Mentoring

How to become a secure leader

“How can you ensure that you give something of value to each of your team members, such that they will want you to lead them?”

It is slightly after 8 PM. I just finished a FaceTime call with my dad, who is staying in Taiwan until the country’s elections in January. He said something profound that I would like to share: If a leader is bringing no value to her team — if her team members collectively have the skills that she does — then if her nature permits it she will attempt to exert authority, with authority being her sole contribution to the team.

In addition to teams with leaders who add little value, diverse teams, teams whose members differ in characteristic greatly from the leader, are more prone to their leaders seeking to control the team. The small team that I described in an earlier post I expect became more homogenous after I left the group. Undoubtedly my ex-boss searched for a replacement for me who was as different from me as possible. After all, she had not understood how to use me as an employee. Given our tense relationship, very likely she also looked for someone whom she could better control, having regarded me as disrespectful.

My earlier post explained how to avoid facing the conundrum that my ex-boss did: First appreciate who your people are and then think about how to lead them. But how do you not become a leader who adds little benefit your team? How can you ensure that you give something of value to each of your team members, which would stoke their desire for you to lead them? My answer, which came to me spontaneously while I wrote this post and therefore will need further elaboration both by you and by me: Make your mind as versatile as you can.

The minds of the most secure leaders whom I know are supple. These individuals identify with people who are very unlike themselves. Even if these leaders lack skills that their team members have — indeed, this should be the case! — they understand how to harness the skills in order to accomplish objectives. These leaders do not say “I” and “my” when talking about their work. Instead, they say “we” and “our.” These leaders do not say, “Did they just go around me?” They have the confidence to compliment your work.

Recognizing good leadership is something that you as the students and postdocs of Stanford Biochemistry already know how to do. The idea of cultivating the mind, however, reminded me of the following post that I wrote for Stanford Duck Beta before the website became standuck.com. If you agree with the advice, then you could give it to members of your future teams.

Here is the former professor, addressing someone’s comment about not feeling special at Stanford. “To me, being special is not about outperforming others. If we focus here on the mind, what matters is thinking ‘well.’ And EVERYONE can learn this. Some people might have more computing power or flashes of brilliance, but that does not diminish what the rest of us have — especially considering that every mind is UNIQUE. Find mentors who say things that are insightful to you. Learn from these people.”

 

Regarding leading a team

“First appreciate who your people are.
Then think about how to lead them.”

Most of you during your career will end up managing people. If I were young again, I would too, and I did manage people — a lab — for seven years. There are many things to know in order to manage a group effectively. You will learn a lot by watching the successes and mistakes of other supervisors as well as experiencing your own. Ideally your mistakes, while lessons will be learned best this way, will cause minimal harm and be corrected quickly.

Many of us have experienced at least one person in a supervisory role who failed to appreciate what we had to contribute to our job. The supervisor did not comprehend who we were, but was focused only on supervising — on being followed. We did not feel good, but we did not clearly understand why. This situation caused problems ranging from demotivation to disrespect to animosity. If you find yourself with such a supervisor, you will need to remove yourself from the situation eventually, if the circumstance cannot be fixed. However, this post aims to help you when you are on the other side: how to avoid unintentionally becoming the supervisor who tries to lead before appreciating who she has as a team.

During their training, most scientists do not take leadership training courses. The bits and pieces of information that I have overheard about these courses, however, seem to focus more on “hard” skills such as time management and efficient organizational processes. Perhaps the “soft” skill that I am discussing is taught as well, but is hard to learn. Regardless, as you might agree, the mistake proliferates among supervisors. Many, if not most, supervisors think first about “leading” before evaluating their team. What do I mean by “evaluate”?

When reentering the workforce in 2016 after a ten-year hiatus, then being a former professor at the age of 46, I was able to secure only an entry-level position at Stanford that was advertised to students just graduating from college. A person with more confidence than I had would likely have been able to jump into a higher position (to “sell himself” as a very valuable commodity — note that I use the male pronoun). But my illness had impaired me seriously for many years, such that I did not trust myself with high-level responsibilities in a company. Extremely lucky when a health and safety supervisor in the School of Engineering (not in EH&S) hired me, I found myself soon (because this supervisor left) with a new boss who had no idea what to do with me. When she was hired, immediately I knew that she never would have hired me. This did not feel good.

I happened to have much more education than she did, although that did not matter with respect to other people whom I met during this time. This new boss of mine was only capable of imagining me in her likeness — and to me her likeness was not particularly visionary — and she encouraged me to take many courses in health and safety in order to become licensed in the field. During my short time employed with her, I felt an opportunity lost to connect her team to academics in a new way, because I came from the latter community. When I left this position, a mentor who had observed what had transpired commented about my boss, “She did not do a good job taking advantage of what you had to offer.” He said as well, “You needed to get out of the situation, because ultimately an employee needs to respect her boss.”

When you become a supervisor, be sure to think about who your employees are as individuals.  Do not think about your employees (only) according to their titles.

Different employees with the same title will do their jobs differently, doing their jobs well and making unique contributions. Acknowledge this wonderful phenomenon. THEN think about how to lead your team.

Exerting authority will be effective when you truly comprehend the value that comes from the unique paths that your employees take through life.

Carol Gross

“Find three mentors and meet with them once a month.” — Carol Gross

4:15 PM. I just finished filming the training video that required me to learn how to use makeup. The filming went better than I expected. I know what it feels like to be an assistant professor, and I am scary when angry. M y face scowls like my dad’s. The woman who will edit the film, who knew nothing about me, said, “She has the perfect presence. It feels as if she’s done this before.” You will be able to judge my performance for yourself, because it will be available on YouTube…

The video will be part of a series (by the SoM) for faculty mentoring faculty. For me, I identify by knowing firsthand how hard it can be for junior faculty to obtain mentoring from senior faculty. When an assistant professor from 2000 until 2006, I faced two struggles: The senior faculty were so busy that I felt terrible taking up their time to mentor me. Second — and this situation might have been particular to my field — the mentors who enthusiastically supported me worked in research areas very different than mine, e.g., one mentor was a fluid mechanician. (I worked in a chemical engineering department.)

My experience as an assistant professor was fraught. In 2002, I attended the Microbial Stress Response Gordon Conference in Newport, RI. There while socializing with Amy Gehring, a young fellow Streptomyces researcher, we happened upon Carol Gross. Carol Gross asked me, “How is it going?” Immediately I knew that she understood my predicament — that I had no clue how to run my lab — and I began to cry. She said firmly, “Find three mentors and meet with them once a month.”

17 years later, maybe Carol Gross would add more to this rule. But I put her advice from long ago as my first post on Jenn Kong’s website so that you who aspire to be faculty — or who aspire to do anything challenging but hopefully rewarding — can know about the rule.