Leadership plays, if anything, a merely incidental or supporting role in my internship. In the sense that the Congressman is a leader and representative of the area, and my work supports that leadership, there is some connection there. The most significant opportunity that I've had to personally demonstrate leadership here was in training a new intern not long ago.
As a front desk intern, I can sometimes act as the "face" of the office for constituents who walk in. Mostly, however, my role is a supporting and facilitating one for the office in general. My coworkers, the staffers who provide constituent services, often demonstrate 1-on-1 leadership in their handling of (often very difficult) cases with expertise and professionalism.
As I described in a previous post about the immigration activists, sometimes the staffers have to use leadership skills to deal with unexpected and challenging situations. As I think about it more, perhaps diplomacy is the dimension of leadership that is exercised the most, both by myself, and by the staffers of the office.
Hey
ReplyDeleteWhen you talked about training an intern and the leadership skills that it requires - I thought about the intern who trained me. The intern who trained me is a student at BYU and is originally from Arizona. He was a really nice guy from the first day, but what I really appreciated was the way he helpfully assisted me in getting acquainted with my duties. I noticed his leadership skills by the way he instructed me. He was very patient and he never acted like I was an inconvenience to help. Good stuff.