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Construct Your Scaffolding

Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable.

—KENYAN PROVERB

Linda was ambitious. Her dream was to become the first female partner at the elite industrial design and architectural firm where she worked. The wheels were in motion, and there was little question in her mind that it would happen. Her boss had singled her out, groomed her, and assured her that the promotion was all but inevitable.

Getting to this lofty perch had been no walk in the park for Linda. She worked hard in college and completed a top master’s degree program in two years. She went on to become an intern at the firm, where she worked long hours for low pay. She completed the grueling state licensing exams, passing on her first try. The firm could see that Linda was a rising star, and they hired her as an associate.

She continued to work lengthy hours, including nights and weekends. In time, Linda grew weary of the dizzying pace, year after year. After a time, she found herself mired down by the lack of a clear career path and the crazy hours. Linda knew she needed help. Fortunately, she found a strong advocate to help her advance: Ed, her boss and a senior partner. Ed took an interest in Linda’s career and began mentoring her. She worked closely with Ed over a period of years, attending to his clients and acting as his right hand during deal negotiations. She even managed Ed’s top client—the firm’s largest account.

Ed showered her with ongoing praise and continued to assure her that he was the only sponsor she needed, saying, “I’m your way in. You’re going to take on my clients and be my replacement when I retire. It’s a done deal.”

Then the unexpected happened. Without warning, there were some “organizational changes” and Ed’s retirement became imminent. Linda heard the news at the same moment everyone else did, in a company memorandum. Although she was surprised that Ed was retiring so soon, she wasn’t particularly worried. She and Ed had a long-standing agreement. She had done her part and he had worked it all out . . . right?

Unfortunately, multiple events transpired at once. First, numerous senior partners stepped forward with mentees and protégés of their own, whom they hoped to promote when the spot opened up. Next, it became clear to Linda that Ed never made their plans explicit to the other partners. He never fully secured their buy-in, and none of the others knew Linda especially well. Finally, Linda received word from the partnership committee that she was being deferred as a partner candidate for that year. Yes, Ed was replaced, but not by Linda. Linda eventually resigned to accept a more promising role at another firm.

THE UNWRITTEN RULE: Construct Your Scaffolding

It would be easy to blame Ed for his role in Linda’s career debacle. Yet, Linda herself admitted to us that she had done very little to proactively manage her own future. Her biggest mistake was relying on a single sponsor and naïvely waiting in line for her big promotion.

In our work coaching women, we use scaffolding as a metaphor to describe how each of us must create our own access to opportunities and advancement. Our scaffolding is the lattice of support that we put into place around ourselves, from sponsors and advocates to peers and family members (Figure 6). Scaffolding supports us, gives us the confidence to think bigger and take chances. It helps us grow and increases our options exponentially.

FIGURE 6 Where Is Your Scaffolding?

Several women in our study mentioned the importance of surrounding oneself with trusted support. One C-suite executive put it this way: “Getting ourselves in a position to achieve support is critical for success. We need like-minded allies by our side.”

As Betty Thompson and so many other women told us, you can’t develop influence without support scaffolding—period. Once again, we would argue that the degree of difficulty in attaining that support is higher for women than men for several reasons.

FIRST, THERE ARE FEWER WOMEN TO PULL US UP. Research shows that leaders tend to promote people who look and act like them. In other words, men in positions of power are more likely to promote other men. At a time when only 5.8 percent of chief executives in the S&P 500 are women,¹ we are much less likely to be pulled up by the collar into leadership positions. Less face time with top leaders and less trust both make gaining access and achieving influence more of a challenge for us. It’s more difficult for women to establish support for these same reasons.

NEXT, WE MUST FORGE OUR OWN PATH TO LEADERSHIP. With fewer role models and peers than men and less experience in executive leadership, it’s more difficult for women to decode the rulebook and identify a path to the top. In our research, one female C-suite banking executive put it eloquently: “Women feel like there is a ‘behind the scenes’ that they are not part of.” Linda relied on a single supporter, Ed, to guide her along the path to becoming partner. She never sought additional input or asked others if Ed’s perspective was on target. She needed more information to accurately crack the code to becoming partner. She needed to gather input, understand the promotion landscape, and work strategically to create her own access to the next opportunity.

FINALLY, THE HIGHER UP WE GO, THE LESS FEEDBACK WE GET. Fully 68 percent of the senior-level women in our previous (2013) study said they seldom receive any helpful feedback about how they perform in professional settings, even when they ask. One male executive in our study admitted, “We talk about them, but not to them.”

