Recently my experience interning abroad has taught me many valuable lessons about leadership in the workplace. It has truly challenged my idea of what leadership looks like in creative, and cross-cultural environments. I originally thought in order to succeed I needed to transform their social media accounts and drastically increase their viewers. As well as rebranding and changing the look of their feed. However, this is definitely not what my supervisor had in mind. In fact a lot of my designs and ideas aren’t always what they’re looking for. As a leader I had to learn to thrive off of constructive criticism and use it to my advantage. Having an experienced mentor to critique my work has helped shaped my designs into better, more eye-catching posts. I’ve learned that the client isn’t always looking for what you think is the best design, but what fits their brand the best. Holding a leadership role means doing what’s best for your client and sometimes putting your ideas aside to satisfy their standards and requests. I’ve learned the importance of font, style, and color schemes towards building a brand and maintaining a social media platform. 

In previous experiences holding leadership roles I have always taken initiative and had more of a take charge kind of attitude. For example, while holding a position in my sorority I had to constantly propose ideas and assign tasks in order to be proactive. While serving I had to problem solve on the fly and learn to not be reliant on others. Working in customer service definitely gave me the necessary skills towards communicating to clients and staying organized. It also gave me an insight on having difficult or awkward conversations, for instance when an order gets messed up or a customer is dissatisfied. You always have to be respectful and accommodating in order to overcome challenges. These jobs were very structured and hands on, not necessarily preparing me for flexible and ambiguous tasks.  

Practicing leadership in this internship role has meant navigating Czech customs, adjusting to a more casual work-life balance, and assessing how I could add content that fits their brand. I’ve learned that leadership isn’t necessarily complete creative freedom, but taking responsibility and following directions. Some challenges I’ve faced are receiving last minute messages about going to the bar to collect content. As well as re-editing assignments over and over in order to satisfy my clients. However, I have also pitched new ideas, and learned when it’s appropriate to give suggestions. The other week I proposed starting a tiktok account which has already generated a lot of views and attention towards their bar. It’s a bit difficult because I have had to research Czech trends and create posts all on my own. I have enjoyed this creative freedom but it can be a struggle when my supervisor doesn’t understand how this platform works. When I reach a significant number of views I tend to feel accomplished because this generates a lot of attention towards their brand and attracts new customers. However my boss is mainly focused on increasing followers. Therefore I have been researching new tips and tricks towards reaching this goal. I have been consistently posting, and creating instagram stories to encourage people to follow. 

I have changed my leadership style to be more adaptive towards customer needs. I try to stress less about being perfect and focus more on learning from my critiques. I have learned to take the initiative to research more effective tools and strategies towards posting. As well as educating my supervisors on new platforms such as Tiktok. I suggested posting more on their instagram story to better promote events and remind people of dates/times. However, I’ve also posted some designs according to their specifications, in order to prioritize their opinions. It’s helped me learn the style of their brand and significantly increase followers and views to their profile. I’ve become more aware of how to guide a brand’s identity that’s not my own, by focusing on audience connection and local culture. Based on previous posts I’ve taken the initiative of using tools to translate captions into czech so that my supervisor doesn’t have to. While also trying to find a balance so that viewers aren’t overwhelmed with large amounts of text in different languages. Some main soft skills I have improved are creative problem solving, emotional intelligence, open-mindedness, interpersonal communication, and adaptability. Most importantly I’ve learned It’s okay to occasionally fall short and make mistakes, that’s how you grow from experiences.