103: How Black Introvert Women Attract Career Sponsors To Get Promoted

What if the fastest path to your next promotion isn’t more meetings, louder networking, or another mentor—but a sponsor who bets on your potential because you make their strategy stronger?  In this episode we share a clear, psychology-backed method for attracting real sponsorship—without being someone you’re not and without burning through your energy on endless small talk.

We also unpack the three triggers that make senior leaders step up for you.

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LET’S CONNECT!

*Want guided help to put this into action? Join our Secure Your Sponsor 4-week challenge starting November 1—free this round. 

Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a sponsor, and leave the podcast a 5-star review telling us which leader you’ll approach first.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hi, lady leaders, and welcome to this week's episode of The Leading Her Introvert Way. I'm Dr. Nicole Bryan, and I am your hostess with the most. I am back stateside. So if you listened to last week's episode, you know that I was traveling in Europe. I had the pleasure of visiting Prague and Vienna, Austria. Both of those cities were absolutely, absolutely gorgeous. Traveling is one of my pastimes. It's one of my favorite, absolute favorite things to do. And honestly, I've been traveling since I was four years old. And it definitely helps that my family is from another country. My family is from Barbados, West Indies. And so I got to travel back and forth every summer, frankly, until I was about 16 years old to Barbados. And since then I've had the travel bug. It has been my absolute pleasure to be able to travel to over 80 countries in this world. And frankly, being a leader and working in large and small corporations have actually helped me to keep and fund that hobby, right? It is not cheap to be able to travel. And one of the things that I have done in my past is I've actually chosen roles and chosen to work for global companies so that I could travel on the company's dime. Now you might be thinking, why is she sharing all this? And it's because one of the things that I always talk about and share with you is that as you move up in your leadership career, one of the things that you want to do is you want to be strategic, not just about serving as a leader to your team, to the company andor organization that you work for, but you want to be strategic about the decisions that you make regarding your own career, right? When you have a vision for what you want your life to be like, that puts you in a better position to make decisions that will serve not only others, but also serve you. And for me, one of those things has always been travel. I want to be able to go and see new different places. It's one way that I learn. And so not always having to spend my own money doing it. And when I'm working for a global company, that means that I am, I have customers or internal clients that are abroad or outside of the United States, which naturally leads to me needing to stay in contact with them, right? And being able to visit, speak to them, lead them in person versus only virtually. So when I worked for Citibank, Philip Morris, T Row Price, and a few other organizations, I was frequently on a plane that took me to new and different places. So my love of travel has been something that's been a part of my life since I was a little girl. But I've also chosen roles and chosen to work for organizations that could help me continue to explore that passion of mine. You can do the same thing. Okay, that's not actually the topic of today's conversation. But as I was talking about it and sharing that I went to Prague and Vienna, it dawned on me that, you know, there's a connection here to being a leader. There's a connection here to growing your career. And I just wanted to kind of point that out. But today's topic, before we actually get into it, I did also want to announce that on November 1st, I am going to be hosting a four-week challenge. And today's episode is actually sponsored by that challenge, which is called the Secure Your Sponsor Challenge. Now, I am doing this challenge because so many of you struggle with identifying a sponsor, talking to sponsors, having conversations with sponsors, and asking sponsors to support your career growth. And I think that's for a number of different reasons. And I too remember having a great deal of problems with this when I first started out in my career. And so what I think is going to help you, and what I've seen help my clients is walking you step by step through securing a sponsor. And it doesn't matter if you already have a sponsor or if you have someone in mind. What we will be doing in this four-week challenge is every week we are going to focus on a different aspect. So the first week we're going to be doing and figuring out what your criteria is for a sponsor and why you want to sponsor. The next week, we're going to identify prospects or prospective sponsors inside and outside of your company. The third week, we're actually going to strategize how you're going to approach each sponsor. And then the fourth week, you'll be doing it, right? So that you will be securing your sponsor. So literally, the program is set up to walk you through step by step and have you be accountable for each step of the process so that we remove all the question marks that you have from it. And so that you have me and other leaders who are going to be joining the challenge around you to support you as you make this important step in your career. So, with that said, that is, we are going to be launching the secure your sponsor challenge on November 1st. It is currently at no cost to you. The only cost will be your time and your energy. And this is likely going to be the only time that I offer this at no cost. So I would strongly encourage you, whether you have no sponsors right now or you have sponsors, but you need more sponsors, to go to the show notes, click the link, and sign up. We start November 1st. It's going to be for four weeks, and it's going to be bomb. All right, now we move on to today's topic. So today's topic is related to securing your sponsor. Because one of the things that I always hear from my clients, particularly when they are to just starting to understand how much benefit having a sponsor can be to their career growth, is that there's this hesitancy or fear or doubt that someone would even want to sponsor them. Like they can't wrap their heads around why a senior leader, senior executive would even want to invest in their success. Right. So I remember a couple of years ago, I was having a conversation with a woman who was a vice president. And what she said to me was that she knew she needed sponsors. So she was already aware of how much having sponsors could benefit her current day and in the future when it comes to her career. She had told me that she had read a number of different articles, she's heard all of the advice, and she's seen how in her company other people have sponsors and how much it has done for them. But that she didn't know how to actually get a sponsor. And one of her biggest fears and her biggest concerns was: does she just walk up to an executive vice president and say, hey, will you be my sponsor? Because she felt like that would seem so desperate. And I remember sitting there and listening to her. And in my mind, I was like, yeah, I can see exactly how