LINEAR: A creative content Journey

Coming to the end of our academic career, as part of the Laboratory course “Leadership and Emotional Intelligence”, we were invited to visit a company in the sector that inspires us and concerns us professionally. Our goal was to apply the Job Shadowing method to individuals and/or groups who are in leadership roles and inspire us both professionally and research-wise.

Welcome to the journey of Linear | creative content company !

Back in the 2019, through various circumstances and an unexpected application for an ESPA Funding, Ms. Iulia Bakalexi aka Lina, was inspired and founded Linear, a company of relevant, different, compelling and most of all not dull content. With a little help from friends and co-partners, a lot of will and stubbornness, she managed to found a start-up business (StartUp) in the field of Marketing just like she’s dreamed!

First time Leader!

“I consider myself more of a collaborator than a leader. To properly lead a team for a common result, you must first of all cooperate and be humble.” Lina Bakalexi, Founder of Linear

The Female entrepreneurship, although flourishing in the modern era, does not cease to face entrenched perceptions not only within the business, but also in society and its institutions, starting with the family. There is therefore a strong need for progress and elimination of inequalities.

For Ms. Bakalexi in 2019 was her first contact with the female entrepreneurship and Leadership!

How did she do it?;

Hard work! Development and evolution of many aspects of herself, to become a better professional, but also to properly manage both her team and her clients.

After all, as she told us, everything in our life is choices, a little luck and right timing. From this point on, every person evolves through good and bad situations, decisions and practices!

First time MOTHER!

Motherhood and Leadership are difficult to combine but not impossible! An example of a mother and leader is Ms. Bakalexi, who recently became a mother and was called upon to manage these two very important roles in her life.

Motherhood is certainly the first role in a woman’s life! At first everything seems a little more difficult but all the mothers of this world discover superpowers they didn’t know they had!

As for the combination with Leadership, everything is slowly being put in a row. Although there is not enough time and availability for the office, there is a lot of understanding from the team and partners. Everything is regulated with the help of technology and remote connection! As long as there is will and love for what we do.

With certainty we can say that Motherhood does not change a woman’s career goals! It definitely shapes them but they may stay the same and/or get even bigger.

In order to have a comprehensive and global view of the investigation of Linear and the leadership carried out by Ms. Bakalexi we chose to conduct an interview with her and participant observation.

A typical day at Linear!

Lots of appointments, online and in person, even more e-mails, creative stress, and bad stress because it’s perfectly normal. Of course, communication of all team members as well as providing feedback could not be missing. Crisis and problem management does not happen every day but is a frequent occurrence. What we definitely discovered at Linear is endless brainstorming and moments of laughter.

The associates of Ms. Bakalexi, were asked to answer a multi factorLeadership questionnaire. The result?

Transformational Leadership. Ms. Bakalexi motivates and inspires her partners to achieve common goals together. As we have discovered the outcome of her leadership is rapidly moving towards effectiveness.

Ms. Bakalexi by completing an emotional intelligence questionnaire and a leadership style questionnaire, appeared to belong to a Democratic type of leader with a strong characteristic Emotional Intelligence. Empathy, communication and collaboration are some of her strongest assets.

A combination of Leadership skills that can only bring about positive results and development.

KEY LEARNINGS

● Adaptability and agility: We managed to observe how start-up employees remain nimble and responsive to the evolving needs of the business.

● Effective communication: Job shadowing provides opportunities to observe how start-up employees communicate ideas, provide feedback, and coordinate with others.

● We gained an in-depth understanding of the collaborative, innovative, and sometimes chaotic culture that defines many start-ups.

● Research enhanced Problem-Solving and Critical Thinking skills.

● We saw the Entrepreneurial Skills and Mindset.

● We understood for another time the importance of feedback and continuous improvement.

Food for thought by Ms. Bakalexi

The experience.

Our experience in Linear was special, positive and we discovered interesting facts about leadership and its aspects. Mrs. Bakalexi is the creator of a remarkable start-up that has experienced significant success, has managed to brought down stereotypes and lead the team even with the demands and challenges of the modern working environment, combined to motherhood, that she started to experience recently. We would characterize her leadership as highly successful as she brings effectiveness and works seamlessly with the team, communicating and building a relationship of trust both ways. We consider extremely important the extremely friendly atmosphere that prevailed in the working environment and the positive words from its associates who were spontaneous and honest.

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook & TikTok.

Team Members: Nikos Chalkias, Maria Papalani, Ioanna Banpouri

Special thanks to our Professor Dimitra Iordanoglou for the amazing opportunity!