Young + Green

I nanny for Meg + Nate. Nate is eleven; he plays guitar in a band, wears skater gear and thinks that basketball and baseball are epic. Meg is nine; she wears purple high-top Converse and skinny jeans, wants to be in a girl band and open a cookie shop.

I spend two afternoons a week with them and they have truly opened my eyes in regards to youth and our environment. I am at that impressionable age of 26 where I am vaguely thinking about the possibility of having my own children sometime in the not-so-near future. Hanging out with these two stellar kids, models of idealism and action, has taught me a lot about how to include examples of sustainable living during a child's formative years.

Meg + Nate's parents are both professors at Wellesley College and clearly engaged their kids from a young age in raising awareness about the broader discourse of environmentalism, encouraging them to make environmentally friendly choices and take action. Their parental environmental education, whether it was playing outdoors, gardening, walking instead of driving, enrolling the kids in camp, has shaped these kids into conscientious, savvy young citizens, and as an outsider entering into their lives on a weekly basis, I have taken notice.

Both kids have weekly chores, which they do with passion and commitment: taking out the garbage and recycling, setting and clearing the table, feeding Bilbo the dog, cleaning their rooms, etc. They also engage in action projects at school. Meg told me today about their school's Catalogue Canceling Challenge, "The school has this contest where, like, each grade competes to cancel as many catalogues as they can. And if we cancel enough, the teachers promised to do crazy stuff like, our teacher, Mr. Lawton, dressed up in a green-frizzy wig and it was really funny." Meg spent many afternoons on the phone calling J-Crew, Pottery Barn, Garnet Hill and Land's End, canceling their names from the mailing list. Without even knowing it, her involvement displayed citizenship, respect for the environment and social action.

Tonight we made pizza which turned into a science experiment. They'd never made homemade pizza from scratch, so they were completely curious about the yeast. They watched it grow and bubble and chatted about how yeast works-- and why it makes bread and dough rise.

These kids are creative (their pizzas proved it: a colorful display of cherry tomatoes, turkey bacon, cured olives, caramelized onions and fresh arugula). They are engaged during a complicated time in ones young life when building your identity can be confusing, frustrating or too easily influenced by peer pressure.

Meg + Nate, without knowing it, have taught me about environmental education and leadership and have encouraged me to return to my inner-child.

Editor Turned Intern

I used to be the managing editor of a fashion magazine. I had interns. Now I am an intern. Strange how life ebbs and flows.

My interns were fantastic, talented girls who loved fashion and loved magazines. Before they were hired, I would quiz them on their favorite editors, whom they knew by heart (Vogue/Anna Wintour, Bazaar's/Glenda Bailey, Marie Claire/Joanna Coles, Town & Country/Pamela Fiori). As interns, their responsibilities wavered from fashion related jaunts such as packaging clothes for returns, doing pick ups and drop offs, organizing addresses, packing up trunks for shoots, and making sure the editors have all the items they need for their upcoming stories. Or, they helped with editorial work: text, pictures, captions, and headings. For me, I depended on the interns for everything from laughs to lunches to learning about the ins and outs of the hottest reality tv shows (that I didn't have time to watch).

Now, I am the intern, having quit my job and returned to grad school. I'm interning for an international company that advocates for corporate accountability. I am a communications intern and I spend most of my time blogging. Adult internships have become a hot topic recently. Due to the tough economy, these "non-traditional internships" are a way for grownups to shift career paths, gain experience during a layoff or work during school, like me.

This shift in leadership has been a radical change. It has made me think about what kind of leader I was when I was in a leadership role. At the magazine, we used a traditional top-down hierarchical style of leadership. I had higher-ups who I reported to. In turn, I was responsible for managing a slew of writers, photographers, clients and interns on a daily basis.

The notion of servant leadership emphasizes collaboration, trust, empathy, and the ethical use of power, rather than leading and managing from the top down. I like the concept of servant leadership, but having worked in an industry full of daily, weekly and monthly deadlines, I value the importance of leadership as a critical management skill. I believe I led in a hybrid-style, encouraging goals and deadlines but also utilizing team collaboration.

My style of leadership seems to have worked: my interns still write me emails, send me Christmas cards and wedding invitations and ask me for letters of recommendation.