Relationship within the company
One thing I really like about the company is its diversity. People have very diverse backgrounds. There are people from China, Brazil, Ireland, and of course America. There are people already married with kids or still in high school. They interact with each other all the time talking about our backgrounds naturally and proudly. It’s a different environment from the university where there seems an invisible line between different groups of people. One factor that helps foster the organizational culture is its size. It is a small group with around 25 people so that people establish close relationship with each other through working together now and then on streets and networking during team nights every Thursday.
Within all the relationships, the relationship between team leaders and interns is an indispensable part of the organizational culture. Every intern has a team leader that serves as his or her coacher and mentor. Every day, we go to the field in a team with several other interns and one or several team leaders. Team leaders have their own leadership styles. Leander, my team leader, is sensitive and supportive. He uses participative leadership asking for my input on what needs to work on. He asked for my opinion once when he had an interviewee. Team leaders tend to establish individualized personal relationship with their interns even on the very first day when interns were interviewed so that followers tend to trust and look up to their team leaders when they learn the systems to do sales in the beginning. At first, interns tend to be grouped with their own team leaders to go to the field together. After one or two weeks when interns start to do sales on their own, they start to be grouped with other team leaders. The strength is that they start to see different sales styles and get to interact with more team leaders. At the same time, the challenge is that because of different leadership styles of different team leaders they may not feel as supportive as they were with their own team leaders. Therefore, it is important for team leaders to keep checking on their interns and maintain the close relationship throughout the time.
So in terms of leader/follower dynamics – individuals are working independently to meet weekly sales criteria, but they are members of a larger team (the team in which they go into the field). Does the team serve any other purpose beyond being colleagues in the field? Do they collaborate on projects, etc. together? Seems like – depending on the team leader – decision making (within teams) can be collaborative. As for the organizational culture element, still waiting to learn more abut the ways in which people collaborate (all face-to-face, any mechanized methods, etc.). In terms of participative leadership, would be good to offer some other examples that illustrate the ways in which this style is employed at your site.
The team in the field is different from the team with the same team leader. The team in the field is different every day decided by Igor and team leaders so that people can see different styles of team leaders working in the field and learn from them. We do not have projects other than fundraising to work on. The team with the same team leader should be a support system for individuals and people should feel comfortable go to each other for questions and concern, but how well a team is built completely depends on the team leader. Team leaders are more involved with the decision making process for the organization then interns.