Week 3: Relational Leadership at BOPN

One of the first theories we discussed in Theories and Models of Leadership with Dr. Forsyth was task vs. relationship-oriented leadership. At the Boston Outdoor Preschool Network (BOPN) I see mostly relationship-oriented leadership. All of the co-founders, the intern supervisor, and every teacher I have met has been exceedingly kind to me. One of the co-founders, who is also BOPN’s executive director, emails me multiple times a week to say thank you for the work I was doing, offer to talk to me and help me learn more about BOPN, or offer me opportunities to check out BOPN’s other locations, etc. This woman is also one of the most positive people I have ever met. She only ever seems to have good things to say and always seems to make the most out of difficult situations. The intern supervisor is always checking in on the interns via text and email and makes time to visit every intern in the “classroom” (there are always several classes going on once, so that is obviously a difficult and time-consuming task for her). When she reaches out it is never “make sure you’re getting this done or working more on that,” but always “How did the week go? Do you have any questions? How can I help you?” The internship program she runs is very much focused on what my goals are and how BOPN can support me in reaching them. The lead teachers I work with also seem relationship-oriented. They are always available to answer questions, support me if I’m navigating a difficult situation with students, or bounce curriculum ideas off. I also have a friendly relationship with the teachers. We chat not only about students but also about other parts of our life.

Part of me wonders if the leaders at BOPN are so highly relational because I am an unpaid intern. I don’t have many serious responsibilities, but I am useful because I improve the adult to student ratio and can help give more individualized attention to students, lightening the load for lead teachers, and I do it for free. They aren’t losing money on me, so if there are no serious problems they might just be inclined to keep me happy at BOPN. I can’t fully tell if the founders might be more task-oriented with teachers. I think there are more situations with teachers where they would need to be task-oriented and just ask that something gets accomplished on a certain deadline. It still seems that they would be relationship-oriented with teachers because, from my interactions with them, that seems to be their nature. All the founders are very warm and caring people. That being said, I have heard the complaints from teachers that they don’t feel adequately listened to and are unsatisfied with the BOPN leadership. I would, however, still tend to believe the leaders are relational, but perhaps not very good at it and struggling with the growing pains of a non-profit start-up.