Encinas Blog Post 6 – Solving Problems/Improving Leadership

This past week was the last week of my internship, and I have been able to reflect on the successes and areas for improvement for my internship site. I think leadership in informal positions is one aspect that could be emphasized more. As I have discussed in my previous blogs, there is a very clear hierarchal structure in BRG. In Jepson, I have learned that there are opportunities to be a leader no matter your technical labelled position. Individuals in manager positions have obvious outlets to display their leadership. In the past few weeks, I have realized that there could be more active encouragement for lower-level employees to practice leadership skills. In my Blog Post 6, I mentioned that BRG exhibits Transformational Leadership through their encouragement of associates to delegate work. I still believe this to be true, and this is certainly a leadership skill. However, I think that there could be more skills like this that are explicitly encouraged. For example, it is rare that lower-level employees speak directly to clients. This is logical for quality control and professional reasons and as such is a good practice. I think this practice could be better, though, if associates were able to practice client communications in small, monitored ways so that they learn this leadership skill thoroughly by the time they must utilize it.

One very positive aspect of my internship has been the collaboration. Even as just an intern, I have been able to work on many projects and seen my work in final products. I think that the quality control process that BRG implements is a key component to successful collaboration. There is a very clear process when giving feedback on a project. I found that this made it easier to make corrections and thus easier to work with others. Additionally, this process creates very clear roles for everyone to complete. I was never confused or unsure of what I was supposed to be doing on a project. This ensured that I never felt I was being overlooked or not contributing. Successful collaboration was a major reason that I enjoyed my internship so much. I am very grateful for the time I spent at BRG and all the skills I was able to learn.