Building And Nurturing Your Network

There is a lot you can do to build a more powerful network. For instance, after two years on the Cheerios desk, Susanne Prucha had been at General Mills for 12 years and felt ready for a new challenge. When weighing different options, one of her mentors told her to create a “personal board of directors” to help her make this type of decision, given its importance. “You need a group of objective people that can act as an advisory group on a range of topics,” she told her.

If Susanne could go back, she says she would have recruited that board earlier. While she had intentionally sought out women mentors throughout her career, putting together this board helped her realize that a more diverse group would have been even more beneficial. Further, she found that the right people were already all around her; they were untapped resources. For example, she recruited a neighbor who had retired from a robust career in an entirely different industry and a former professor, in addition to personal friends who knew her well from work.

With the help of her board, Susanne made the leap to the Hershey Company, first as brand director and then as senior director and commercial lead of M&A and disruptive growth. In this role, she is responsible for maximizing commercial value creation within enterprise M&A pursuits.

To this day, Susanne finds herself relying on the advice she’s received from her mentors throughout her career—from the storytelling skills she learned in her early days at General Mills to the question that her boss posed when looking ahead to her promotion: “What is most important to you right now?” When things get hectic and overwhelming, Susanne asks herself this same question, and it always helps steer her in the right direction.

Although women may be at a disadvantage when it comes to establishing a strong network, there are many actions you can take to strengthen and nurture your own. In fact, another characteristic of a strong network is that it is well nurtured. Unfortunately, there is a gap between men and women here, too.

Compared with women, men invest more in building and maintaining their networks. They spend more time getting in touch with old contacts, building new relationships and strengthening existing relationships. In addition to having weaker networks to begin with, women report having less access to or feeling less connected to the people in their networks than men.

Assessing Your Network

To begin strengthening your network, start with a self-assessment. First, think about your main objectives so you can align them with your approach. At this stage of your career, what are your main objectives? What do you want to learn, explore and be exposed to?

Get a sense of the size of your network. How many connections do you have on LinkedIn, for example? The average is 1,300, although this is another number you would build up to over time. You likely don’t know all 1,300 very well, nor is that required. Depending on your industry, that number may or may not be an accurate representation of the size of your network, but it is a good starting place for many workers.

Next, look at how diverse your network is. Are most contacts within your occupation or industry? Is there a good mix of men and women? What about levels of seniority?

Now you know where you are starting from. To expand and diversify your network, push yourself outside of your comfort zone. Reach out to role models and senior executives and make an effort to attend events where influential people will be gathered, even if you may not know anyone. Also recognize the power of weak links—people outside of your immediate contacts (“friends of friends”). These links have value too in terms of employment opportunities and promotions.

Finally, think about the structure of your network. How many mentors do you have? Do you have at least one sponsor? If not, it’s important to start developing these relationships. While connections can’t be forced, it is important to take a structured and systematic approach to building relationships at work. It’s not enough to have people in your corner; you want to have the right people, which requires you to think about who will make the most effective mentors and sponsors for you.

While sponsor relationships are the most impactful, they are also the most difficult to establish. A sponsor needs to be in a position of power so they can create opportunities for you. They also have to be someone who enjoys helping others. Finally, a sponsor generally has to know your capabilities and have confidence in your potential, so it helps if you’ve worked with this person directly.

You can’t force relationships to become sponsorships, but you can look for opportunities to develop relationships with people that may evolve into sponsorship. Stay in touch with the people you’ve worked with as you progress—it might mean a coffee chat or video call every three to six months to stay in touch. These are the people who know you and can speak to the quality of your work. A potential sponsor also has to know what you want to achieve so that they can tailor their advice and opportunity creation to what you care about most. This is one more reason it pays to be vocal about your goals and aspirations.

Map out all the mentors and sponsors you have today on a piece of paper. You may prefer to do this visually, with clusters of related people close together; to simply make a list; or to color-code your mentors and sponsors based on the energy you get from the relationship or the strength of the relationship.

You only need a few sponsors. Even having one or two is a luxury that most people lack. To identify potential sponsors, start by looking at your professional connections, particularly those who are more senior to you. Once you have your list written down, circle anyone that you currently consider a mentor. If you don’t have any mentors, circle the people you’d like to have as a mentor. Next, do the same thing with sponsors. If you have any, circle them in a different color. If not, circle your aspirational sponsors, the people you would love to have directly opening up opportunities for you. The circled names are where you’ll invest your energy going forward.

Nurturing Relationships with Mentors and Sponsors

Now you should have a good idea of where your network stands today and how you can grow it. While it’s a good idea to nurture all of your connections, you should pay particular attention to building relationships with both your current and aspirational mentors and sponsors.

The best way to nurture these relationships is to spend time with people one-on-one. The vast majority of people—95 percent of men and 93 percent of women—find it easiest to give and receive guidance in a personal setting. Also make sure that the relationship is reciprocal, even if the other person is more senior. Make an effort to be of help to them in some way and look for opportunities to work with them directly. And make sure they know about your aspirations so they can help support you along the way.

But these interactions don’t have to be or feel transactional. The people in your network are human, and small gestures can make a big difference. Reach out and wish them a happy birthday, congratulate them on a promotion and show an interest in their projects, passions, families and so on. The more genuine these relationships are, the more impactful they will be.

Many books have been written with valuable advice on how to network effectively. In the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie teaches readers to be genuinely interested in other people, to encourage others to talk about themselves, to praise any improvement no matter how small, to always remember people’s names and to never criticize, condemn or complain about others.

Indeed, it’s important that your network has an ethos of support that goes both ways. Make an effort to help the other women in your network and to pay it forward. When you have the opportunity, invite them to events, and help them build their networks through introductions. This is an important way of nurturing your own network—by putting it to use. Remember, it’s a two-way street. When you help others, they will be far more inclined to say yes to a favor or to think of you the next time they hear about an exciting opportunity. You will likely end up getting much more than you give.

And when you do succeed in becoming a more senior leader, consider giving back and mentoring and/or sponsoring other women. You’ll be playing an essential role in helping them build their experience capital and advance through the pipeline without being held back by the broken rungs. Mentoring women is a great first step, but it’s even better to set a bar for true sponsorship, which will make a much more direct impact on women’s career trajectories. Advocate for promotions and stretch assignments and speak up in reviews. Actively provide other women with the opportunities they need to grow and reach their full potential.

Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Excerpted from THE BROKEN RUNG: When the Career Ladder Breaks for Women—and How They Can Succeed in Spite of It by Kweilin Ellingrud, Lareina Yee, and María del Mar Martínez. Copyright 2025 McKinsey & Com­pany, Inc. United States. All rights reserved.