I can’t believe I have been working in Dublin for a month and a half already, but at the same time, I feel like I have navigated many learning experiences, whether in a social, cultural, professional, or maturity sense. As quickly as these weeks have gone by, I have really learned a lot about myself and the world throughout this entire journey. Growth in various aspects of my life has been a motif of my experience in Ireland, especially in regards to my leadership skills.

I feel like I have always had a strong leadership style, focused on collective growth and collaboration. Being a lifelong member of Girl Scouts and completing my Gold Award, I was able to witness my fantastic troop leaders build a culture around our group of girls; we followed the values in the Girl Scout Law, maintained personal accountability to ourselves and each other, and were open to new ideas and activities, even in the face of failure. While completing my project, which was focused on expanding math program offerings at a local children’s museum that taught STEM concepts through art, I had to follow a long process that heavily shaped me into the type of worker I am. I needed to submit a proposal, receive approval, collaborate with the senior members of the partner organization, plan and design a set of workshops, adapt and act upon those ideas in very short notice with the onset of COVID, and analyze each step of the execution in my final writeup that was sent to Council. Through engaging with the kids at virtual workshops and managing the people at the museum, my project timeline, and myself, I reflected on how to use elements of teamwork to best keep all stakeholders on the same page and achieve something great. This, as well as other philosophies, carried me through multiple waitressing jobs, where I tried to go above and beyond and help out my coworkers whenever possible and be a positive contributor to the restaurant culture. I found that showing reliability, dependability, and dedication through my work made it so that there was a feeling of mutual respect between me and my coworkers and even managers. My mistakes were not seen as underperformance but for the accidents they were because I established trust with the people around me. Communication was an important aspect of all jobs to ensure clarity of who was tackling each task that needed to be completed every day or what station each person would be in charge of managing.

My time at my internship has shown me that my leadership knowledge can be accurately and effectively applied to an office setting, as the same principles hold true. Leaders make sure that people are clear about each coworker’s responsibility; for the Vodafone Free Flights promotions, I tend to deal with entering application information, offering customers their flights, leaving voicemails, and passing along calls to the woman in charge of the program when an applicant wants to follow through on a booking. I must serve as a guide to the customer and offer them optimal flight options and advise them on next steps, keep track of what dates I provide them, and pass along required information to my coworker through a spreadsheet or verbally. Also, as a leader one should always try to bring a positive energy, contribute to one’s own projects and those of others, utilize others’ knowledge to maximize productivity, and motivating people by showing appreciation for hard work. These are all trends I have noticed working among my coworkers and my supervisor; it is not just about her own performance, but elevating the performance of the group by asking for and providing feedback, taking initiative, and motivating the people around them.

Being a leader is learned and not inherent, and I know that this internship has and will continue to allow me to grow in this space.