An
internship is basically a training program designed for students to help them
polish their skills and give them a taste of the real-world, without too much
pressure.
Internships
allow a young person to develop their skills, gain insight in a real working
environment by being exposed to real world demands, and responsibilities. While
in this environment the young person gets the opportunity to improve their
communication skills while at the same time
boost their self-confidence.
We
often think of an internship from an intern’s point of view and forget about
the employer or person supervising the intern and the responsibility they have
to the intern and the learning in leadership they get too.
Recently
I had a discussion with a colleague who was not very happy with his intern in fact
he was quite critical of him. It wasn’t until
that he was reminded of his role and responsibility to the young person as
being someone to help bridge the gap between academia and the real world that
he began to see the relationship differently.
As
we talked over lunch he began to embrace the idea that certain aspects of
employment can really only be learned through work experience and not necessarily
in the classroom.
He
talked about a fear of reprisal from the
intern and his need to protect his
passwords and property as he was about to dismiss said intern with a negative
appraisal. It seemed quite clear to me
that he had totally missed the point of
the internship altogether.
The
student gains but the employer or supervisor gains too.
Once
he had totally finished his tirade I asked one simple question.
What
is your role and responsibility to this intern?
He
paused, and thought intensely and responded.
“I
don’t know…………. I mean I gave him a job, didn’t I?”
I
then told him the story of my own
internship experience many years ago when I too was a student, an intern at a
family therapy clinic. I told him about
how I froze in the middle of a family therapy session when the father in the session
broke down and started to cry. I was
totally paralyzed. I had never witnessed another man expressing grief before and
I did not know what to do.
My supervisor at the time, an esteemed
Psychiatrist took me under his wing and simply had a discussion with me as to
what I was experiencing at the time and took the time to explore with me what I
could have done differently in the situation. I learned about the true meaning of empathy
and compassion that day, a valuable lesson that has stayed with me throughout my
career. Had he criticized me, chastised me, my
experience of the situation and the learning from it might have been quite
different.
What
you say does matter. How you say it does matter. And how you teach it matters too.
My
supervisor at the time created a climate for me as an intern where I could
learn and grow.
As I spoke fondly of my internship experience I
talked about the opportunity I had been given to learn (often through trial and
error), mistakes, with a supervisor who believed in my potential. The hands-on experience
that I gained through that experience ultimately helped me succeed in my
career. As I zealously spoke about this experience, my colleague began to
embrace a different perspective.
Letting
go of his litany of complaints about his intern he began to tune into his role
and responsibility as a supervisor. The
words guide train, mentor, coach, supervise came back into his dialogue. He
began to embrace the concept of leadership.
He
began to reframe his view of the intern’s behavior and began to see that rather
than standing back and being critical of his actions, his role was to inspire,
guide, model and demonstrate the awesomeness he wished to see in his student.
Rather
than being critical of his interns’ actions and behaviors, he needed to see
them as teachable moments and learning opportunities that he could help the young person to not only
grow in their current job but to develop confidence in their abilities as well.
“What
kind of a leader are you anyway?” I asked.
The
question sat between us, as he prattled on about something else.
“What
kind of a leader am I?” He repeated the question
a few minutes later and deliberated for quite some time.
Recognizing
this as a pivotal moment I gave him the space to answer.
“You
know I haven’t really thought about it.” He replied, moments later.
A
seed had not so much been planted as it
had been reawakened. Although he never
gave me an answer I could see that the question had evoked some serious
thought.
I
left him with this quote:
“Leaders who mentor the leadership potential
in others, not only magnify the effectiveness in others, they magnify the effectiveness
in themselves.” (Veronica Hislop 2018)
Internships,
although very common in today’s workforce, can also be quite ambiguous: Employers
can see interns as cheap free labour, (as did my colleague who initially seemed
to want to treat his intern as an unpaid employee), with this attitude there is
often room for exploitation. When roles
and responsibilities on both sides are unclear the potential for this increases.
In
the world of student and mentor there should be no room for exploitation; the
only way to avoid ambiguity and exploitation is for the supervisor to not only be
cognizant of their leadership role and style, but to be totally aware of the responsibility
that they have towards the intern.
Let’s
not forgot that as a supervisor of an Intern we have an important part to play
in helping to shape their career and employment of a young person’s future.
What we do as mentors can support their growth or seriously derail it.
A
poor internship can make or break an intern’s future career. This is why what
happened between Monika Lewinsky and Bill Clinton many years ago was so wrong
on many levels.
As a final note we cannot forgot that
an internship is a two-way process. Both
parties the student and the employer/supervisor gain from this experience. The learning for the intern in terms of
exposure to the work force is quite clear.
However, companies and businesses benefit greatly from this experience
too. Interns
can provide an extra set of hands that can often help a company to finish their
projects.
Beyond that internships can help an
employer/supervisor to upgrade their leadership skills and take them to a
higher standard. The intern learns, but
more importantly the employer/supervisor learns too thereby creating win/win
all around. This can only happen it the
employer/supervisor is willing to embrace their role of leadership.
This article was recently featured in the Fall issue of the Toronto
Manager Magazine. To speak with Veronica and find out more
about her work with Female Entrepreneurs and Women in Business click here.
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