PROTÉGÉ APPLICATION

THE ROLE OF THE PROTÉGÉ

While sponsorship can open doors for high-performing individuals, simply providing someone with an opportunity does not guarantee success. It’s up to you to deliver once given the opportunity.

• Take ownership of your role as a Protégé. It’s your responsibility to ensure meetings are scheduled, to prepare the agenda, and ensure you get the most out of your sponsorship. Your Amplifier is lending their time to support your growth, so make it easy on them!

• Be receptive to honest and candid feedback about what you need to do and where you need to change what you’re doing to get to where you want to be.

• Make no mistake, Amplifiers are earned. Your talent, consistent high performance, visibility, and collegiality are what secure sponsorship in the first place. These same elements also keep your Amplifier committed to advocating for you.

• Strive to be a “known entity.” Make your work, strengths, and skills evident to those around you, as well as those above you.

• Look for opportunities for enhanced visibility. This may include volunteering, attending conferences, or organizing networking activities where influential leaders are present.

• Communicate effectively, be it during presentations, meetings, or conversations with leaders, peers, and subordinates. Your communication style forms a lasting impression.

• Make efforts to build a reputation as a respected colleague: be reliable, flexible when it’s required, and collegial. Demonstrate your ongoing commitment to your career development. For example, express interest in training or leadership development, take on a leadership role in a professional network, and share what you have learned.

• Prepare an elevator speech that offers a clear and concise summary of your current projects, your unique value-add to the organization, and your passion for the work, and be ready to share with senior-level individuals when appropriate opportunities arise.

• Take the time to examine your skills, growth areas, and interests to gain a clear picture of what you want career-wise. Understanding where you want to go is an important part of positioning yourself to make it happen.

• Make efforts to assess and manage your professional reputation and perceptions of both your strengths and weaknesses; ask for and take action on feedback.

• Be ready to take advantage of opportunities when they are offered. If possible, talk through any hesitations with your Amplifier to better understand the value of particular opportunities to your career.

• Find ways to consistently inform your Amplifier about your accomplishments. Send a brief update on a project just completed or forward an email from your manager on a job well done to keep your Amplifier in the loop regarding your achievements.

• Thank your Amplifier for their efforts, and find ways to support and add value for them. For example, connect your Amplifier to individuals in your growing network, or volunteer to support activities or projects they are spearheading.

Please keep in mind:

• Remember that you are the primary architect of your career. Amplifiers are invaluable catalysts for career advancement and growth, but you are in control of your career, including your decisions and the related consequences.

• Recognize that your actions and performance impact both you and your Amplifier.

• Maintain reasonable expectations for the relationship, and guard against developing an expectation that opportunities will come effortlessly as a result of sponsorship.

• Understand that Amplifiers may not be able to advocate for you in every situation.

• Consider paying it forward. You can help build a culture of sponsorship by doing for others what your Amplifier has done for you. As you progress, look for high performers you could be in a position to help. You don’t need to be at the very top of an organization to sponsor someone.

BENEFITS FOR PROTÉGÉS

Active participation in sponsorship helps Protégés:

• Develop skills that support advancement and leadership.

• Gain visibility through participation in new work opportunities.

• Meet unique executive challenges. The sophisticated type of advice and coaching Amplifiers helps Protégés make the leap to work successfully through unique situations and challenges that arise, particularly at the executive level.

• Determine where, when, and how to make strategic contributions within the movement.

• Mitigate the perceived risk of moving into a new role or organization.

• Recognize the value-add to their career. Amplifiers also provide needed guidance around opportunities necessary to a Protégé’s desired career path.