When Is Being the Executive Sponsor Not Enough

You said yes.

Your company is now committed to a Strategic Relationship, and you are the Executive Sponsor.

So what exactly are you supposed to do now?

The first part of the Executive Sponsor role happened before the relationship began. You were the person with the authority to commit your organization to the relationship, to say “yes” to its existence.

But once the Strategic Relationship exists, being the person who said yes is no longer enough.

Once the relationship exists, the role changes.

Now Executive Sponsorship has two functions: cast the Shared Vision of the Strategic Relationship and remove Barriers that others in the Strategic Relationship do not have the authority to remove.

That is a remarkably short job description.

As I have learned over the years, “The more senior the executive, the shorter the job description, and the bigger the responsibility.”

Cast the Shared Vision

Every Strategic Relationship should be going somewhere. The Shared Vision describes that destination.

Each Executive Sponsor has to be able to cast the same Shared Vision across the participating organizations.  You have to communicate it clearly enough that people throughout your organization and stakeholders can understand it, remember it, and use it when making decisions.

Casting a Shared Vision is more than approving a paragraph in a relationship document. A Shared Vision can be formally documented and still fail to function. If the Executive Sponsor cannot remember it and naturally carry it into conversations, decisions, priorities, and executive reviews, the relationship may have an approved vision without actually being guided by one.

Casting is leadership. Casting reminds people why the relationship exists.  Casting directs people to where the participating organizations are trying to go together.

Remove Barriers

The second function is to remove Barriers the people managing the relationship cannot remove themselves.

Strategic Relationships cross organizational boundaries. Eventually something will get stuck. A resource commitment may exceed someone’s authority. A policy may prevent progress. A decision may require executive alignment. A conflict between organizations may need someone who can commit the company to a new path or process to reach resolution.

That is when the Executive Sponsor has to reengage.

Do not confuse Executive Sponsorship with management

The Strategic Relationship Manager handles the day-to-day management of the relationship: coordinating, communicating, facilitating, monitoring, and ensuring the ongoing work is done across organizational boundaries.

When necessary, the Strategic Relationship Manager should escalate the Barrier to the Executive Sponsor. The Executive Sponsor should use their authority to remove it. 

There is an important balance here. The Executive Sponsor should not become the day-to-day manager of the Strategic Relationship.  When an Executive Sponsor holds the relationship too closely, the role can actually become a source of friction. Teams may treat every issue as urgent because a senior executive is involved. Routine decisions get escalated unnecessarily. The Strategic Relationship Manager loses functional authority. The Executive Sponsor gets buried in details that should never have required executive attention.

The art is to let go without disappearing.

A well-functioning Executive Sponsor gives the Strategic Relationship Manager enough authority to manage the relationship, while staying sufficiently connected to cast the Shared Vision, maintain executive visibility, and reengage when a Barrier requires authority the relationship does not have on its own.

Stay connected enough to know when you are needed

Letting go does not mean becoming absent. The Executive Sponsor still needs enough visibility to know whether the Shared Vision is being carried into the organization and whether Barriers are being addressed and not accumulating below the executive level.

That does not require attending every operating meeting. In a healthy Strategic Relationship, the Strategic Relationship Manager keeps the Executive Sponsor informed through disciplined reporting and bringing the Executive Sponsor back into the relationship when executive authority, alignment, or intervention is required.

This is where trust between the two roles becomes essential. The Executive Sponsor has to trust the Strategic Relationship Manager to manage the work and to escalate what matters. The Strategic Relationship Manager has to trust that when a real Barrier is escalated, the Executive Sponsor will understand the importance of the relationship and engage to remove the barrier quickly.

Good Executive Sponsorship therefore has a rhythm. Most of the time, the Executive Sponsor is simply checking in on and reviewing the status of the relationship. But the Executive Sponsor remains visible enough to reinforce the destination, understand the condition of the relationship, and act quickly when only Executive Sponsor authority can keep value moving.

That is why being the Executive Sponsor who originally said yes is not enough.

The Executive Sponsor needs to perform the functions of Executive Sponsorship after the relationship begins.

Can the Executive Sponsor cast the Shared Vision?

Will the Executive Sponsor reengage when a Barrier requires their unique level of authority?

Can the Executive Sponsor do both without taking the management of the relationship away from the Strategic Relationship Manager?

You said yes. That created the Strategic Relationship.

What you do after saying yes helps determine whether it can succeed.