Research in 2016 by McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org corroborates our findings and experience. They found that women receive informal feedback less frequently than men—despite asking for it more often—and have less access to senior-level sponsors.² This means that our access to opportunities and information is blocked, and we interact with senior leadership less, making it more difficult to sell our ideas and advocate for ourselves. Men have their scaffolding up all the time; it’s a part of the traditional business landscape. Women need to construct their scaffolding strategically in order to access top positions, lead change, and achieve impact. One female executive we interviewed said, “As women, we feel like we are on the outside. We need to reframe the situation to see ourselves on the inside.”

LIMITING BELIEFS That Weaken Our Access

The systemic challenges mentioned above make creating an infrastructure of support and reinforcement an ongoing necessity. Putting that idea into action, however, starts within each of us. We can begin by recognizing and addressing patterns of thinking that make it more difficult for us to access opportunities.

“One sponsor is all I need”

True sponsorship, according to Sylvia Ann Hewlett, is not “sideline cheerleaders” but “center-ring champions.”³ Linda’s clearest miscalculation was relying on a single sponsor. She was told by Ed that she would be elevated to partner without question. He was the leader on the firm’s largest client; he would be retiring “soon”; and he had chosen her to replace him. But that never came to pass. Linda funneled her effort and trust into one relationship and it backfired. Her playbook had only one play. Trust and loyalty are important attributes, but they can leave you exposed and without support. It’s far better to have several sponsors and advocates who compose your scaffolding of support—they will provide multiple perspectives and opinions. This is especially important if you know one of your sponsors is exiting the company. In Linda’s case, she found out after the fact that Ed was too busy managing the details of his impending retirement to lobby on her behalf. Even more, as a lame duck, he didn’t have the political capital to deliver on his big promise.

We coach women to be aware that sponsors have goals and priorities of their own, and sometimes they simply don’t align with ours in the moment. Ed was Linda’s direct supervisor, so he was well placed to help her succeed. But it’s even better to have additional sponsors and supporters at the highest levels across an organization.

“I’ll wait my turn”

Linda believed that her time was coming. She worked hard, followed Ed’s lead, and put in her time while waiting to make partner. She never made her desires widely known or asserted her intentions. This exemplifies a dual dynamic that we encounter frequently in our coaching work.

First, many female executives don’t want to be perceived as overly ambitious—or “pushy”—so we wait politely for our big break instead of actively lobbying for support. Despite the impact of equality provisions such as Title IX, research shows that many girls are socialized at home and in school to be nice—nicer than boys. A study by Diane Reay, professor of education at the University of Cambridge, discovered that teachers and other authority figures in the classroom at one time discouraged assertive behavior in girls but reinforced it in boys. Reay says that the different ways teachers treated each gender at the time supported the idea that bad behavior in a girl should be considered a “character defect,” whereas in boys it is to be viewed as “a desire to assert themselves.”⁴ Many of us still carry this perception with us to work.

The second dynamic at play here is risk aversion. Although some women are far more willing to take risks than others, research supports the idea that women may indeed be more risk averse than men in professional settings, perhaps because we have less leadership tenure and fewer role models.⁵ However, when you build the right scaffolding, it provides the support you need to be bold and assertive. At Linda’s next firm, she made it perfectly apparent—in words, deeds, and accomplishments—that her primary career objective was to become a partner and that any other path was not a part of her plan.

“I should not ask for help”

Asking for help (mentorship, sponsorship, and so on) is not in every woman’s wheelhouse, and yet we do it in our personal lives regularly. Who is the best dentist? Where should my children go to school? What are the best neighborhoods in which to live? We are accustomed to multitasking and making things happen in other parts of our lives, but asking for help in our professional lives can make us feel exposed or weak.

Interestingly, men don’t seem to share this particular hang-up. Although stereotypically they don’t like stopping for directions on the street, they have no qualms about asking each other for professional support, favors, and other assistance on the job. In our interviews, dozens of women and men remarked that “men have each other’s backs” and routinely engage in “quid pro quo deals” to help each other succeed. Men ask each other for help because they know that it goes both ways—when they ask for help, they will eventually offer support in return.

The pertinent idea here is that asking is a sign of strength rather than weakness. Ask for help from the people in your support scaffolding. When you ask for support, you are proposing a deal that will benefit both parties.

STRATEGIES to Build Your Scaffolding

Kay had a clear goal: “I know that I eventually want one of the top jobs.”

After a while, she mustered the courage to tell her mentor about her goal. He reassured her that he thought she had what it took to take on a senior-level role. “Those jobs are hard to get,” he said. “You will need broad support and sponsorship. You’d better start working on that now.”

