Researchers should be better prepared to be leaders of labs (opinion)

Conflict resolution, financial planning, people management, public relations—all such job duties and more came with my faculty career, and it’s fair to say that I did not feel adequately prepared for any of them.

Looking back, the first few years of my faculty career are punctuated with situations where I encountered a challenge and had no idea how to handle it. That included managing disputes over authorship, delivering feedback to someone who was underperforming and trying to figure out if I had enough funds to pay all the students and postdocs in my research group.

Over a decade later, I now lead a thriving chemical biology research group at an institution where I hold an endowed chair and am also currently serving as chair of the department of chemistry. Many of my leadership mishaps have evolved into humorous stories or teachable moments, but the difficulty in the moment was real—and not just for me.

My lack of preparation also impacted the members of my research group. In one instance, we had a tight deadline to produce results for a funding agency. As an inexperienced leader, I assumed that I simply needed to frequently and emphatically communicate the importance of the deadline to those working on the project in order to get the outcome I was hoping for. After a few weeks, my lab members thankfully had the courage to approach me and say, “We know this is important. We’re working as hard as we can. We’ll be more likely to succeed if you support us instead of adding more pressure.” Needless to say, this was an eye-opening moment and a lesson I’ve carried with me ever since.

How could this happen? In academia, the training period before we arrive at a permanent position is among the lengthiest of all career paths, so shouldn’t we be more prepared than most other people starting their first job?

The fact that this often isn’t the case underscores a key challenge in academic STEM: The training that builds toward a tenure-track faculty position is primarily focused on research, but many of our job duties once we become faculty involve leadership, whether in the lab or the classroom.

And the reality of the situation is even more concerning. Not only do we have a critical gap in our training, but relatively few people recognize that this gap even exists. As a result, those who enter faculty jobs that involve leading a lab are too often left to haphazardly stumble onto the reality that they need a certain skill set to be successful—which they were never really taught. Some faculty members may never hit this realization.

I remember attending my first academic leadership workshop when I was still an assistant professor. Even though I didn’t yet have tenure, I sat in a room full of established faculty members who were aiming to be chairs, deans, provosts or presidents, where I hung on every piece of wisdom that the panelists and session leaders shared. This wasn’t because I wanted to be a department chair (yet), but because I realized those leadership skills were crucial for me to just to get through the next week of running my research lab.

The discussions I have with other faculty members reveal that I am not alone in this struggle. Moreover, many of the challenges in academic culture link back to this gap between our training and our job duties as faculty. Imagine how much more effective we could be as research mentors if we were adequately prepared to navigate difficult conversations and provide candid yet constructive feedback to the members of our lab. Similarly, having the skill set needed to create a healthy environment in our research group could help address some of the major challenges in academia, including the mental health crisis faced by graduate students and the replication crisis stemming from shortfalls in scientific rigor.

The good news is that we can make this a reality—it just takes intentionality. Encouragingly, many institutions and professional societies are now offering workshops in lab leadership or related topics. (See examples here and here.) And even if your institution does not have such offerings, an abundance of resources is available in the form of books, articles and podcasts.

Similar to learning a new research skill, we can learn leadership skills. The first step is to recognize what we don’t know and then to seek out resources to fill that knowledge gap. As with a research skill, achieving mastery requires that we put our new knowledge into practice on a regular basis and continue to reflect on what we can do to improve. If you’re not sure where to start in developing the leadership skills needed to run a lab, I’ve provided a few ideas below.

• Reward high-quality failure. The pressure to publish or perish can be real, and it should concern—though not surprise—all of us that this pressure has been linked to scientific misconduct. As lab leaders, we can insulate our group members from this pressure by creating a lab culture that rewards the quality of the research process rather than how closely the data aligns with the results we’ve hoped for. Think about how you responded last time a member of your lab told you about an experiment that failed, despite their best efforts. Now think about how you wish you had responded, and make that a reality next time around.

• Communicate expectations. You may know exactly what you expect of your lab members, but do they know what those expectations are? That could include a diverse range of topics, such as work hours and time off, presentation formats, the process for writing a manuscript, or how to organize samples in a freezer. When we assume that this is common knowledge, we create a hidden curriculum that is a challenge for everyone and disproportionately impacts those from marginalized groups. If you don’t yet have a lab policy manual that outlines your expectations and how to be successful in the lab, then now is a great time to create one. Even better, include your entire group in the process of drafting the policy manual—their feedback is likely to be helpful and their involvement will ensure that everyone is aware of what is being communicated.
• Ask for feedback. Between peer reviews of manuscripts or grant proposals and student evaluations of teaching, we in academia receive no shortage of feedback. But little of it will help us become better leaders of our labs. While the thought of seeking even more feedback might feel daunting, you’ll discover an upside: Deep flaws have been noted for both peer review and student evaluations of teaching, but you have the power to create a better system for gathering input from your lab members. Numerous options exist, such as creating an anonymous online survey that each lab member fills out or encouraging your lab to organize an in-person discussion, after which a trusted member of the group shares the compiled and anonymized feedback with you. The important part is to talk with your group to find a format that you are all comfortable with and where they will feel safe to share candidly.
• Pass it on. While you might have found yourself with a leadership job that you weren’t prepared for, that doesn’t have to be the reality for the next generation of STEM professionals. You can break the cycle by sharing your leadership knowledge and wisdom with those who are in your lab right now. If you are just learning such skills yourself, you can still point your group members toward resources you’ve found helpful and discuss challenging situations with them. No matter what career path they each decide to pursue, you can ensure that they won’t face the same situation—that they will be more prepared because they realize that they have a leadership job as well as a research one and people are counting on them to get it right.