Even Senior Leaders Sometimes Underestimate their Impact
I’ve met quite a few outstanding executive sponsors in the past two decades, and have heard ERG leaders speak with genuine gratitude and admiration for their sponsors on many occasions. I’ve also seen more moments than I can count in which a small effort or action from a trusted sponsor would have significantly impacted someone’s experience or provided leverage the ERG needed.
In some organizations, a simple email from a senior executive creates movement or answers a long-standing challenge. The best way to position a sponsor to do this is by ensuring they know what’s needed and how they can be actively involved. Then they can surface the group’s work in conversations you’re not in, make an introduction that opens a door you’ve been knocking on for months, and amplify the ERG’s needs and impact with their peers.
Creating this version of sponsorship doesn’t inherently require more time. But it does require role clarity, setting expectations between the sponsor and ERG leaders, and establishing the rhythms and routines that help maintain an open flow of communication.
The single-most frequent feedback I’ve heard from executives over 20 years is this: “I’m not sure what they actually need me to do. I plan to show up or speak at the upcoming event, but I really want to help somehow.”
This is what I call a “beautiful problem,” and it’s one that has solutions.
Connecting the Work to What the Organization Cares About
One of the highest-value things an executive sponsor can do is help an ERG see its work through a business lens, and provide framing or “translation” that their other executives will understand in relation to organizational priorities.
Sponsors sit in rooms where strategy is set. They hear what business leaders are worried about, where the organization is heading, and what problems don’t yet have good solutions. That context is genuinely useful to ERG leaders who are designing programming, building partnerships, and making the case for community priorities.
When sponsors actively share that context by helping the group understand how their work connects to a business priority, the group’s ability to operate strategically improves. This doesn’t require a formal meeting; it can happen in a brief check-in, a forwarded article, or a heads-up about a new direction or organizational goal that the group might contribute to. The impact of those small moments of insight is often disproportionate to the effort.
An ERG which I was advising approached their Executive Sponsor about getting access to hiring and retention data to prove a hypothesis, and gain support for a program they wanted to launch. While he agreed that their idea was valuable, he was candid with group leaders and shared that it was unlikely they’d be given access to this confidential data. This would have been frustrating or disappointing to the group leaders, but he didn’t stop there. He then outlined two ideas for how they could make the case by using industry and geographic data related to their proposal; he also asked one of his direct reports who was in attendance to work with the group leaders to help write and review their request in the most effective way for likely approval.
None of this required time beyond what he was already spending, and it enabled the group leaders to move forward with information, support, and confidence in their direction.
Coaching and Development in Moments that Matter
ERG leaders are, in many cases, among the most motivated employees in our organizations. They are building skills that directly translate to their full-time roles such as stakeholder management, communication, strategic thinking, and navigating complexity. But many of them are doing this without consistent access to the kind of senior coaching that accelerates development.
An executive sponsor is uniquely positioned to close that gap.
This investment in developing people through ERG leadership doesn’t require formal mentoring programs or structured paths. The most powerful moments can happen in regular conversation. A sponsor who reflects back what they observe—what the ERG leader does well, where they have room to grow, how they’re being perceived at the organizational level—is offering something rare.
An executive sponsor may also provide feedback that group leaders don’t like. I’ve had many ideas or proposals that weren’t well-received or flat-out rejected by sponsors, and that can be hard to manage, especially when the group is excited and has worked hard to put the idea together. However, in many instances, this difficult feedback was accompanied by “insider” knowledge about something happening in the organization (such as a related program in development), perspective on why this wasn’t the right time to launch the idea, or strategic insights on why the approach wasn’t effective.
For myself and many other ERG leaders, these relationships will be some of the most formative of our careers.
Removing Roadblocks and Clearing Paths
Every ERG leader has hit an obstacle of some sort: a process that stalls, a resource that requires approval from someone three levels up, a collaboration that needs a senior introduction to get started. These are predictable friction points, and they are exactly the kind of thing an executive sponsor is positioned to address.
When a sponsor understands what the group is trying to accomplish, they can often resolve in one conversation what would take an ERG leader months to navigate. Not because the sponsor is more capable, but because organizational access and senior relationships accelerate things that effort alone cannot.
I’ve seen it happen countless times, and sometimes in “real time”, while ERG leaders are still in the room. The sponsor hears something powerful in a story about one of the group members, or sees a compelling data point. They pause, make a quick phone call or send an email, and then tell the group leaders who’s going to reach out to them about the next steps.
The most effective sponsors stay curious about where their group is running into resistance. They ask regularly: Where are you stuck? What would move faster if I were involved? And when the answer comes, they act on it — not to take over, but to clear the path.
Bring Industry Knowledge to the Table
Sponsors often carry knowledge that ERG leaders don’t have ready access to about industry trends, competitive context, or shifts in the organization’s positioning or the external environment that have direct relevance to the group’s work and membership.
A sponsor who brings this perspective into ERG conversations adds a dimension that is difficult to replicate. They can help a group anticipate rather than react. And the same works in reverse. An engaged sponsor benefits from insights from the group, which can help the organization prepare for change rather than react.
This kind of knowledge-sharing also doesn’t require a formal agenda. It can be as simple as a sponsor walking into a planning conversation with a few observations about what they’re seeing in the market, and staying long enough to think through the implications with the group.
The ERGs that consistently operate ahead of the curve often have sponsors who see this as part of the role.
What Becomes Possible
When sponsorship is working well, the difference is palpable. ERG leaders make decisions with more confidence because they have a clearer sense of where they stand organizationally and where they’re heading. They spend less energy proving relevance and more building what’s next. Programming will also connect more visibly to what employees need and what the organization cares about. Momentum is more stable across years and leadership transitions rather than being dependent on one leader’s heroic efforts.
Executive sponsorship, at its best, is an active function that extends what an ERG can reach, accelerates what it can build, and protects what it has already earned.
Most sponsors are closer to that version of the role than they may realize.
Your Next Move
For Executive Sponsors
- Where are you already creating value for your ERG, and where might a small, intentional act have outsized impact?
- What do you know from your vantage point that your ERG leader would benefit from hearing?
For ERG Leaders
- Have you shared specifically where your sponsor’s involvement would create the most traction right now?
- What’s one conversation you’ve been having within the ERG that your sponsor could help you take further?
For Program Managers and HR Leaders
- Are your sponsors oriented on the full scope of what they can contribute? Are their key partners involved (e.g. business support, HR, communications, etc.)?
- What would it take to create a shared language between ERG leaders and sponsors about where the role adds the most value?
For Senior Executives and Chief People Officers
- Do your sponsors know what they’re uniquely positioned to offer, and how to show up in action?
- How are you recognizing and replicating the sponsorship models that are already producing strong results?