{"id":1035,"date":"2018-07-01T22:31:49","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T02:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/?p=1035"},"modified":"2018-07-01T22:31:49","modified_gmt":"2018-07-02T02:31:49","slug":"leading-as-a-follower-following-as-a-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/2018\/07\/01\/leading-as-a-follower-following-as-a-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading as a Follower, Following as a Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tip O’Neill is credited with saying the famous political quote “All politics is local” and he couldn’t have been more correct. This summer, I am working on the re-election campaign of State Representative Pat Boyd (D-50) in the northeast corner of Connecticut. My particular position and work within the campaign means that I have am not only a follower, but also a leader (local campaigns are interestingly organized). I answer directed and work most often with the campaign manager, my boss, while also working for the candidate himself. Yet, I also have someone who answers to me in a sort of odd way. Technically, I out rank another member of the organization, yet we share the same boss. This creates a unique leader and follower relationship.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.boydforct.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Seeing as how I have a boss that I directly answer to means that I am, naturally, a follower. I have actually known him for years and we can often be very informal, yet he maintains an extremely professional relationship and it is always clear who is the “boss”. With that said, I gladly am his follower and learn a great deal from him everyday. The other member of the group, who I “outrank”, also is a follower of our shared leader and clearly also follows my lead. Being far more experienced, I clearly have an informal influence on her. One main area from which I influence her is my loyal following of our boss. Having such an informal relationship with him and yet still following his leadership with little question and great professionalism has created a clear influence and added to her learning experience. To her, I am leading as a following.<\/p>\n

However, I also find myself following as a leader. What I mean by that is because I am a leader to this other member of the team, I look to my boss for inspiration. Inspiration not for how to best do my job, but instead inspiration for how to be a strong leader. Being the person to whom somebody looks up and learns from is a large weight that I am not used to. By learning how to be a good leader in this workplace makes me following as a leader.<\/p>\n

Our team is small, yet mighty. I look forward to work everyday and cherish the professional (and friendly) relationships I have grown with my boss and those with whom I work. The leader\/follower dynamics are unique, fluid, and influential. We work closely together, takes order in a top down approach, feel free to speak up, have fun, and are leaders\/followers to each other in many ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tip O’Neill is credited with saying the famous political quote “All politics is local” and he couldn’t have been more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2647,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[76609,76607],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leaderfollower-relationships","category-organizational-culture"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}