“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.