Hierarchy in the Workplace and How YOU can be the Hero!

I won't pretend to be the Hero intern. In fact, only some of this is based on my experiences, and a lot is based on my observations of other interns and their strengths. With that caveat, I shall begin...

As most of us interning know, autonomy is a tough thing to come across in your first few days (or even weeks!) as an intern. By the end, we all almost have it, but no matter what, we are interns and most of our work needs to be overseen and approved before we move forward. Here are a few ways to show your supervisor that you deserve the autonomy and how you can play on your strengths:

1) Act before you're told.

You finish Phase 1 of a project. Your supervisor tells you she needs to approve it, and several other researchers need to look at it as well before you can move ahead. Except she and the rest of them have meetings for the rest of the day and are traveling for the next two days.

It might be frustrating to have to sit around and wait, but there are some things you can do in the meantime! Keep editing your own work even if your supervisor hasn't told you to do so, and email them every once in awhile with updates. This shows that you take your own work seriously and that you are eager for their assessment.

2) Be proactive

After you've finished editing everything you can possibly think of, look ahead for the next step. After Phase 1 is done, what do you think Phase 2 will be? Perhaps your supervisor told you. In my case, it would be to distribute our research questionnaire to the Ministries of Health. So, think of what the next steps would be. Draft an email to respondents at the Ministries, explaining the purpose of the questionnaire and how they can access it, and send the draft to your supervisor. This shows your supervisor that you are proactive and can take initiative on your own. Plus if you do a good job, they'll let you email the Ministries and Regional Offices directly and let you uphold these important correspondences because they've seen your work and they can trust your writing skills early on.

3) Offer to help- constantly.

After all of that- ask your supervisor what else you can help with. Show her that you're eager to continue with your project but in the meantime you're willing to help lighten her load (so she can find time to look over your work sooner!).

4) Finally, use your language skills!

For me, English is all I really have. It's good, but far less unique. Several interns here have the ability to take our questionnaires or powerpoint presentations and translate them to several languages. At the WHO, our materials are FAR more useful when they can be distributed and presented to those who speak other languages. Often, even our contacts at Regional Offices and at Ministries, don't speak or understand English well and feel far more comfortable reading in their native language. If you speak and write any other language, make sure your supervisor knows and often it's put to good use. It can be a surprisingly rare quality to have an intern who can do so!

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But of course make sure you have fun in the process. Sometimes work can get slow when you have a large hierarchy above your head, but small things can hopefully give you more autonomy and show your supervisors that you deserve it. And hopefully it will make your work even more rewarding in the end :) Hope this helps!



Shazia Mehmood is a participant in Duke University's Global Health Fellows Program. She just finished her first year at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and is very involved in domestic and global health policy.