Reflection #4 – Leader/Follower Relationships

In the past six weeks at AlphaSights, I have paid special attention to the company’s leader/follower dynamics.  COVID has slightly impacted the way work is structured at my company, yet the effectiveness remains intact.  There are multiple teams within different segments at AlphaSights, and on my team there are 3 managers, 4 associates, and 3 interns.  Interns report to the associates who report to managers who report to vice presidents, and the majority of the employees are in person this summer, but a large number are still working from home.  My team is mostly in person, but there are many times when we have to have meetings half in person and half on zoom due to the option people have to still work from home.  We have these meetings three times a day, and they are productive both in person and virtual, but I feel that when we are all in the office together, we are the most productive since we get the true feel of a collaborative team environment. Also, when we are all in person, we do team lunches a lot which furthers our team chemistry and cohesiveness.

During these team meetings, the projects that come to our team from our clients are divided between associates and interns based on how many projects come in and the capacity associates and interns have to take on those projects.  When working on these projects, employees generally follow a standardized procedure in which we get a project in from our clients, quickly send some advisors over to our clients who were in our system and are perfect fits for the project, and then do a more thorough search of advisors who are in and out of the system and send those advisors over to our clients. The managers will check at the three meetings throughout the day to make sure that we’re keeping our responsibilities in order and being productive. However, employees are pretty autonomous in the sense that we’re not being told exactly what to do every minute by managers.  This way, associates and interns are able to prioritize their tasks, multitask with multiple different projects at once, and enhance time management skills, giving them a lot of responsibility, especially as an intern.

Lastly, the relationships between interns, associates, managers, and vice presidents are very professional, but at the same time, they are very equal and friend-like regardless of their leadership position.  For example, in team meetings, one-on-one meetings, or everyday conversation, managers and vice presidents are not constantly telling associates and interns what to do and talking down to them, but instead they talk to them as equals and thus produce a welcoming and open environment.  However, I think these relationships are only possible because of the trust vice presidents and managers have in associates (and interns) in terms of skill, work ethic, results, etc.  Managers have to make sure that associates and interns are keeping up with their priorities and responsibilities, and when they know that their expectations align due to the high regard they both have for one another, this allows for managers to not be constantly directing and associates and interns to be on top of their game for the success of the team.  In terms of executive leadership, I am not exposed to that executive level on a daily basis, but the CEO, VP of North America, etc. seem to have great relationships with people they interact with at the company and have a ton of trust in the bright young minds that they hire.