4. Building Your Strategic Network

Why a strategic network matters

Welcome back. We've explored power, politics, and culture. Now let's tackle one of the most critical leadership skills, building a strategic network that actually accelerates your career and impact. This is chapter four, building your strategic network. No matter your industry, power, or company culture, a strategic network is essential to accelerate your career. Now, this isn't about collecting business cards or schmoozing at happy hours. It's about cultivating the right relationships that support your growth and amplify your impact.

Because the right network will help support your goals and challenge your thinking with diverse perspectives. It will also expand your access to opportunities and jobs. Because here's some data that might surprise you. 70% of job openings are never publicly advertised. Nearly 80% of jobs are filled through networking and personal connections rather than traditional job board applications. So it's very important to get that network up and running. And Michelle Jeannet, an author and coach, puts it perfectly. Networking is not about just connecting people. It's about connecting people with people, people with ideas, and people with opportunities. That's what strategic networking really is, creating a web of relationships that creates value for everyone involved.

The eight network roles

And there are eight types of network connections that you should have in your network, and your network should be diverse, strategic, and supportive. So let's break down the eight key roles people can play in your network. You can have mentors. They provide long-term career guidance and perspective. They've walked the path you're on and can help you navigate challenges and opportunities. Sponsors. They speak your name in rooms you haven't reached yet. They actively advocate for your advancement and open doors to opportunities. Then there's advisors. They offer short-term, subject-specific guidance. They might help you with a particular project, decision, or skill development.

Then you have coaches. They help refine skills, unlock potential, and overcome obstacles. They focus on your development and performance improvement. Then you have allies. They challenge your biases, advocate for you, and support your success. They create a more inclusive environment and amplify your voice. Peer groups give you space for growth, reflection, and shared learning. These are people at similar levels to you who understand your challenges. And then you have collaborators. They partner with you on projects, ideas, and initiatives. They help you achieve shared goals and expand your impact. And then finally, you have mentees. This is the way to teach and reflect back, helping you grow as a leader. Teaching others actually strengthens your own leadership skills.

Mapping your network

So before we go any further, I want you to map your current network. And you can use the Leadership Networking Toolkit to identify who fills each role for you. And you can grab this toolkit from here, or again, we can go into your workbook for this course, and it's linked right here. So in this toolkit, you'll be able to see, do you have mentors who provide long-term guidance, sponsors to advocate for your advancement, where to go for specific expertise or advice, who challenges your thinking and supports your growth, who are your peer allies and collaborators, and who are you mentoring.

So we can just go real quickly into this leadership networking document and you can see here that there are several different tabs. There's a quick intro, then there's the network mapping itself where it goes through each of the roles and you can map your network that you have and spot any gaps. How could you fill those gaps? What are some different things you can do? Who's missing? Because when you do this sort of mapping, most people will discover that they do have significant gaps in their network, especially around sponsors and strategic advisors.

So this practical resource will help you create a focused action plan for building influence and opportunities. Because after you've mapped, you can then create this action plan, a 30-day networking challenge. And basically what it will go through is it will give you the different things you can do week by week. You can check them off as you've done them. And this will be a way that you can help strengthen and expand your network with authentic outreach. And then of course, there's the next steps just to remind yourself of what you can do to continue with this networking.

Six rules of networking

So go ahead, take a break here, pause the video and take some time to map your strategic network and identify where you have some gaps. And once you've done that, I think it's important then to go over what are some rules of networking. Six rules that can separate effective networkers from people who just collect contacts. So when we're going through this, rule number one, you want to make sure that you're building real connections. Don't treat networking as a transactional tool. You want to make sure you're prioritizing genuine human relationships because people can sense when you're just using them for advancement, to get a job, and that will totally backfire.

So rule number two, be proactive. The best relationships are built before you need them. So don't wait for opportunities to find you. Create them through relationship building. It's really important. Start building your network now so that when you're in a position where you maybe do need some help, you've already put a lot of effort in. You've really fertilized that connection. It's a much better way to go about it. And rule number three, learn from those ahead. Stretch your thinking by connecting with people who challenge and inspire you, even if they're intimidating, because these relationships can really accelerate your growth.

Rule number four, give back. Support peers and those newer to your company or industry. Generosity strengthens your network and creates goodwill that comes back to you. I know for sure in my career, I've done a lot of this outreach to more junior professionals. And as they've become more senior over the years, it's turned out that they've been able to help me in different situations. So it's really great to start building that sort of network and giving back as early as you can.

