Rethink Your Network: How Connection Drives Women’s Advancement

Most people see networking as a numbers game. They want more handshakes, more LinkedIn connections, and more coffee chats. However, according to Beverley Wright, CEO of Wright Choice Group, that’s not where true growth or advancement happens.

At the 2025 SHRM Linkage Institute, Wright urged attendees to rethink their approach. The real goal isn’t a longer contact list. It’s building purposeful relationships grounded in trust that expand opportunities for everyone involved. And it starts with learning how to truly listen.

Conference: 2026 SHRM Linkage Institute

Listening That Lands

Being connected is a key competency needed to overcome the inner critic and navigate the seven hurdles to advancement that women face on the path to leadership. For Wright, genuine connection is what allows leaders to advocate for others in their absence and know that others will do the same for them. However, that level of advocacy only happens when the connection is genuine. Advocacy takes effort, and people are far less likely to invest that effort if they feel like just another name on a list.

So how do you build a new connection without it feeling transactional? Wright suggested trying to overcome one of the biggest challenges to creating relationships that matter: bad listening.

Wright shared three distinct levels of listening to help leaders assess where they are and empower them to identify how to improve:

• Level 1 is self-centered. The “listener” is waiting for their turn to speak or rehearsing what they’ll say next.
• Level 2 shifts attention outward. The listener is engaged but only catching part of the message.
• Level 3 is full presence. The listener is hearing what’s said, noticing what’s unsaid, and tuning in to the emotion in the room.

During the session, participants practiced listening in pairs and exchanged instant feedback. The exercise revealed that many participants felt the urge to interrupt out of enthusiasm to connect, which did not surprise Wright. She noted that bad listening doesn’t usually come from bad intentions. More often, it stems from the human impulse to relate, contribute, and be part of the conversation.

Yet overcoming that impulse is essential for practicing purposeful leadership, which helps leaders build presence, empathy, and clarity in how they engage others. Purposeful leaders don’t just listen to respond — they listen to understand, creating trust and strengthening the culture around them. When leaders model this kind of intentional connection, they signal to others that contributions matter and that every voice has value.

Development Solution: Advancing Women Leaders

Similarity Builds Trust

Starting a new connection can feel intimidating, especially when it seems like there’s nothing to build on. But Wright said that even a small, shared trait or experience can make that first step easier. Finding genuine points of similarity creates a foundation for trust to grow.

In one exercise, each group of attendees listed as many shared traits as possible, such as values, milestones, preferences, or even favorite foods. The activity was playful, but the message was serious: similarity accelerates trust, which is crucial because trust is what makes collaboration and advancement possible.

Meaningful advancement is a core principle of SHRM Linkage’s Advancing Women Leaders (AWL) experience. It requires networks and relationships that create sponsorship, belonging, and visibility. AWL helps women identify and navigate the hurdles to advancement by strengthening relational capital, confidence, and advocacy networks.

Your Network Is Your Advancement System

About two-thirds of female managers and supervisors (66%) indicated they see a clear path to advancement, compared to 74% of their male counterparts, according to the Women in Leadership: Reducing Barriers and Expanding Opportunities report. The same report found that about 3 in 4 women at the director level and above (74%) indicated they see a clear path to advancement, versus 83% of men who hold similar positions. These gaps don’t just reflect a lack of ambition; they reflect a lack of access. And access often comes down to the strength of your network.

“‘Your network is your net worth’ is a cliché because it’s true,” Wright said. But she pushed the idea further: your network isn’t just your net worth; it’s also your execution system because the fastest path to an answer or next step is often just one warm introduction away.

So, who should you prioritize building connections with first? Start with a mentor. Mentors are among the most valuable connections you can cultivate in your network. According to Wright, this important connection may never happen by chance, which could rob you of real career momentum. Employees who have a mentor or sponsor are significantly more motivated to overcome career challenges (54%) than those who do not (35%), according to SHRM’s Price of Success: Navigating the Trade-Offs That Shape Career Growth report.

That’s why Wright urges professionals not to wait to be discovered. Ask for mentorship and, more importantly, ask for structure. She emphasized that successful mentoring relationships don’t unfold by luck; they’re intentional, purposeful, and designed for accountability.

According to Wright, there are key behaviors that determine whether your network actually works for you or simply exists in name only:

1. Name the Gap. Clarify the capability or experience you want to build. This helps potential mentors understand how they can contribute.
2. Make a Direct Ask. Invite a specific leader to mentor you for a defined period (e.g., 3-6 months). A clear time frame makes the commitment manageable.
3. Set the Structure. Establish a recurring meeting time and a simple agenda. Consistency builds trust and momentum.
4. Show the Progress. Track outcomes such as skills gained, stretch projects completed, or new visibility. Demonstrating growth honors the mentor’s investments and strengthens the relationship.

Taken together, Wright says these practices turn networking from a passive exercise into a purposeful development strategy. When women actively shape their relationships, they build confidence, clarity, and visibility needed to move forward with momentum.

Want even more structured development? SHRM Linkage’s talent and leadership solutions, from the SHRM Linkage Institute to cohort-based development in Accelerate and executive-level development in Generate, are intentionally designed to help leaders build the networks, confidence, and advocacy required to advance.

Be BOLD

The unspoken rules of networking can be nerve-wracking, especially when the stakes include your growth as a leader. Wright encouraged attendees to exhibit BOLD leadership: Believe in yourself, Open doors for others, Lead and lift, and Deliver results for your organization and community. And that begins with being connected, one of the five core competencies every woman needs to advance in leadership. 

From active listening to choosing the right mentor, the throughline to connection is simple yet ambitious: treat connection as a craft. The BOLD behaviors Wright described align closely with the Purposeful Leadership framework, which equips leaders to act with intention, elevate others, and create environments where contribution and advancement are shared goals — not individual achievements. When we listen deeply, seek common ground, and invest in people with purpose, our work gets stronger and so do we.