Week 2: Leader Follower Relations at DIAL/Rowan

As I wrap up my second week of interning with the Diversity in Arts Leadership (DIAL) Program at Americans for the Arts (AFTA), I feel as if I have a better grasp of what leader-follower relations look like on a daily basis (at least in a remote context). In my experience with AFTA itself, they all have many opportunities to communicate with one another in the form of brainstorming meetings and formal structured meetings. Since they are a very close knit group of people (at least in the DIAL portion of AFTA), they also arrange many informal coffees and lunch get-togethers with one another in which they discuss both work matters and form closer connections. For example, one of the program directors from New York reached out to me in the Zoom chat during a meeting to ask me a few questions, get to know me, and invite me to a lunch break so we could get to know each other better. My partner organization for this DIAL program is the Rowan Community Music School, and I would say that I have observed very similar leader-follower dynamics in that people even in top positions such as the Dean make sure to communicate with members of the Community Music School. For example, Dr. Rick Dammers, The Dean of the Rowan University College of Performing Arts, attends many meetings including (but not limited to) my intern orientation meeting and advisory board meetings just to ensure smooth and effective communication between himself and the people in the DIAL program. At the end of one of the Advisory Board meetings, Dr. Dammers even invited me and my supervisor to a coffee to discuss our ideas and agendas for the Music Education department. The fact that everyone is present for the other establishes a very strong feeling of trust and high-regard between the leaders and the followers at either organization.

The leaders with whom I interact the most at Rowan Community Music School would be with Dr. Elizabeth Guerriero, the Director of Community Music School and Educational Partnerships, and Rachel Michel, the Manager of the Community Music School. I work under Rachel in regards to social media and promotional projects, and Rachel and I both work under Dr. Guerriero (whom I call Beth). From the start, Beth and Rachel established a very friendly but firm style of leadership in that I am always asked my opinions and thoughts when taking on a project. Beth makes time to meet with me twice a week in order to make sure that my projects are going smoothly, to minimize misunderstandings by answering questions, and providing guidance by checking in on me. Rachel is a part-timer at the organization, so her schedule is definitely very busy, but even then, she is very quick to answer emails and texts whenever I have any questions. Both of them trust me to spearhead projects and campaigns, but clearly communicate with me their expectations and critiques. This is the general dynamic in terms of the direction of work, so I would say that employees tend to be pretty autonomous and self-directed, yet open to many opinions.