Week 4: Leader/Follower Relationships at Pure Public Relations
Pure Public Relations focuses its marketing efforts within the luxury interiors, beauty, and health/lifestyle industries. In our London office, we have 7 interior brands-focused employees, comprised of 1 assistant (me), 2 junior-level account managers, 2 senior-level account managers, 1 project director, and of course, 1 of the company’s CEOs. The beauty sector has 10+ employees ranked in a similar manner.
Right off the bat, I noticed a hierarchy among the interiors team. I should note again that this office is run by all women; therefore, I predict that this is a reason for a slight “power struggle,” if you will. Every Monday around 11 am, the interiors team has a meeting in our showroom portion of the office. This past week, we had a discussion about why our social media following had been declining recently. The director (who holds the next highest position under our CEO) began the conversation; however, I’ve noticed frequently that the newer senior account manager (within the last 2 months she was promoted; just weeks before I got here she was in a junior management role) has tried to assert her dominance during our meetings. For example, she often disagrees with the director when the CEO isn’t in the room, or brushes off opinions of those who hold lower positions than her.
Though I’ve really been learning a lot at my internship site, I do think — from my perspective — it would benefit the productivity and strength of the interiors team to work on cohesiveness and communication. I believe because there are only women in the office, it perhaps limits our diversity of thought in addition to creating somewhat of a competition for power. If I hadn’t known their position titles, I would be confused as to who is the “leader” and who is the “follower” in terms of company hierarchy.
Sounds like a really interesting dynamic. It makes me wonder if there is history between the director and the newer senior account manager (e.g. did they start at around the same time and one ascended faster, etc.), has the newer senior account manager (and others) been frustrated with the director’s approach/style in the past (and now she’s in a position to challenge it)? Will be interesting to see as you proceed if you learn any more about any underlying dynamics. You identify communication as an area to work on; it would serve you well to elaborate more and talk about specific instances when communication impacted the way in which the group interacted, work was completed, etc. The greater specificity (in terms of examples) the better equipped you will be to complete assignments this fall. Will be interesting to see if there is opportunity for those not in leadership positions to exert/exhibit leadership in this environment.