According to the author, organizations can have successful mentorship programs but not sponsorship ones. This is because there are laws prohibiting sponsors in organizations whereas mentorship is legally allowed organizations cannot mandate that someone (senior executive) use up personal capital to advocate for an employee they do not know well or do not feel confident about sponsors may not be clear about what is expected from them whereas mentors are quite clear about providing professional, and sometimes personal, guidance almost any (higher level) employee can be a mentor but only top executives can be sponsors