Improving Leadership @ the FDA

This was a very interesting week for me. The person I’ve been working directly under went on leave on Wednesday and will not be returning until this coming Wednesday. The only reason my fellow interns and I found out was because we all have her added on our outlook calendars, detailing her whereabouts. We later received an email on Thursday from her saying she’d be on leave. I found this a little strange. I realize that it is normal to send an email and tell people if you’re not going to be in, but I thought that because we are interns and we have been working directly under her, she would take a minute to talk to us to let us know what she wants done, what we can do, and who we should help in her absence if there is a lack of work. This didn’t take place. What we ended up doing was finishing all the work on Wednesday and Thursday morning, leaving us with little to do on the rest of Thursday and absolutely nothing to do on Friday. This helped reinforce in my mind the importance of communication. While it is good to have the outlook calendar and send an email to let people know about your whereabouts, I think it should have been communicated to us and whoever was filling in for her in her absence what we needed to do. Unfortunately, we didn’t know who to turn to for work and I’m sure the person filling in for our boss didn’t even know we were a responsibility she had to handle. I also notice that everything moves slowly because they don’t use their resources to the best of their ability. There seem to be some people who have too much work and there are also others who sit around and talk about their children all day. While I realize this isn’t completely possible because everyone has different training and education for their positions, they need to make a better effort to be aware of not only their direct responsibilities, but also ways they can help those around them to help everything flow more efficiently.