Lean In – Chapter 5
This chapter discusses mentorship and sponsorship. These are
two of the buzzwords floating around the corporate women’s world. Mentorship is
great but it isn’t enough as you definitely need sponsors to help push you into
more senior positions. The problem with most is how do you go about finding a
mentor or a sponsor? Her suggestion is to work super hard and produce results
so others will want to groom you and encourage you and push you along the way.
I think if we all look around we will find that we are
surrounded with mentors. Different people who have helped us and advised us on
different things. I think people for the most part like to help and if you ask
for help or are discussing something in common and an obstacle is brought to
light it’s very natural for the person who has been there and done that to step
in and at least offer some advice or at least ask you the right questions to
help you in resolving the issue on your own. Then you have to have the sense to
recognize this person’s willingness to help and continue to maintain an honest
relationship with them.
See, the thing with me is, I like being social, going for a
drink or two but I hate ‘networking’ or ‘networking events’ as firms like to
call them. As a result, I suck at these events and am even anti-social because I
find it way too unnatural for me to build a solid friendship at a networking
event. My problem I know. Do I have to fake it to make it here as well?
But if I think about it, I definitely have mentors and I’m
sure even a sponsor or two but not in the formal sense. Is that ok? Or do we
need both formal and informal relationships to maximize our potential?
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