Tasks Are Not Transformations [Free Sponsor Assessment]

Does This Even Need a Sponsor?

Before asking whether your sponsor is effective, ask if you actually need one. There's an important distinction between a delegated task and a sponsored change.

• A delegated or self-assigned task looks like: "Update the onboarding deck by Friday" or "We need a Q4 workspace utilization." These need a manager, not a sponsor. You execute within your domain.
• A sponsored change looks like: "Redesign employee onboarding" or "Transform our workplace strategy for hybrid." These traverse the org chart, require ​stronger definition​ and cooperation.

Here's the test: if success depends on cooperation from people you don't manage, you likely need a sponsor. If you're executing within your own function, you may not.

AI rollouts are a good example. Leaders announce "We're going AI-first!" and teams start implementing without asking for clearer strategy, budget allocation, or role modeling of behavior. Implementing AI tools requires cooperation across IT (infrastructure), HR (training and change management), Legal (compliance), and Business Units (adoption).

Don't over-engineer simple projects. But don't under-resource genuine transformations either.

Some leaders may influence across functions through credibility and ​social capital​. Most workers don't have that luxury.

If you need a sponsor, the next question is: who should it be?

Do I Have the Right Sponsor?

Even when you know a change needs sponsorship, you may not have the right person lined up.

This is where workplace and employee experience changes often struggle; the leader saying "go for it" may lack credibility with the stakeholders who must actually change.

Common mismatches: RE wants a tool IT dislikes; IT wants Agile spaces the CRE ​didn't budget​; HR sets hybrid strategy but relies on both.

The sponsor might be senior enough to approve resources. They might even be genuinely committed. But they may not be influential enough with the functions that must cooperate.

This connects directly to why I keep pushing for a ​Chief of Work​.

Cross-functional transformations and true EX initiatives need either a senior leader with unquestionable credibility across HR, IT, and CRE, or a coalition of co-sponsors from those areas who are unequivocally aligned.

What Effective Sponsorship Means

Once you've confirmed you need a sponsor and have the right person, how do you know if they're actually performing? Here are 10 non-negotiables for effective sponsorship.

Picture one of your (actual or potential) sponsors. How often do they…

Vision & Strategy

• Articulate where you’re going and why it matters?
• Demonstrate flexibility about the path forward?

Commitment & Communication

• Communicate personal commitment through words and actions?
• Keep the vision front and center publicly, e.g., in town halls?
• Keep the vision front and center privately, e.g., in one-on-ones?

Empathy & Self-Awareness

• Create space for concerns and questions?
• Acknowledge what must change and recognize impacts on others?

Resources & Reinforcement

• Provide resources and align incentives, e.g., reward new behaviors?

Accountability

• Seek progress, address resistance, and show consequences?
• Coach or remove blockers in the leadership cascade?
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Score your sponsor on each question. If your sponsor shows ‘always’ or ‘often’ on all ten, you’re set, but gaps on three or more mean trouble.

Want more change management tools? My ​complete change playbook​ includes frameworks for defining the change, mapping resistance, and building your governance structure.

At a recent OSU football game, one fan started a "shirtless section" that grew as others ​joined in​, signaling: this is happening. It's is a great example of reinforcing sponsorship. 🏟️

The Post-Layoff Sponsorship Trap

American companies announced 150,000 layoffs in October alone. Those who remain are being told to "do more with less." It sounds like empowerment, but feels like abandonment.

When I wrote about the ​four forces​ that make or break change initiatives, I explained how the push of present pain and pull of future benefits must overcome anxieties about the new and habits of the present. In a post-layoff environment, every force intensifies.

People wonder if struggling with change puts a target on their back. Many are already doing two jobs, heard layoffs would stabilize things, then learned about accelerated AI rollouts while still grieving lost colleagues.

These aren't excuses. These are legitimate forces that sponsors must acknowledge, and the performance bar just got higher.

Sponsors must:

• Acknowledge anxiety
• Create space for fear
• Clarify trade-offs
• Remove tasks before adding new ones
• Set realistic expectations

If your sponsor can't do these things right now, they're not ready to sponsor a transformation. They're delegating an impossible task.

When You Realize You Need More

Once you realize you've underestimated the scope, it may feel awkward to go back and ask for more. You've already started. You don't want execs to think you can't handle what you started. Maybe you're worried it will look like you're making excuses.

But the leaders I've worked with who recognize this pattern early get true sponsorship faster, and it works. They've quantified the problem, mapped the dependencies, and identified whose behavior needs to change.

They explain:

I thought this was a task, but it's actually a transformation. Here's what I need from you to make this successful.

Their senior leaders or executives (who should want them to succeed) usually respond well once they see the full scope and potential.

Here's how to structure that conversation:

1. Name the forces explicitly: "I'm committed to this, but I need you to understand the resistance we'll encounter. Here's what I need from you as sponsor."
2. Demand the trade-offs: "If I'm taking this on, here's what I need to stop doing or what I need from other teams. I can lead this change, but not while doing three jobs."
3. Set measurable milestones with decision points: "Let's try this for 60 days. If we're not seeing these outcomes, we pause and reassess."

And document resources requested, risks flagged, and gaps identified.

If you're reading this and thinking, "That's exactly where I am right now," go back and have the conversation you should have had at the start. You're not being difficult, you're being strategic—and giving your leadership the information they need to actually support you.

Sponsorship is a job, not a gesture. Audit your sponsors against my ten questions. Have the conversation about what you actually need.

Because realizing you need sponsorship shouldn't be where the conversation ends; it's where real sponsorship begins.