Kay was known as someone who was creative, could solve problems, and could get things done. However, she needed to raise her profile internally. So she got to work. She volunteered to help a senior leader in another department plan to execute a large annual client conference. She asked her mentor to nominate her to be on a division-wide committee. She spent time with colleagues across the division. She continued to do excellent work and shared credit with others.

Slowly but surely, Kay built sponsorship and support across the company. She created trusting relationships before they were needed.

A couple of years later, when it came time for a senior-level job to be filled, Kay had colleagues and sponsors who spoke up for her and supported her. She reached her career goal of having a seat at the leadership table.

There are some key lessons here. First, building support and sponsorship takes focus. You must be intentional about reaching out beyond the group of people who already support you. Second, your relationships must be authentic and reciprocal. Focusing only on yourself never works and can backfire. Finally, building sponsorship takes time. Look at it this way: You are building trust-based relationships that will last decades. You can’t rush it.

1. Create a personal board of directors

As we saw with Linda, one advocate is never enough, even if that person is a senior-level sponsor. We coach women to work their relationship maps and cultivate multiple advocates, up and down their career scaffolding, at various levels of the organization. Start your scaffolding with a small, manageable number of advocates and add additional supporters over time.

A compatible way to bring this idea to life is by building what we call a personal board of directors. Creating this board takes the pressure off when a big fish (like Ed) is unable or unwilling to help. It’s yet another way to establish support and buy-in and avail yourself of advice and counsel, which our interviews highlighted as a crucial part of achieving influence.

This board is a group of people whom you go to for support and advice on advancing your career. Ideally, they are individuals who have a strong personal and professional interest in seeing you succeed. While there is no real board table and no official meetings, these handpicked advocates offer you access to a wider range of ideas, contacts, and support. They also understand you—your strengths as a leader and your gaps in terms of skills, knowledge, and opportunities.

Finally, creating a personal board of directors will give you the confidence you need to drive change and sell disruptive ideas. As we saw with Kay, the effort it takes to create strategic support scaffolding pays off, dramatically improving your odds of success.

FIGURE 7 Your Personal Board of Directors

Think about the people who can guide you, help you, and challenge you. Put their names in the chairs in Figure 7 and assemble a group that can help you navigate your career. Your larger scaffolding will grow from your personal board of directors. For the rest of this chapter, we’ll take a closer look at the people in these chairs and how they make up your scaffolding.

2. Manage your mentor/sponsor mix

While both mentors and sponsors are critical toeholds in your scaffolding, each group has its own distinct utility. It’s likely that you understand that a mentor is a role model—a coach who empowers, educates, and inspires you. He or she offers advice, experience-based strategies, intelligence, and veteran insights. Sponsors, on the other hand, provide not just advice but also access to opportunities. In other words, sponsors pull you up higher in the organization.

This difference is critical because women are “over-mentored, and undersponsored.”⁶ In an article published in the Harvard Business Review, noted researchers from INSEAD and Catalyst showed that men in one study were promoted and paid more than female colleagues who had the same education and experience, even though more of the women reported having mentors.⁷ What was happening here? The men had sponsors to help them move up into higher-level jobs. The same principle holds true for men and women: those who find sponsors have significantly more success in breaking into the higher levels of a company.

The rub is that effective, high-level sponsors are far harder to find than mentors. The best piece of advice we offer women to help them find sponsors is this: it’s a reciprocal relationship. When you find the senior executive who is ideally aligned to help you move ahead, determine how you can help him or her by being a strategic ally.⁸ In Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s book Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor, she suggests that you should meet all of your sponsor’s deadlines, generate outstanding results, and generally make your sponsor look good. You should also be fluent in sharing your accomplishments so your sponsor can recite them to others.⁹

Mentors are important (particularly when we are starting out in business), but sponsors serve to strengthen our scaffolding and add the type of support that we need to access opportunities that would otherwise be beyond our reach.

3. Find an agent, truth teller, and personal supporter

Mentors and sponsors are critical supporters in your scaffolding, but there are others to consider.

The agent. One of our clients, Lynn, told us something her new boss shared with her during her recent performance review. Her boss had just traveled to a conference with one of Lynn’s direct reports, Glenn. During the flight, she asked him straight out, “So, what kind of leader is Lynn?” Glenn gushed, saying, “Oh, I’ve never had a better boss. She’s great at developing our team, and she really cares about us and our work . . . and she’s already working to implement your agenda for you.”

