Intern-Style Leadership

Throughout my time at KCIC, one particular thing has consistently bothered me. That one thing is poor punctuality, in which case I am referring to meetings running over (and often taking time out of other meetings scheduled right after). Since I often lose track of time, one might think I’d be relieved for their leniency. However, punctuality has been something I’ve worked on paying particular attention to because I am aware of my shortcomings in this area. Therefore, I find it a bit unprofessional and disrespectful when I discover others aren’t doing the same.

Now, I don’t know if this is a leadership issue exactly. I could argue that the leaders of meetings, or even the leaders of the company, should address this issue. The problem with that is that I don’t believe it bothers any of them. KCIC purposely has a relaxed environment; the office operates on time leniency in order to put more stress on quality of work. Therefore, I believe the leadership issue here is with the informal leaders. Perhaps it is my duty to step up and take initiative when the conference room I have scheduled is still in use. Of course, I wouldn’t dare to step up for fear of stepping over boundaries as an intern. Nevertheless, I see this issue that can best be solved by my own leadership. I like to believe that if I had a more permanent position at a company that I would take the risk of politely yet firmly informing the leftover attendees that their time is up.

I am thrilled to announce that I have been given the exciting opportunity to share some of my insights on leadership to the rest of the company. My internship supervisor was fascinated with my major in leadership studies, and once I gave her my Jepson elevator pitch, she wanted me to have the chance to apply my knowledge in leadership outside the classroom. For the past week or two, I have been spearheading a new training for future KCIC new-hires. I have designed an outline for the training and will continue to develop this training with another consultant, along with my site supervisor. This has been a prime opportunity for me to share my thoughts on KCIC and leadership with other employees.

The goal of the training is to incorporate leadership theories in the training in a way that elegantly ties problem-solving techniques to leadership. One of my goals is to show how leadership can directly be used to solve-problems, particularly in situations involving incompetent team members. To help demonstrate this concept, I plan on relating to situational leadership, which uses an “If A, then B” approach to problem-solving. On the other hand, KCIC wants to emphasize the need for flexibility, and not necessarily relying on one set approach. For this, I will exhibit contingency theory for its ever-changing leadership. Contingency theory relays that every situation is different, and should be handled in the best way specific to the individual case. In some cases, that may even mean letting another leader take over because they are better equipped for the job. I look forward to further developing this problem-solving training and giving my insights on how KCIC can optimize leadership to solve problems.