Week One: Leader/Follower Relationships

My first week interning at UBS was very interesting and exciting! I have been assigned to the Wealth Planning Sales division for the summer, where I will be working under Andrew Gorman, who is the head of sales. The first three days were pretty slow because Andrew was at a conference in Miami, leaving me with not much to do until his return but to schedule meetings with other people on the floor and read up on UBS as a company to begin my general understanding of what my division does within wealth management. I sat at Andrews desk among the sales team where I was able to do a lot of listening and observing of everyone around me. The desks are all lined up together so that the teams can communicate and work efficiently together. My team is located on the trading floor, where we are surrounded by other divisions like Financial Planning, Annuity sales, Corporate Solutions, and so on. By nature, the trading floor is very active and there is a lot of communication between everyone on the floor, so it is quite loud and collaborative. The first day I was very overwhelmed with all the terms that were being thrown out around me and realized how little I know about what everyone was saying; it felt like they were speaking a foreign language.

One of my objectives of the summer is to observe Andrew Gorman and his leadership style, and Bonnie Park, who is head of financial planning. These two sit next to each other and their teams work very closely together. With Andrew out of office, I was able to observe Bonnie and how she interacts with her fellow team members. From what I heard from other team members, Bonnie and Andrew could not be more different in how they get things done. From what I have observed and heard so far, Bonnie seems to be more of a transactional leader and is very focused on little details, she loves having a set plan and executing it the way she wants it to be done, and completing tasks efficiently and diligently. She has a small group of five or six people that work with her in financial planning. They all have their own work to do, but all major decisions have to be run through Bonnie. I sat in on a meeting with the financial planning group and observed the dynamic of the meeting, where it was clearly run by Bonnie, but everyone was encouraged to contribute and share their thoughts. Everyone’s voice seems to be valued in conversation and Bonnie wants to hear from everyone throughout the meeting.

At one point during the meeting, Bonnie and another one of her team members disagreed on a client and their financial planning goals. Although they had a bit of back and forth, the conversation remained calm and they were simply trying to find a solution, despite their disagreement. Bonnie pulled this team member aside after the meeting and wanted to make sure they were on the same page, and after that conversation it seemed everything was fine. After observing Bonnie my first week, I truly admire her ability to maintain a healthy balance between being an authoritative boss-like figure, and also having a friendly relationship with everyone on her team. They all seem to respect her and the team dynamic seems healthy and productive. I’m excited to continue to observe her, but also to learn more about Andrew and his leadership style within his team and how he and Bonnie work together as co-leaders.