Lynn told us, “I couldn’t have prompted him to say nicer things about me.” And she didn’t need to prompt him. Glenn was one of Lynn’s agents. Agents are the colleagues you are allied with at all levels of the organization. They appreciate you and trust you enough to vouch for you and promote you to peers. Agents are a positive by-product of all the relationships that you cultivate across your network. Agents don’t require as much effort as sponsors; they simply require nurturing, as in any solid relationship. Your very best agents (we call them super agents) proactively look for opportunities to help you out by giving you important company intelligence and mentioning your name strategically in conversations.

The truth teller. Truth tellers are exactly what they sound like: the trusted allies who tell it like it is. They give you the unvarnished truth and say things to your face that no one else will. They are the ones who look you in the eye when you are up for a promotion and tell you, “If you don’t work on your leadership skills you will never move up.” Or, after a crucial presentation, “It went okay, but next time make eye contact and speak slowly.” We may not always want to hear it, but the truth teller can jolt us back to reality.

Kay had a truth teller who saved her skin during the marketing reorganization. She was busy building her scaffolding, yet there was a mounting insurrection underfoot. A group of marketing associates feared losing their jobs in the reorganization, and they launched a negative campaign against Kay. Fortunately, she had a truth teller to confide exactly what was happening and why. Until then, Kay had no idea her plans were upsetting a vital cohort. In truth, their jobs were safe, but Kay had not communicated her intentions sufficiently, and her truth teller told her as much. Kay sprang to action, met with the naysayers, and put out the fire.

Having at least one truth teller as an advocate may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s not always the case. As they say, “the truth hurts,” and many of us don’t want to hear it. Having the humility to listen to our trusted allies is one sure way to keep our scaffolding strong.

The personal supporter. Hardly a day passes in which we don’t talk to a female executive who’s feeling stretched to the limit trying to balance a high-demand job with her family life and personal commitments. There’s always a crisis, either at home or at work. Even when everything is going well, fatigue can set in and throw us for a loop. We call this pitfall the stress of success.

One of the best ways to manage the stress of success is to remember to count friends and family as part of your support network. Whether it’s a spouse, sibling, or close friend, we all need people in our scaffolding who are always on our side, looking out for us no matter what.

4. Work your scaffolding

Once you’ve created your scaffolding, you need to use it or lose it. Here are three ways to use your scaffolding effectively.

Access. The best use of your scaffolding is to create access not only to opportunities but also to top decision makers with whom you would otherwise not cross paths. Each level of support offers yet another step up. If you are working to sell an idea, begin with your foundation of supporters and work up from there. If one path is not helpful, try another side of your scaffolding. It’s a lattice—interwoven and multisided. Being surrounded by support affords numerous options to access the highest levels of leadership. When Kay was making her case to reassign marketing personnel currently reporting to C-suite executives, she needed to tap more than one senior-level advocate to get buy-in.

Trusted allies. Cultivating professional relationships that are based on mutual trust accrues benefits that can never be discounted. All of us need professional allies in order to achieve success, but the supporters we surround ourselves with in our scaffolding should be those whom we trust enough to stand up for us in the best and worst of times. These particular allies mean more to us not only because they are steadfast but also because we’ve invested so much time and effort in earning their trust and support. Simply knowing they are there makes us (and our scaffolding) far stronger.

Acceleration. The initial effort you dedicate to constructing scaffolding enables you to bypass the politically charged, time-consuming task of lobbying for support every time you need to get something new accomplished. Yes, you will always need to make a cogent case for yourself and your ideas, but scaffolding that is assembled properly is adjustable, enduring, and reusable.

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The final thing to remember about creating your scaffolding is that its multisided nature means that reciprocation is self-reinforcing. Paying it forward to support other colleagues strengthens your scaffolding as well as theirs. Similarly, your scaffolding is a primary component of the Influence Effect because the multiple levels of support and the safety afforded by solid scaffolding provide you with the confidence, in yourself and your career, to take chances on opportunities that you would otherwise feel too exposed to try.

Executive Summary

• Scaffolding is the lattice of support that we put into place around ourselves.
• Scaffolding gives us the confidence to think bigger and take chances. It provides us with access to opportunities and top leadership.
• Relying on a single sponsor or going it alone, as opposed to creating layers of support, leaves us at risk and exposed.
• We need to cultivate sponsors strategically and carefully manage our mentor/sponsor mix.
• Agents, truth tellers, and personal supporters are critical layers in strong scaffolding.
• Our scaffolding is strengthened when we reciprocate and support other colleagues in our network.