Experiencing Servant Leadership from the Inside: Lessons Learned During My Internship at AMCA

By Stephen Hayes

It’s hard to believe I’ve already spent just short of three months working at Ann McGee-Cooper and Associates, and yet at the same time it feels like I’ve been here much longer. When I first joined the team, I had no idea what to expect. Sure, the people seemed nice, the work seemed interesting, and the office (the Treehouse, as they called it) seemed like a much more creative workplace than any I’d worked in before. What I didn’t expect was the level of support and inclusion I received from the entire team, the self-awareness I would gain, and better insight I would develop into the question: “What is a leader?” and, specifically, “What does it mean to be a servant leader?”

On the first day, I was greeted with some interesting projects, my own workstation, and a key to the office. That’s right, my own all-access pass to the workplace, and I was just a lowly intern. However, I was never treated as an inferior. I was the new guy, but after a few short weeks I felt like a part of the family. Ann, Luis, Carol, Andrea, and Duane each mentored me in their own way, and I consider them my friends as well as my coworkers. Even our little aptly-named cat Spook warmed up to me eventually (though that took a good amount of patience and, more importantly, fish). If I had ideas for areas of improvement in AMCA I was encouraged and asked what I needed to make it happen. For example, when we found almost 1500 photo slides of memories from the SMU Experimental Arts Program, one of Dr. McGee-Cooper’s first implemented servant leadership programs, I thought we could immortalize them through digitalization and create a website to share the story of the program. To accomplish this task, I realized that I needed a few pieces of equipment, namely a lightboard and a slide scanner. These items aren’t the cheapest things to obtain, but after presenting my case they were ordered without hesitation and I got to work. I am certain this project could not have progressed without their support.

Throughout the summer I met high-powered leaders from Parkland, TDIndustries, the Coppell Police Department, and Celebration Restaurant among others. I was introduced to BARA General Superintendants Sam Moses and Billy Bryan, Coppell Deputy Chief Matt Kosec, and Parkland Vice President Lou Saksen. I met powerhouse leaders and teams at a Parkland Employee Onboarding Seminar, an Introduction to Servant Leadership at TDIndustries, and a Servant Leadership Learning Community meeting at the BARA Village outside the new Parkland construction site. I even went on a ride-along with Cpl. Dale Smith at the Coppell Police Department and got my first taste of police work. And what I learned from all these exceptional people is that they are just that: people. They don’t go around wearing red capes and spandex (though a few could probably pull off the look), they just do the best they can to take care of their employees and make the job as interesting and fulfilling as possible to everyone involved, including themselves. In the SLLC meeting I attended, Sam Moses said that when people are stressed and under pressure, that’s when they show their true personality and beliefs. It’s easy to practice servant leadership when your life is going great, but when times are hard it takes a massive amount of maturity and willpower to stay as committed to others and not focus on yourself. This is an area where I still have a lot to learn. When I first came in at the beginning of the summer, I thought it was easy (just be a decent person, right? How hard can that be?). But I realized that it’s not just being a decent person, it’s having the strength to be that way through the good times and the bad that’s tough, and that takes practice.

At the beginning of the summer, I set out several goals for myself:

1. To become familiar enough with the concept of servant leadership that I could teach it to others who have no experience with the subject
2. To familiarize myself with firms, how management styles vary, and which are the most effective
3. To better understand how social media can be used by a firm to reap tangible rewards
4. To learn how to differentiate between projects that are viable and ones that are not worth pursuing, even if these projects might be engaging and interesting to me
5. To develop a clear understanding of my personality traits and how they mesh with others
6. To become more socially and environmentally aware through interacting with charitable organizations and those who choose to work there

Looking back at these goals, I know that I have made giant leaps forward in each area. I’ve learned servant leadership from the best and through hands-on experience, learned about leaders and how to effectively manage people, seen the benefits that came from setting up the AMCA Facebook Timeline and helping keep up with the blog and Twitter, acquired insight into time-management and found that working smarter instead of harder can allow more projects to reach completion, gained an understanding of my own HBDI index and how I mesh with others, and been exposed to people from all different walks of life who have taught me about responsibility to the world in which we live. Overall, I have accomplished everything I set out to do this summer, and been surprised at the things I learned that I did not even realize at the beginning of this work experience. The lessons I learned from the unique and fantastic team at AMCA will be invaluable to me in both my personal and professional life, and I can’t wait to get started, bringing them with me wherever I go.

Stephen Hayes is a native Dallas resident, a Senior at Washington University in St. Louis working toward a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) degree in Marketing and Political Sciences, and the 2012 Summer Intern for Ann McGee-Cooper and Associates, Inc.