Who’s pulling for you? Who’s got your back? Who’s putting your hat in the ring? Odds are this person is not a mentor but a sponsor. Mentors can build your self-esteem and provide a sounding board—but they’re not your ticket to the top. If you’re interested in fast-tracking your career, what you need is a sponsor—a senior-level champion who believes in your potential and is willing to advocate for you as you pursue that next raise or promotion. In this powerful yet practical book, economist and thought leader Sylvia Ann Hewlett—author of ten critically acclaimed books, including the groundbreaking Off-Ramps and On-Ramps—shows why sponsors are your proven link to success. Mixing solid data with vivid real-life narratives, Hewlett reveals the “two-way street” that makes sponsorship such a strong and mutually beneficial alliance. The seven-step map at the heart of this book allows you to chart your course toward your greatest goals. Whether you’re looking to lead a company or drive a community campaign, Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor will help you forge the relationships that truly have the power to deliver you to your destination.

Are you investing in the right people? Many people know the benefit of finding a sponsor--someone who goes beyond traditional mentorship to partner with a junior-level employee to help build their skills, advocate for them when opportunities arise, and open doors. But few realize that being a sponsor is just as important to career growth as finding one. According to new research from economist and thought leader Sylvia Ann Hewlett, senior executives who sponsor rising talent are 53 percent more likely to be promoted than those who don't. Similarly, middle-level managers who have proteges are 167 percent more likely to be given stretch assignments. Well-chosen proteges contribute stellar performance, steadfast loyalty, and capabilities that you, the sponsor, may lack, thus increasing how fast and how far you can go. But how do you find standout proteges, let alone develop them so that they're able to come through for you and your organization? This book has the answers you need. Combining powerful new data and rich examples drawn from in-depth interviews with leaders from companies such as Unilever, Aetna, Blizzard Entertainment, and EY, The Sponsor Effect provides a seven-step playbook for how you can become a successful sponsor. You'll learn to: Identify the right mix of proteges Include those with differing perspectives Inspire your proteges and ignite their ambition Instruct them to develop key skill sets Inspect your picks for performance and loyalty Instigate a deal, detailing the terms of a relationship Invest three ways and reap the rewards Along the way, you'll discover the enormous benefits of investing in these valuable relationships.

Are you “leadership material?” More importantly, do others perceive you to be? Sylvia Ann Hewlett, a noted expert on workplace power and influence, shows you how to identify and embody the Executive Presence (EP) that you need to succeed. You can have the experience and qualifications of a leader, but without executive presence, you won't advance. EP is an amalgam of qualities that true leaders exude, a presence that telegraphs you're in charge or deserve to be. Articulating those qualities isn't easy, however. Based on a nationwide survey of college graduates working across a range of sectors and occupations, Sylvia Hewlett and the Center for Talent Innovation discovered that EP is a dynamic, cohesive mix of appearance, communication, and gravitas. While these elements are not equal, to have true EP, you must know how to use all of them to your advantage. Filled with eye-opening insights, analysis, and practical advice for both men and women, mixed with illustrative examples from executives learning to use the EP, Executive Presence will help you make the leap from working like an executive to feeling like an executive.

The bestselling co-author of the legendary The One Minute Manager® and a former Twitter executive join forces to create the ultimate guide to creating powerful mentoring relationships While most people agree that having a mentor is a good thing, they don’t know how to find one or use one. And despite widespread approval for the idea of being a mentor, most people don’t think they have the time or skills to do so. Positive mentoring relationships can change the way we lead and help us succeed. In One Minute Mentoring, legendary management guru Ken Blanchard and Claire Diaz-Ortiz, a former Twitter executive and early employee, combine their knowledge to provide a systematic approach to intergenerational mentoring, giving readers great insight into the power and influence of mentoring and encouraging them to pursue their own mentoring relationships. Using his classic parable format, Blanchard explains why developing effective communication and relationships across generations can be a tremendous opportunity for companies and individuals alike. One Minute Mentoring is the go-to source for learning why mentoring is the secret ingredient to professional and personal success.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD In this groundbreaking biography, T.J. Stiles tells the dramatic story of Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt, the combative man and American icon who, through his genius and force of will, did more than perhaps any other individual to create modern capitalism. Meticulously researched and elegantly written, The First Tycoon describes an improbable life, from Vanderbilt’s humble birth during the presidency of George Washington to his death as one of the richest men in American history. In between we see how the Commodore helped to launch the transportation revolution, propel the Gold Rush, reshape Manhattan, and invent the modern corporation. Epic in its scope and success, the life of Vanderbilt is also the story of the rise of America itself.

