Mid-Summer Review/ Sharing my ideas
This week I experienced two very different type of leader/follower relationships, one in an extremely formal setting and the other not. As with my past experiences this summer, I believe that the informal setting are much more effective in establishing relationships with my superiors which in turn makes them better understand me as a person and an employee.
On Monday, I had my mid-summer review. In the room was my VP, my trainer, and myself. Going into the meeting I was confused about how the meeting would go, I have had a solid three interactions with my VP all summer so was not sure he would have proper material to review my performance thus far. In the end, my trainer just ended up giving me my weekly feedback in a much more formal manner than he ever has in the past. While I appreciate the effort taken by the VP to learn more about me, I do not think that our relationship was enhanced much by having him sit in a room and listen to my trainer (nervously) tell me things we which were already on the same page about.
I also had the opportunity to grab coffee this week with the person who is in charge of advisor relations, one of the newest areas of expansion for the company. I really enjoyed learning more about him, his career, and his vision for the future of advisor relations. By the end of our meeting, I had a lot of my questions about his department answered and had an open conversation about parts of it I agreed with and did not agree with. Comparing these two different meeting is night and day for me. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am just more comfortable in informal settings, however, I do find the difference in my relationships with both superiors interesting when the meeting lasted the same amount of time.
So it sounds as though there is both informal and formal settings within the organization, depending on which players are part of the scenario. Good to recognize/identify the settings in which you function best (e.g. more informal). Again, I would encourage you – even if it is after you are done with reflections and even after you are done with the internship – to think about the various styles (of those who hold leadership positions and less formal leaders) and specific examples that illustrate various concepts/theories. The more concrete examples you have to support the points you make (e.g. that some styles need to be adjusted, that some are more effective, etc.) the better equipped you’ll be to complete the academic assignments this fall. You haven’t shared much of your insights about this (with examples) in the reflections, so make certain you have them somewhere (you did reference keeping a list in a previous reflection).