Sarah Azzam completed a two-month internship that provided valuable leadership experience. She shadowed leaders at two organizations, Hamdan Bin Zayed School and TAKREER, gaining insight into their different leadership styles and how they create an environment conducive to learning. Azzam learned that effective leaders set goals, evaluate performance, and develop their teams. She also saw how leaders at TAKREER mentored others and implemented strategic plans. This experience highlighted the importance of collaboration and opened her eyes to incorporating a team-based approach into her own leadership.
Sarah Azzam completed a two-month internship that provided valuable leadership experience. She shadowed leaders at two organizations, Hamdan Bin Zayed School and TAKREER, gaining insight into their different leadership styles and how they create an environment conducive to learning. Azzam learned that effective leaders set goals, evaluate performance, and develop their teams. She also saw how leaders at TAKREER mentored others and implemented strategic plans. This experience highlighted the importance of collaboration and opened her eyes to incorporating a team-based approach into her own leadership.
Sarah Azzam completed a two-month internship that provided valuable leadership experience. She shadowed leaders at two organizations, Hamdan Bin Zayed School and TAKREER, gaining insight into their different leadership styles and how they create an environment conducive to learning. Azzam learned that effective leaders set goals, evaluate performance, and develop their teams. She also saw how leaders at TAKREER mentored others and implemented strategic plans. This experience highlighted the importance of collaboration and opened her eyes to incorporating a team-based approach into her own leadership.
Sarah Azzam completed a two-month internship that provided valuable leadership experience. She shadowed leaders at two organizations, Hamdan Bin Zayed School and TAKREER, gaining insight into their different leadership styles and how they create an environment conducive to learning. Azzam learned that effective leaders set goals, evaluate performance, and develop their teams. She also saw how leaders at TAKREER mentored others and implemented strategic plans. This experience highlighted the importance of collaboration and opened her eyes to incorporating a team-based approach into her own leadership.
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Sarah Azzam M80006466
Summative Internship Reflection
My two-month internship added a lot to my experience. It enriched my skills and
talents. Leadership and learning are indispensable, in any place, and at anytime. I practiced my internship in two different organizations. I shadowed two leaders on at Hamdan Bin Zayed School and the other at TAKREER organization. Moreover, this experience enriched my knowledge. Learning from different leadership perspectives in different settings allowed me to view the big picture on how leadership is the umbrella for effective and sustainable learning. I learned that leaders judge and evaluate against a set of standards they always have goals and targets. They coordinate resources that include money, time and people they avoid any wastage. It added to my experience to see leaders make friendship and teams and create interpersonal relationships. This was evident in both organizations. In both organizations leaders develop themselves and coach others to transfer knowledge through. Moreover in TAKRER I supervised how leaders mentor others and develop successors. They give feedback in a fast period of time following any assessments being done. Additionally they have a tracking system that regulates quality at all times. Finally, they always have strategic plans that are long term and short tactical term. This capability opened me eyes to see that individual work is not enough and that as a leader I need a leadership team to be able to adapt. Now after understanding that a learning focused leadership is a team activity I decided to incorporate that in my work this will result in narrowing the gap between me and the individuals I am working with.
Sarah Azzam M80006466
Furthermore, through my experience in leadership positions I know I have many leadership skills that include creativity, listening to other views and remarks. I believe that I have both the integrity and savvy of an authentic leader (Evans, 1996). I am able to understand the nature of different situations and take actions accordingly. The notion of moral purpose is very important for me as a leader. Having an explicit, making a difference and a sense of purpose(Fullan, 2001) is what keeps motivated in my journey to do my best for my work place and the people I work with. However, these two months opened my eyes to new insights. Both leaders I shadowed had influenced me, I learned how an effective change is implemented through a series of steps that include instruction, continuous assessment, setting benchmarks and standards, distributing leadership and being savvy. In my opinion the type of Leadership is a critical factor in organizational learning. It decides the culture and context of the organization and whether it favors learning or not through a safe, trustful, low risk and open environment. Moreover, leadership role is vital in organizational learning because they have the authority to make decisions. It is understood for me as a leader that there are precise connections between leadership and learning where leadership is a continuous loop or ring surrounding learning. The magnitude of leadership ascends out of powerful learning practices. Furthermore I learned through my internship that communication is vital for the success of any organization. I think it is an important process that allows the leader and employees to discuss issues and concerns that are important to them. Communication in TAKREER organization occurs through formal communications that include interpersonal communication or one to one communication,
Sarah Azzam M80006466
face-to-face meetings, E-mails, memos, conferences, speeches, presentations, peer observation, letters, phone messages, MOU and partnerships in addition to informal meetings. Learning is shared and captured through internal communication that happens on several levels. Face-to-face communication between individuals is a main form of communication; unfortunately this does not include the vice president of the department. Group-level communications occur in teams, or interest groups. The concentration on this level is to share information, discuss issues, coordinate tasks, and solve problems. This is a strength that facilitates organizational learning. In addition to that there is a focus group made of representatives from each department they are the point of contact for all units to share information, address issues and provide a resolution. Moreover an anonymous e-mail account is available where concerns, questions and requests are reported administration assess every email for the week to discuss concerns of employees and the organization concerns. The communication process includes cooperation, participation, harmony, and interaction. During my internship in TAKREER I noticed that there is deficiency in intra-team communication and taking responsibility in decisions. Leaders do not encourage the employees to take responsibility in decisions related to the organization by creating an effective communication environment. The individuals are neither encouraged to take risks nor interact both inside and outside the organization in order to develop new ideas. I suggested that tis be changed because all of the above will negatively impact on organizational learning. In my opinion human relations will help us achieve organization goals and this happens through learning. Good relations will allow top management more time to focus
Sarah Azzam M80006466
on organizational learning rather than problems and people issues. As an example when a new employee arrives the first thing that happens is interacting with the leader this will allow for communication and here the employee will learn, later this new employee will be oriented and trained by a variety of people which will also allow for learning. All individuals can learn and since organization are comprised of individuals eventually they will learn but the knowledge has to be shared in order for this to happen. Individual learning leads to individual mental models these must be shared so that the organization learns through this shared knowledge and as a result it will be part of the organizations memory this happens through healthy relations. This was one of the skills I acquired during my time at TAKREER. During shadowing the academic advisor I understood the reform ADEC is implementing to develop public schools specifically and developing education in general in Abu Dhabi. Unfortunately, change is difficult and it is faced by many rejections. Adaptive challenges cause disequilibrium. Effective adaptation takes time and requires power to reduce displacement or loss. My suggestion is to prioritize the purposes. When you know your higher purpose then it is easier to understand your system. In conclusion, the concept of leadership is broad and contains many complex factors that require continuous practice and reflection. The style and implementation of leadership should be adjusted to adapt the context we are functioning in. The obstacles that are faced during delivering quality leadership should be considered stepping-stones to learning and professional development. As a leader I fully understand the importance of self-analysis and assessment, because leadership must be fostered overtime.