Leader/Follower Relationships at WebMD/Krames Week 3

After my third week with WebMD/Krames, I am confident in my ability to evaluate the leader/follower dynamics of the organization, specifically within the Krames side of things. With the teams I am working with, everything is remote. In fact, even before the pandemic, all of the work the teams were doing was remote to begin with. So, in a way, they are used to working from home and communicating through zoom calls and email. Within the editorial side of Krames, there are two teams: marketing and educational. Each of these teams has a specific leader, but there is someone everyone in editorial reports to. I, of course, report to everyone and can do assignments given to me by any of the workers on the marketing or educational team. However, my actual bosses are the two leaders of each team and the leader who oversees it all: Amy Vanstee. 

All of my communication with everyone is through google meet or zoom calls. While this does make it a little more difficult to analyze the leader/follower dynamics, I can confidently state that while there is an obvious ranking of leadership within Krames’ editorial department, anyone can have influence over their colleagues, whether they are the ones leading a new project, or they have to give a presentation on how to proofread certain articles during a meeting. I believe that since there are no problems with different members of the teams taking on leadership roles at different points in time, it goes to show that there is a great level of trust across the department. It is rare that someone questions a colleague’s leadership skills. It is almost an unspoken truth that everyone across both teams has a level of trust and respect for one another that allows them to work successfully together. Once a week, each team meets over zoom to discuss any upcoming projects or work that needs to be prepared for. I attend the meetings for both teams, and thus far, it has been someone else leading the meetings each week. While the leaders for both the marketing and educational teams, Dianna Sinovic and Jaclyn Schlak, tend to kick off the conversations, one member of the team then takes the ropes as they are the ones in charge of a specific client or project that needs to get done that week. This gives me hope that if I were to stay with WebMD/Krames in the future, that while I of course would start with an entry level position, I would also have the opportunity to exhibit my leadership skills from Jepson.