Rule number five, find objective mentors. Seek guidance from people who don't directly control your advancement. Their honest feedback is invaluable because they have no agenda. Rule number six, take ownership. Don't wait for permission to pursue relationships. Your growth is too important to leave to chance. So let's give a practical example of how networking can transform your career. So let's say you work in marketing. Instead of just networking within your department, build relationships across the company. Schedule coffee chats with people in sales, operations, customer success, even finance. Then when a cross-functional leadership role opens up, you have advocates in every department. You'll have multiple people to recommend you because they'll have worked with you and seen your collaborative approach. That's really strategic networking in action.

So for this next exercise, I want you to choose one of these six rules we've gone through that you need to focus on most. So for example, if you choose build real connections, maybe you could commit to having one genuine conversation per week with someone in your network. Or if you choose learn from those ahead, you could identify three senior leaders you'd like to connect with and reach out to one this week. Or let's say you choose give back, then you could think of someone who you could mentor or support and take action.

So again, let's go back to the workbook for this course and you can pick the rule that you want to go into and then you can write that down here, in exercise number 10. So write down the specific action you'll take this week. Remember, it's these small actions, doing something, that will really make the biggest difference. So go ahead and pause here and complete exercise 10.

Reaching out and building your board

And then let's talk a little bit more about genuine networking, because many people avoid networking because they think it's awkward or inauthentic. But here's how to reach out to people in ways that feel genuine and create mutual value. So let's say you want to reach out to someone for a mentorship request. So you could say something like, I've been following your career and really admire how you've navigated this. Would you be open to a 20 minute coffee chat? I'd love to learn about your experience with the topic. So that's one really nice way to reach out to someone in order for that request.

Then let's say you want to make a peer connection. How could you do that? You could say, I notice we're both working on similar challenges around this specific area. Would you be interested in sharing perspectives over coffee? I'd love to learn about your approach. And then for giving back, you could say something like, I saw your presentation on this specific topic and I thought it was excellent. I'm working on something similar and wondered if you'd like to collaborate or if I could be helpful with your initiative.

So the key here when you do this genuine outreach is being specific about why you want to connect and how it could be valuable for both of you. And I must say from experience, when I've had strangers reach out to me with one of these very specific requests, I am very willing to help and will definitely write them back, over just those generic blast emails that they're sending out to a bunch of different connection requests. So it's really important to be specific. Why did this person spark your interest? Why is this person someone you'd like to add to your network?

And then at the same time, I want you to think of this network that you're building as your own personal board of directors. Just like companies have boards with different expertise, you need advisors with different perspectives and capabilities. So for this next exercise, I want you here to identify five to seven people who could serve as your personal board of directors. And these should be people who challenge your thinking and push you to grow, have diverse backgrounds and perspectives, advocate for your success and advancement, provide honest feedback, even when it's difficult to hear, and expand your thinking about what's possible.

And what I want you to do is go into your workbook and I want you to write down their names and what unique value each person brings. And maybe it's the case when you sit down to do this, you've done your networking map, you realize there's gaps and you can't identify five to seven people, then that needs to be your priority. You want to get up to those five to seven people.

Maintaining your relationships

Okay, so what happens when you've built your network? How do you maintain them? Because really, building the network is just the beginning. It's maintaining relationships over time that creates real value. So here's how you can do that. It's important to stay in touch regularly. So send quarterly updates on your projects and wins. You could share articles or opportunities that might interest them, remember important events in their life, so make sure that you're keeping up with people in your network.

You also want to make introductions. Connect people in your network who could benefit from knowing each other. This creates value for them and really strengthens your role as a connector. You also want to celebrate others' successes. When someone in your network gets promoted, wins an award, achieves a goal, make sure you acknowledge it. People remember who celebrated with them. And always make sure you're asking for advice, not favors. Instead of asking people to do things for you, ask for their perspective and guidance.

And here, I want you to remember Cindy's story from the book Power Without Permission, whose career shows the real power of authentic connections. Early on, she didn't have much of a professional network and struggled to break into new opportunities. But when she reached out to a former colleague, that one connection opened the door to her first corporate role. And from there, she made it a point to build genuine relationships, saying yes to opportunities and leaning on mentors and sponsors who saw potential in her before she saw it in herself.

And over time, those relationships transformed her career from front desk to startup builder to product leader and eventually into leadership networks she hadn't even imagined for herself. So what made the difference wasn't calculated networking, but showing up authentically, being open to guidance and continuing the cycle by lifting others. That's the real essence of building a strategic network.

Your network is one of your most valuable professional assets, but it requires intentional development and maintenance. The relationships you build today will create the opportunities of tomorrow. And remember, super important, strategic networking isn't about using people. It's about creating mutually beneficial relationships that help everyone succeed. When done authentically, networking becomes relationship building, and relationship building is at the heart of leadership. Now, next time in our final chapter, we're going to put all these concepts together and give you specific exercises to implement immediately. So see you there.