Solving Problems/Improving Leadership – Caroline Corry

One area of leadership that could be improved is the style and the frequency of the communication between the interns and the “leader” or boss, Tom. One thing that I and other interns have discussed is that when we ask questions or are looking for direction from Tom sometimes, we feel as though he answers in a condescending manor. Occasionally, he will ask questions back to us like “What do you think?” or other questions which have struck many of the interns, at times, as condescending or unnecessary especially when Tom is noticeably stressed (which is often because of his overly packed schedule). I believe that when he asks questions back at us, they are intended to teach us and help us begin asking those questions to ourselves in order to begin troubleshooting issues or tasks on our own before coming to him for guidance. In that sense I understand why he is trying to teach us to think through problems, but he would probably come across better if he explained his intentions. I also believe that this intern program would be better organized if there was some staff member running the internship and the RVA Justice Hub in general. Right now, Tom is working as a private defense attorney, coordinating with his caseworker Han about Virginia Holistic Justice Initiative’s clients, and running a eight person intern team. I understand that non-profits, especially new ones, are typically broke and this is probably a necessary position but an unfeasible one. However, if there was a person dedicated to the Justice Hub, then communication of tasks to interns would be more efficient and there wouldn’t have been days that many of us sat around the office unsure of what to do next. Additionally, since many of the interns have noticed that Tom can come off condescending many are afraid to ask as many questions or explain how they are truly feeling about a task we are assigned. For example, for nearly 4 days we were assigned basically the same task of creating a google form over and over again in different groups with a somewhat vague idea of the end goal of the form which was only clearly articulated on the last day. Again, I think that this is a result of mainly that Tom has very little time to devote to the internship program and so he comes across harsher because of his stressful schedule and also doesn’t fully think through the directions he gives us when he is assigning tasks. What may be beneficial for both the interns and Tom is writing down what he wants us to accomplish, how it fits into the overall task of the summer, and what the primary reason is for doing it this way. I think this would be a good approach for Tom because he is forced to answer and think completely through certain questions that won’t have to be repeated or re-explained and the interns will have a full understanding of what the primary goal of the task is. When he did this before leaving for a short vacation we figured out the task much quicker.