In the scope of leadership, I would say that working as an intern develops leadership skills in ways that are not entirely obvious from an outside perspective. To be completely honest, I was expecting to mostly only do grunt work that someone tells me when and how to do. My growth, however, came from learning how to do things on my own. It may not be directly considered leadership, but I would say that figuring out how to conduct myself in a professional sense will allow me to guide other people through the same path in the future. I think there’s a lot to be said for knowing how to carry yourself at work—how to manage time, communicate respectfully, and recognize when to take initiative. All of that ends up becoming leadership, even if it’s not necessarily labeled that way.

I got a quick glimpse of this when another intern was added to the program a couple of weeks after me. At the time, there were still many things I was figuring out about the job and how to most effectively make a difference in the company. Despite this, because I had already learned a great deal at that point, I think I was able to get my fellow intern caught up much quicker than I was able to when I joined alone. It’s not like I was ever giving him orders or acting like I had it all figured out, but my experience at Elder Home Share and the tools affiliated with my work allowed us to work as a team right out of the gate instead of having a longer period of time where he needed to get accustomed. That in itself felt like a step toward being a leader—not in a formal way, but in the way that you guide someone toward success just by helping them get comfortable.

I feel as though this was a useful lesson for me because I was shown quickly that leadership is not really about labels or falling into a vision of what I thought a leader should be. It was simply that I had more experience using Wix and website auditing tools, so I was able to help my intern when he had questions. When I first joined, I also had plenty of questions for my boss, but she had many other things to worry about, and picking up all the skills took more time. Having a little team really made things more streamlined and efficient, and once he got a hold of how to use the tools, our efficiency skyrocketed. We could divide tasks based on who was stronger in a certain area, and that meant the overall quality of our work improved. That’s the kind of thing I now see as practical, on-the-ground leadership—figuring out how to lift each other up and make the most of everyone’s strengths.

As time went on, I even began to learn things from the new intern because he has an entirely different skillset that led him to finding shortcuts in different areas. One idea we shot back and forth, for example, was maybe hosting an AI on our computers in order to generate media content instead of relying on the sites commonly used online. We never really found the time to do such a thing, but an idea like that never even crossed my mind. He thought about it because he has experience training an AI model for one of his classes, which is something I have never done. In some of our downtime, I had him explain to me exactly how that worked and before I knew it, I was picking up skills that I never expected to gain. It reminded me that being a leader also means being willing to learn. You’re never too experienced to be taught something new, and often the people you think you’re “leading” have plenty to offer in return.

I’ve had other revelations like this from my time in the food industry. A lot of the time, older servers would come onto the team and it was my job to train them in the runnings of our restaurant. Just because I have more experience in a given environment and I’m put in the position to show others the ropes doesn’t mean I have nothing to learn in the process. Tips and tricks from people who have served for years have always been useful to me in order to up my skill as a server and bartender. This experience is very much the same, but in the context of a far more professional environment. What I’m saying here is that while this idea may not be very new to me, I still consider it growth to get accustomed to leadership in different roles. Each new environment challenges you in its own way, and the type of leadership it calls for might look a little different.

At the end of the day, I think leadership has a lot more to do with attitude than authority. It’s about being the kind of person others can rely on to help out, communicate clearly, and adapt to challenges. Titles don’t make leaders—behavior does. And I’m learning that leadership isn’t just about managing people; it’s also about managing yourself. That might mean keeping a calm head during tight deadlines, asking the right questions, or lending a hand when someone’s overwhelmed. Those habits form the foundation of good leadership, and I feel like this internship has been steadily building those habits in me. With any luck, the experience I’m gaining now will carry forward into future jobs and give me the confidence to lead effectively, whether it’s official or not.