of the sample had sponsors, defined as people several levels above them who give them career advice, introduce them to contacts and help them get promotions. Having a sponsor dramatically improves a woman's career prospects.