Quinn Humphrey – Week 2: Leader/Follower Relations

After my first full week with Bionica Labs, I was looking forward to returning and getting a more active role in creating marketing content. I was also excited to meet the rest of the team. During my first week, I had gotten to spend a lot of time getting to know my supervisor and building a productive and professional communication dynamic that worked for both of us. However, I had not gotten the opportunity to meet and introduce myself to the rest of the company.

This changed at the beginning of the week with a very informal Zoom introduction to the handful of other engineers that were scattered across the country. After I had said my hellos, it was time to work and hit the ground running with my ideas for the website. While working at my desk, I listened to the rest of the meeting and got to see how Casey, as a leader, really interacts with his staff and expresses his full trust in their capabilities. Rarely in my life have I seen a leader, or a leader with as much authority as Boutwell, being fully confident in the skills of his employees and remaining so calm and cheerful. 

Yet Boutwell’s leadership style works. His engineers meet their assignments, his technicians identify and solve problems within the span of a day and his other employees are keeping everyone informed via Slack and ensuring work cohesion. It may seem like a very decentralized structure, but Boutwell is able to lead his startup without expending a lot of his energy worrying about his employees. It was also interesting to see how our interaction would be different during this week.

We spent more time together discussing his vision for the website and where he wanted it to go. He also assured me that he didn’t have any marketing knowledge either and that I should not feel like I’m doing something wrong, as we both had no idea what we were doing. This honest conversation really alleviated any nerves I may have had and I felt great at the end of the week. Although I may lose track of what I’m meant to be doing or may get bored while brainstorming copy, I’ve been enjoying my time with Bionica Labs and I’m excited to see what I will be doing in a few weeks.