Leader/Follower Relationships
The state of leader-follower dynamics at Tikkit are much different than the status quo of many companies. Firstly, work is structured very broadly, loosely working in physical teams, separated departments, and virtual teams. There are departments within the companies defined, however, often people work in multiple departments to maximize the full potential of their ability. For example, Josh head of business development often works with me on marketing. Also, although I work in the marketing department, I also co-head Instagram sales with another team member. This allows employees with multiple talents to take full advantage of them to benefit the company. Aside from departments, work gets done in a very autonomous/self-directed matter. There is not much direct leadership trying to get things done, people have to be self-motivated and push themselves to succeed. Although we are self-directed, we still work in teams. Whether that be physical meetups, or over our online platforms such as Monday.com and Slack. In our online work management program, Slack, there are different “channels” for the different sections of the company. These include: #TeamGeneral (the whole team channel), #TeamMedia (the marketing channel), and #InstaSales (the Instagram sales channel). Within these channels, we are able to communicate and brainstorm together working on each task as a group. Overall, this company has a decentralized model, which personally I disagree with. I believe a centralized model works much better in all aspects: collaboration, productivity, and team motivation.
Leader-follower relationships overall are on a very even plane. Although there is a power structure, it is never much emphasized, and people work together as equals. I enjoy this model, mainly because power could be used if needed, but never has been necessary.
Before I address your reflection, let me remind you that you have to choose a category for each post. I can tell this is a leader/follower relationship reflection, but as you did not categorize it, it doesn’t automatically populate in the blog. PLEASE go back to your posts and edit them, selecting a category, so that they populate not the blog. Now to respond to your reflection. I can imagine, given the remote nature of many of the players, the leader/follower dynamic is indeed different than other organizations. It seems as though many decisions are decentralized, but I would be interested to know if there are some that are made more centrally by executive leadership? If so, what is the nature of those decisions – how are they different than those made collectively on a regular basis. As you continue in the internship, it would be worth considering how trust is cultivated given the nature of the organization, with it’s decentralized structure.