How to best lead with interns? Towards leadership guidelines for leading interns

Abstract

Internships play a key role in helping students transition into the workforce and are widely used by organizations to access young talent. However, limited research has examined how specific leadership practices shape internship experiences. This study analyzes how specific supervisory practices conditions intern learning, adjustment, and development during organizational placements. It adopts a leadership-as-practice perspective and focuses on five key practices: providing feedback, creating psychological safety, supporting learning, empowering interns, and building trust. The research combines a literature review with a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with interns and supervisors. The results confirm the relevance of the five supervisory practices while extending the theoretical framework in two directions. Trust emerged as a foundational condition shaping the effectiveness of other practices, whereas organisational factors such as workload and time pressure influenced how supervision could be carried out in practice. Beyond this, peer support and individual intern characteristics also influence internship experiences as well. The findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of intern supervision and offer practical implications for organisations and universities.