I was initially appointed as a marketing assistant at the Dialogue Society - a charity that is based in London which helps the elderly and refugees/asylum seekers all over the country. My role was to help create content for their social media and research ways in which they could help attract more volunteers from various backgrounds to support the cause.

The nature of the task posed as a task within my comfort zone. Being the vice president of a society at university meant that I already had the skills of cultivating ideas for content and trying to recruit people for a cause - in my case, sponsors, almost parallel to volunteers. I guess the only low point I had was the initial shock of all the work I had in that first week when I had a slight glance. For example, I was asked to organisation and update their spreadsheet of their current funding opportunities, which ones were updated and who they would help. Although it sound like a small task, it had impact because it helped show what groups they were targeting with the money that they would receive. 

Through quickly completing these tasks, my position was changed.

By week 2, I had been given more responsibility, consequently my role changed to Junior Project Coordinator. I was now actively finding grants for the charity so that they would have the economic capital to reach more people, connecting brands like Costa Coffee to partner with us and emailing firms to gage their interest. I even got to speak with some of the people that the charity supported - this was such a moving experience. To hear how much something as small as one phone call a week positively impacted their lives was such a touching testimonial – something you don’t really see in the corporate sphere.

Despite this project being quite independent in the nature of its work, I had weekly team meetings to make sure I was on track and express if I needed any support. The people in office, though small, had so much knowledge to give and stories to share - it was a pleasant experience. Working in an environment rich of culture, diversity and experiences is one which I will never forget. Some of my favourite memories come from lunchtime. Not because I could pause my work haha but it was because I got to hear from the other staff members regarding their passion for what they did and their motivations for working here in the first place.

We often connote leadership to mean top-down/ large decisions made by institutionally powerful people to alter the lives of millions but working here showed me that micro-leadership was equally, if not, more important. To me, micro-leadership can sometimes be more powerful that top-down leadership because it shows the mobilisation of the people without something bigger telling them what to do. It cultivates more useful solutions because it tends to lead people who know what they need first-hand. My leadership-in-action project helped me to demonstrate micro-leadership because I took it upon myself to be proactive in finding ways to help people. For example, I managed to find a large funding opportunity whereby the deadline was 4 days away. I worked really hard and managed to complete it - currently waiting for the results of that!

This organisation, although small in physical size, was touching the lives of thousands of people nationally who actually needed the support. I think the work of the Dialogue Society is simply invaluable and I learnt so much in my short time being there.