Of Barbara Judge, female sponsors and mentors

I had the pleasure of listening to Barbara Judge on CNN a few days ago. I cannot remember now if it was on a Christiane Amanpour programme or a Leading Women’s programme. A regal looking lady with lots of professional and academic accolades, Judge is the newly appointed chairman of the 112 years old global Institute Of Directors (IOD) London. Her forthrightness endears you to her in seconds, alongside a ‘no nonsense mien,’ which gives you a sense of what being on her opposing side will be like.

What caught my attention though, was more than these attributes; it was what she said. While speaking on CNN, she talked about her deliberate attempt of supporting women up the ladder (don’t worry, I’m sure she meant competent women). She talked about sitting over a work force of 34,000,000 with 5,000 being female, and how one of her main objective is to shore up the number of females at the IOD and hopefully in many other companies in her time as chairman.

It was the unabashed way she talked about “championing women’’ that had me glued to her annoyingly short interview. Clearly undaunted that women still make up less than a quarter of the FTSE 100 boards, she seemed well aware she had a battle ahead.

When asked about mentoring – she said: “Mentors are great and often provide guidance to help one get on the right track, but women need more than that – women need ‘sponsors.’

“Sponsors talk about you and mentors talk to you.” She then went on to reel out how everyone knows she unashamedly supports women to go up the career ladder.

It was most interesting to watch how she addressed a topic about how women in similar positions often go silent over – the matter of having a sponsor. I remember sitting at a female networking seminar where someone raised the question – specifically asking ‘why women unlike men didn’t deliberately ‘sponsor’ other women through their career.

The A -list panelist responded in various ways, and one in particular said she was genderless in being a career sponsor – she only looked out for the best persons. The other said she hadn’t thought of it and everyone ended up saying “competence has no gender.”

I couldn’t agree more, but perhaps the question wasn’t well phrased. If I were to ask it, I’d probably have said: “In a place where both gender were equally competent and there are less females at the top of the ladder – who would you give the life line to come up to the top? – maybe that would have elicited a different response.

In discussing the matter, my friend Odio told me – women are too much, too concerned about reputational implications to be sponsors; also having ‘sweated’ up the career ladder, they often aren’t in a hurry to offer a free ride to anyone.

I didn’t agree with her, but then again I didn’t have too many examples to support my argument. Oh, and for context, career sponsor is one who deliberately supports you through the career /business lines, by speaking up for you in places that count. A mentor is the one who speaks, who provides the career guidance. Views anyone? Have a great weekend.

NKIRU OLUMIDE-OJO