Staff Network Executive Sponsors

Sponsors should:

• Attend as many meetings of their network as possible, to ensure they can listen to the issues and concerns raised by members and work collaboratively with the Chair(s) to resolve them. This would always be at the invitation of the Chair(s).
• Be a voice for their network in meetings of senior management and leadership, such as Academic Leadership Team (ALT) and Professional Services Leadership Team (PSLT) and challenge any misinformation or unhelpful assumptions made about their network or their networks concerns.
• Have a genuine interest in and a commitment to allyship for the Network they champion.
• Be led by the network they support in how they can best help, support, engage and champion. Take the lead from the group they represent, not leading the group’s activity in any way.
• Use their seniority to empower, enable and inform the group they represent.
• Acknowledge any lack of expertise or knowledge and commit to continuous development while recognising that listening, learning and sharing the process of that learning with others is a powerful model.
• Be comfortable and supportive of their group taking a culturally different approach, if it meets their aims.

Sponsors should avoid:

• Creating conflict, they should be able to support constructive debate.
• Pitting ‘issues’ against other characteristics/groups. There isn’t any competition.