Economist and award-winning author Sylvia Ann Hewlett blends vivid stories with powerful new data in assessing the impact of the #MeToo movement in corporate America and provides concrete action to help executives and companies create more inclusive and safe work environments for women, people of color, and LGBTQ employees. While the #MeToo movement has exposed the enormous harm done by sexual misconduct in the workplace, the movement’s full promise has not been fulfilled, Sylvia Ann Hewlett argues. Showcasing new data on the incidence of sexual harassment and assault at work, she reveals how the movement has focused almost exclusively on white women and failed to support other vulnerable groups who are also targets of abuse. Black men, gay men and women, and Latinas experience particularly high rates of sexual harassment and assault. In addition to exploring the movement’s limitations, Hewlett examines the collateral damage inflicted by #MeToo. She looks at hits to the bottom line (lawsuits and settlements, tarnished brands, and stock devaluations) and hits to the talent pipeline. In particular she shows how male leaders, fearful of gossip and legal action, are increasingly skittish about sponsoring young women, no matter how high performing they are. This makes it much more likely that women will stall out mid-career and will deprive companies of diversity in the C-Suite and “gender smarts” around decision-making tables. Digging deep into examples that range from Fox News, Nike, and Google to CBS, Michigan State University, and the Catholic Church, Hewlett lays bare the financial losses associated with sexual misconduct scandals. No wonder corporate chief risk officers newly have #MeToo in their line of sight! A third of this book is devoted to solutions and Hewlett offers a three-pronged strategy, combining legal remedies with individual and corporate action steps that can be used to protect employees and businesses they work for. Drawing from companies as different as IBM and IPG she discusses “experiments at the edge” as well as more evolved initiatives that can help any corporation create a more equitable and safer environment.

"At last. At last this very important book has been written... It will empower legions of women to step into their greatness.' ELIZABETH GILBERT, author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE 'One of the most important books in my life. If you want to achieve anything, or simply be less stressed, this book will help you do it. In it you will find your voice, your ability, your self-confidence and perhaps even your mission in life. Buy it. Pass it on.' SHIRLEY CONRAN The groundbreaking book that gives every woman the practical skills they need to begin PLAYING BIG. Five years ago, Tara Mohr began to see a pattern in her work as an expert in leadership: women with tremendous talent, ideas and aspiration were not recognising their own brilliance. They felt that they were playing small' in their lives and careers and wanted to play bigger', but didn't know how. And so Tara devised a step-by-step programme for playing big from the inside out: this book is the result. Many women are aware of the changes they need to make to be more successful, but they don't know how to become that more confident woman they'd like to be. Playing Big provides real, practical to

Who’s pulling for you? Who’s got your back? Who’s putting your hat in the ring? Odds are this person is not a mentor but a sponsor. Mentors can build your self-esteem and provide a sounding board—but they’re not your ticket to the top. If you’re interested in fast-tracking your career, what you need is a sponsor—a senior-level champion who believes in your potential and is willing to advocate for you as you pursue that next raise or promotion. In this powerful yet practical book, economist and thought leader Sylvia Ann Hewlett—author of ten critically acclaimed books, including the groundbreaking Off-Ramps and On-Ramps—shows why sponsors are your proven link to success. Mixing solid data with vivid real-life narratives, Hewlett reveals the “two-way street” that makes sponsorship such a strong and mutually beneficial alliance. The seven-step map at the heart of this book allows you to chart your course toward your greatest goals. Whether you’re looking to lead a company or drive a community campaign, Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor will help you forge the relationships that truly have the power to deliver you to your destination.

Today, no institution can ignore the need for deep conversations about race and ethnicity. But colleges and universities face a unique set of challenges as they explore these topics. Diversity Matters offers leaders a roadmap as they think through how their campuses can serve all students well. Five Key Sections Campus Case Studies: Transforming Institutions with a Commitment to Diversity Why We Stayed: Lessons in Resiliency and Leadership from Long-Term CCCU Diversity Professionals Voices of Our Friends: Speaking for Themselves Curricular/Cocurricular Initiatives to Enhance Diversity Awareness and Action Autoethnographies: Emerging Leaders and Career Stages Each chapter in Diversity Matters includes important discussion questions for administration, faculty, and staff.

With the stagnant low percentages of women in STEM careers, identifying practices to satisfy the growing need for professionals in those fields is critical to improve recruitment and retention. Supportive relationships, like mentors and sponsors, have been shown to both inspire women to pursue those careers and to help them succeed in them. This book explores how developing supportive connections helps students, faculty, and teachers see STEM professions as being a place for women to grow and succeed. Early chapters provide essential mentor characteristics and explore engineering education gender inequity from a teacher's perspective of stereotypes, stereotype threat, and bias, offering culturally relevant teacher mentoring approaches to promote equitable pre-college engineering education. Middle chapters describe K-12 mentoring programs: mentorship initiatives empowering young South African Women and girls to advance to mathematical-related careers; programs, methods and activities to achieve the desired goal of making young students aspire to become scientists; and engagement year-round in grades 9-12 combined with 40 years of iterative evaluation created a finely-honed enrichment program for low-income Black women in urban public high schools. A longitudinal undergraduate mentoring program for mentoring early college students in Louisiana provides further insights in that section. The final four-chapter section describes mentoring programs for professors and teachers: reciprocal mentor relationships and role shifting within an informal peer mentoring group; differences between mentoring relationships and sponsoring relationships within academia; the impact of culturally responsive mentorship (CRM) on the development and expression of a pre-service teacher’s woman of science identity; and a program that aims to recruit and retain STEM pre-service teachers and STEM teachers of color. With several longitudinal mentoring programs, several programs for women of color, this book fills a gap to help grow the numbers of women in STEM.