International Business Internship: Reflection on Leadership Skills

Running head: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS INTERNSHIP
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS INTERNSHIP
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS INTERNSHIP1
Introduction
The objective behind this learning journal is to identify and reflect on a skill that I
have implemented during my period of internship at Vijay India Restaurant at 49, Willesden
lane, London. During the period of internship, I undertook the position and responsibility of
supervisor. Being the supervisor in a restaurant, I had certain key responsibilities that I was
expected to perform to the best of my abilities in order to ensure that a quality service was
delivered to the customers. Some of the notable tasks that I was assigned included overseeing
the front and back house operations, hygiene and cleanliness check, reducing waste and
maintaining food quality control and ensuring customer satisfaction. This learning journal is
designed in order to evaluate the skills that I developed over the time and how they have been
useful throughout the period of internship.
The skill that I am reflecting on in this entry is leadership, as the process of being a
supervisor requires specific leadership skills that can facilitate the task really well.
The management issue
As the supervisor in a restaurant, I was assigned the following set of tasks:
 Overseeing front and back house operations
 Ensuring customer satisfaction through promoting excellent service
 Food quality control
 Analysing staff evaluation and feedback for improving customer experience
 Estimating future requirement of goods, supplies and cleaning products
 Overseeing sanitation and hygiene standards
 Find out ways to decrease operational costs and cut wastage.
 Generating weekly, monthly and annual reports
 Providing training to existing and new staff members.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS INTERNSHIP2
Out of all the tasks listed above, the most important and challenging that I identified
throughout the internship were the ones that included managing the staff for ensuring that the
restaurant eating area is kept spotless and hygienic. Moreover, the kitchen was also required
to be kept absolutely clean after every service day and the utensils should be situated at their
designated locations for easy access.
Maintaining the staff behaviour and work efficiency was the aspect where the
leadership skill was the most pronounced. It was required in order to ensure that the customer
experience in the restaurant is top notch and unadulterated with below standard service. The
weekdays are the most hectic in the restaurant. On one Saturday, we had a big group of
people coming in for a birthday party and it included a lot of kids. They had reservation and
therefore our task was to ensure that the place was well decorated and proper food hygiene
was maintained. Unfortunately the restaurant manager was unable to come to the restaurant
on that day which meant that most of the responsibility fell upon my shoulders. So my
primary task was to gather all the staff around and explain their task for the evening to them.
They were experienced and handled the task with high efficiency, but the fact that they
listened to my directions at every point showed that my leadership abilities were on point.
The evening passed without a hiccup, the kids and the adults were all happy with our service
and thanked us in the end.
Literature review
Leadership is one of the key skills and life practices that is identified as being crucial
in any kind of managerial task (Antonakis & Day 2017). Leadership finds valuable use in
companies and organizations, both big and small, even in non-organisational projects that
include team work (Daft 2014). The key elements of leadership include problem
identification and problem solving ability, team management skills, motivational ability, risk
taking attitude, reflective assessment, critical thinking, conflict management and conflict