Leader/Follower Relationships
VCIC is a fairly small team, despite having grown from the last summer I was in the office! With only 12 staff members in the office, conversations are intimate and informal most times. Everyone in the office seems to get along very well and works together to get jobs done. Being that there is such a small team, there are different people that others report to but you could never tell who reports to whom because of how collaborative this environment is.
It has been interesting to analyze leader-follower relationships, throughout my time here. VCIC has informed the type of workplace culture I would like to be apart of when I work full-time. All the staff members create a supportive, friendly, learning environment that allows you to feel comfortable asking for help. As an intern, whenever I am given a task – I am given the task with full confidence that I can complete it by the deadline, to the best of my ability. Additionally, I have never felt scared to ask a question if I did not understand a task or was unsure about a process. Sometimes, I feel like I may be asking too many questions. But everyone here loves to collaborate, work together, and help others in any way that they can. Being that we are an organization that helps the community, service is built into our culture here and VCIC.
This is a fun office to be apart of, and even our CEO is very approachable! Oh, and he is a Richmond Alum! So anyway, I just overheard a conversation as I was typing this and Katie, a full-time employee just had a casual conversation with our CEO about how she got no sleep last night! I don’t believe that is a conversation that anyone would have with their CEO.
ON ANOTHER NOTE…This year as a Senior Intern, I am working on supervising 2 other interns. One is from Randolph Macon and the other is coming on June 17, and she is a high school student. At times it feels weird to be “supervising” another college student but that is something I have to get past because many supervisors are sometimes younger or the same age as some of their co-workers.
I will be interested to hear you reflect more as the internship continues about your experience as a supervisor this summer. Though you do talk about the work flow to some extent (that you are trusted to complete your work) and that the group generally work collaboratively, I encourage you to consider some of the other elements in the ‘leader/follower relationships’ prompt. Not only will this help you dive a bit deeper into the dynamics/processes at VCIC, it will also give you richer material for the fall semester when you need to write your academic paper connecting your internship to LDST.