By Imane Mdarhri & Qingyi Xu
Essentially, Leadership is about communication and collaboration. Through collaborative learning and a spirit of sharing, we can build a perfect team culture and get a successful team leader.
“A team leader position is a sort of a bridge between the admin board and the interns. But it should not be used to create a distance.”
Eleonora Zanetti
1- What was your academic career and what is your current position?
My academic career was in Clinical Psychology. But recently, I have decided to enrich my path and enroll in a 2-years master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology, Ethnolinguistics, and Ethnology. Collaboration creates a team culture
About my position, currently, I am going to restart my internship at LSBC as an HR Intern.
In parallel, I am working for a German Tech Startup as a remote HR Technical Recruiter and Data Entry Specialist. In an office in my hometown, with a bit of time management, I work in another part-time job to finance my future academic projects. I have also just registered a non-profit, operating internationally in the cultural and ethnic dialogue facilitation sector.
2- How long was your internship and what was your role at LSBC?
My internship at LSBC was for 4 months as a team leader. Due to some health issues, I had to suspend it. However, this week is officially my first week in my new position as an HR Intern.
3- What were your tasks as an intern?
My role as a Team Leader was about creating and maintaining communication, encouraging collaboration between the departments, and ensuring the accomplishment of tasks or projects efficiently. Based on the Principe that, Collaboration builds a team culture.
Furthermore, I had to assist the Executive Director and to manage cross-functional operations.
4- How could you describe your experience at LSBC? When compared to other experiences you’ve had, what was the difference at LSBC?
Actually, I was the first Team Leader at LSBC. So I had to develop the role from scratch and establish functioning-plans and clear working-strategies for it.
In fact, my approach as a team leader was not only technical but also psychological. Essentially, I focused on creating a friendly and accepting team environment and working atmosphere. This involves interns in the decision-making processes and in the company’s culture definition. Basically, Collaboration builds a team culture.
For example, I introduced a project called “Global awareness”. It is an initiative to encourage interns and management to sit at the “virtual table” and share their own perspectives about environmental, political, hot topical news that should be addressed by every company – next to the business-matters. Also, I supported projects, training, and discussions about needs and desires for knowledge and change. My goal was to create and strengthen the bonds between team members and give space for ongoing, bottom-up development.
5- As a team leader at LSBC, you had to manage and work with a multicultural team. How do see the importance of diversity in the workplace?
In general, working in a multicultural team for a team leader or a manager is demanding but also very rewarding and maieutic. From my perspective, it is necessary to create a fitting working place, where differences become strengths. In short, Collaboration builds a team culture.
LSBCs’ charts are based on integrating new interns and attracting various readers or followers, entrepreneurs, also young professionals. and this opens up to creativity. As an NGO, it makes the working environment perfect to host a multicultural team and gives the team leader more flexibility to run operations and projects efficiently. The more diversity, the more energy flow.
6- What are your motivations to experience the Team leader and HR position?
Experiencing two different positions is very interesting. I could not detect big differences between the two more than I see similarities or common points. However, each department had its own procedures, which have to be mastered to keep and sustain high-grade conduct of all LSBCs’ objectives.
7- Due to the current worldwide situation, a lot of companies choose remote working as the perfect alternative to keep on working. From your perspective, is it a good strategy to follow and how could you describe your experience in remote working?
I think it is complex to define remote working as a good or bad strategy. However, I can see that it has pros and cons. On the one hand, it gives you the freedom and the flexibility to learn and experience new things, especially in the case of concrete limits, such as geopolitical borders, financial obstacles, etc. From the other side, remote working makes human relationships, either social or professional, more ambiguous, and difficult to understand thoroughly. This meaning, for a team leader, that it could be more tricky to manage a remote team, given the absence of corporeality and the possibility of more misunderstandings or communication gaps.
It is very important then to have very efficient, effective, and satisfying ways of communication, reports, and connections. To sum up, I would not recommend a 100% remote working strategy, especially, in the case of no interactive, regular meetings, because you will only be living in your pre-set-up world, with no relevant external experience.
8- One of the main values of LSBC is to support and collaborate with Entrepreneurs and startups. So, do you think that post-COVID-19 will be a suitable period to start a business and why?
From my point of view and regarding the current situations, It is too early to talk about Post-COVID. Still, it depends on the nature of the activity itself and the view of the owners on the plans for the future. The most important thing is to be creative. Furthermore, to have a clear vision about your goals and your challenges, even the potential ones. Essentially, be flexible and ready to change.
9- What are your future plans for the next few years?
My aim for the next few years is to get a PhD in Anthropology abroad and keep on with the non-profit I just registered… Ideally combining the two.
10- What can you say to the future Interns at LSBC?
At LSBC, you will discover that all its design, from the operational strategies to the functional roles also from the development projects to the communication structures are developed to make you-as an intern-part of a training system.
The entirety of LSBCs’ design is about providing a learning experience and a chance to share all your skills, passion, and, creativity. Accordingly, my advice is to be inventive as possible, active, and not lose the great opportunity. Also, to take this chance to put into practice and test some of your own ideas and projects.
“Focusing on the human side as a team leader gives the company or the organization a unique identity”
Eleonora Zanetti
