Leader/Follower Relationships – Youth Life

Although it was only my first week at Youth Life, I have gotten a sense of the leader/follower dynamics within the organization and more specifically, my learning center. I was placed as an intern at Youth Life’s newest learning center, Southwood, which is located in Southside and serves a predominantly hispanic neighborhood. The leadership at Southwood is made up of two individuals: the site director and teacher. The site director, a man who previously worked at one of Youth Life’s other learning centers, has the most power and calls a majority of the shots in regards to plans and programming within the learning center. On the other hand, the teacher is a woman who has experience teaching and is also fluent in Spanish which is an essential skill due to the neighborhood in which we are serving. Both leaders bring different skills to the table and work together to run the learning center, but it is evident that the site director has more power and whatever decision he makes, goes.

In regards to my role at Youth Life, I am joined by two other interns. All three of us are given the same tasks and share the workload evenly however, both of the other interns had a previous relationship with the site director and teacher which has caused an interesting dynamic for our Southwood team. There is certainly a higher power distance between me and the site director and teacher than there is for the other interns; they are on a more friendly level. However, these are only my observations from week one so it will be interesting to track the change in the leader/follower relationships throughout the duration of my internship. I predict that by the end of the summer, I will have gotten to know the site director and teacher which will decrease the power distance.