Casual Leadership w Room to Grow
To address personal relationships within the organization, I do believe there is a good amount of influence people in less traditional leadership positions have over those in managerial roles due to the familiarity between coworkers at the firm. Outside of the workplace many of the employees are friends and hang out after office hours so these relationships inform the levels of trust and understanding between co workers regardless of titles.
I believe followers have very transparent relationships with their higher ups- for example it is very common place for a project manager to ask an analyst for help on something especially when the subject matter is more complex. Because of that, and the team structure of all of the projects, decisions are made similarly- in teams with everyone’s voice being heard. There is definitely hierarchy and your project managers have final say, but input from all coworkers is considered.
Work is assigned in a pretty decentralized way, however there are very frequent check ins and big picture goals that your project managers assign as the project progresses. For example, I had to come up with a list of firms operating in the quantum tech industry in Canada to build a model, but I was never told when to start it or when it was due. I did the work on my own time and let my PM know when it was complete and she was able to check it and offer pointers.
The majority of feedback is completed in a reflection document you create when a project is completed which helps with evaluations, however to better leader/follower relations I think it would be beneficial to have a more casual check in halfway through the project to make sure everything is operating on track and nothing could be immediately improved upon. Overall, I’d say the leadership is a lot less structured than other management consulting firms I explored as possible summer opportunities which works really well for me, personally, however I’m not sure if the lack of structure is something I’d appreciate long term. I do think it gives a lot of opportunities for entry level analysts to learn quickly and get exposed to higher level skills very early on in their careers.