that would feel desperate, right? When you don't know how to really approach someone. So today I want to pull back the curtain on what actually attracts sponsors, right? And spoiler alert, it has nothing to do with desperate asks or being fake or trying to network with 50 million people. So here's what nobody tells you about sponsors. And this might be a hard pill to swallow, but they do not sponsor you because you asked nicely. They sponsor you because there's something in it for them too. Now, I know that might sound transactional, but hear me out. Research from organizational psychology, which is literally what I specialize in, is what I've studied, it reveals three things that makes someone want to sponsor you. The first is perceived similarity. Now, before you think, okay, great, as a black woman, I am totally screwed. Hold on, okay? This isn't about looking alike. When we say similarity or perceived similarity, we're talking about shared values, thinking styles, approaches to problem solving. I had a client, Denise, who found her strongest sponsor was a white man. Zero, completely no demographic overlap there. But they both had this analytical data-driven approach to challenges. So she consciously highlighted that shared thinking style in their interactions, and boom, she was able to build a foundation with him. The second thing that makes people want to sponsor you is risk management. So when someone sponsors you, they're putting their reputation on the line. If you succeed, you make them look freaking brilliant. If you fail, their judgment gets questioned. So they need to feel really confident that supporting you enhances their reputation rather than threatens their standing in the organization. I had another client, Aisha. She built what she called proof points. So she documented examples of handling sensitive situations with discretion and effectiveness. She was systematically building her sponsor's confidence that she was a safe bet. And the third reason someone will want to sponsor you is because of reciprocal value. Now, let's be clear, this does not mean tit-for-tat favors. It means understanding what your potential sponsor cares about and how your skills can authentically advance their priorities. My client, Michelle, became invaluable to her sponsor by providing thoroughly researched competitive insights that he used in and strategy discussions. She became his secret weapon, which worked for her because she wasn't one of those people who wanted to be out front. She didn't necessarily want all the accolades, right? She didn't like being in the limelight. But what she did love was being kind of part of the insider conversations. She enjoyed being able to provide the information and letting him be out front. So it was like a perfect match for her. So you see, when you are seeking a sponsor, it's not about begging. They get something out of it, you get something out of it. So it is a strategic decision on your put on your behalf. So knowing the psychology is one thing. But how do you actually attract them, right? That's probably where your mind is going right now. So let me break down what works, especially for introverted Black women. Value first visibility is something that you're going to hear me talk about over and over and over again. So instead of trying to network broadly, which completely exhausts us, right? Because we all hate it. We cringe, we run away from it, we avoid it. It sucks. Instead of doing that, instead of trying to network broadly, you can identify organizational challenges that your potential sponsors care about. Then you can create value around those challenges in a visible way. One of my clients noticed that her potential sponsor struggled with making their team's technical work understandable to senior leadership. So what did she do? She created a simple one-page visualization framework that translated technical metrics into business outcomes. She then took that document to a team meeting and she shared it. It caught his attention immediately. So what started out as a conversation about the framework evolved into a significant sponsorship relationship. Here's some stats that you need to know. 65% of people with sponsors got a raise in the past year versus 56% who only had mentors. Women with sponsors are 46% more likely to ask for and receive raises than women with just mentors. And here's the best one of all only 4% of black women have access to senior level sponsors compared to 13% of white women. That gap, it is not fate. It is not because, oh, that's just the way it is. It's because that's a strategy that we weren't taught. But yet our peers, our white peers, are using it every single day to get themselves advanced. The next idea I want to share with you is selective engineering, right? Remember, we're talking now about what you could actually be doing to attract sponsors. So with selective presence, this is about strategically choosing where you allocate your limited energy as an introvert for maximum impact. You don't need to be visible everywhere to everyone about everything. I'm gonna say that again because honestly, I feel like so many of us buy into the hype that we see and hear in our companies, but you do not. You do not need to be visible everywhere to everyone about everything. What you need to do is identify the specific context where your potential sponsors are most likely to notice and value your contribution. Taking this approach naturally aligns to how we as introverts operate because we are not small talk experts, we are deep conversation masters. We don't work the room, but we do work the relationship. And that's exactly what sponsors need. Here's what I need you to understand: your being introverted is not a liability in building sponsor relationships. It's actually the thing that will give you an advantage over everybody else. So think about it. Sponsors, they want depth. They're not interested in surface level connections. Sponsors want thoughtful analysis, not a constant chit-chat. Sponsors want someone who listen more than they talk. And sponsors want solutions, not just problems. That is literally, as introverts, that is literally how we operate. That is our operating system. Employees with sponsors are 53% more likely to receive promotions. And that's a quote from that's a statistic from Catalyst's research uh last year. But introverts who understand how to leverage their natural strengths, they build stronger, more authentic sponsor relationships than extroverts who are just working the room. So what that means for you is that you don't need to change who you are. You need to understand how to position who you are. Okay, look, if what I've shared today has you thinking, all right, Nicole, I get the psychology and I understand the stats, but I still don't know exactly how to do this at my company, then I've got you. My secure your sponsor four-week challenge starts on November 1st, and we go deep into how to identify potential sponsors who align with your goals, the exact approach strategies that work for introverts, language frameworks that you can use in different scenarios, and how to provide value first before asking for anything. This is the only time this challenge is going to be offered at no cost. So stop hoping to be discovered and start being strategic about building the relationships that accelerate everything for you. Click the link in the show notes and I'll see you in the challenge. Until next time, lady leader. Keep leading your introvert way.