Welcome to Leadership Lab with Wendy Hultmark!
This is a monthly newsletter where I share light-bite content on a variety of topics related to leadership in today’s world and times. Whether in the sciences or creative spaces, the word lab has come to be associated with a space for experimentation, innovation, and collaboration.
In this space, I will share tips worth passing on, words I have found worthy of reflection, and the occasional funny story to keep it all in perspective.
“How do I get this person to…?”
Have you ever thought, “how do I get this person to…(fill in the blank)?”
One of the toughest challenges about being a leader is that you are accountable for a team’s success, but not necessarily in control of how each person is contributing to the team. Leaders can try to motivate their employees, but they can’t move them around like pieces on a chess board (unfortunately).
This challenge is especially striking in the lab, where principal investigators are counting on their post-docs and other lab staff for their own path to publication and career success.
When these challenges arise, I work with clients to help them develop a mastery orientation. Stemming from the work of psychologists Carol Dweck and John Nicholls, mastery orientation is about developing long-term mastery of a skill versus being hyper-focused on a short-term goal.
When we are trying to accomplish a certain thing, we often bear down and try really hard to make the thing happen. The great irony is that when we release our grip on that thing, and focusing on our process for success or improvement, we achieve better success than when we are laser-focused on those short-term goals. Conversely, when we become obsessed with a particular short-term goal, we miss out on the development needs that would help us achieve that goal. Frustration takes hold and it’s hard to succeed at much of anything in that state.
Instead of focusing on “I have to ‘get this person to do’ something”, it becomes a question of “what are things that, if I get better at them, will increase the likelihood that this thing will get done?”
This leads to better short-term outcomes, but also gives my clients tools that will help them continue to grow and succeed in the long run.
Coffee Hour for Scientists
I’m hosting a free coffee hour for PI’s, Program Directors, or anyone leading in the lab!
Join us October 28th, 2-3pm ET, to share community, coffee, and to receive resources and strategies to help you with challenges related to leadership in the lab.
If you’d like to join us, email me and I will send you the Zoom link.
Work with me here.
Last week I expanded Beyond the Bench to a new scientific community!
Beyond the Bench is a peer group for leaders in the lab, where they navigate the challenges of leadership and career and explore new pathways to success. This new group is a community of scientists across the world, who all receive funding through the same philanthropic organization.
In Beyond the Bench, scientists help one another, in a professionally facilitated forum, to navigate challenges related to people management, communicating as a leader beyond the lab, how to create engaged, innovative teams and more. If it’s not about science or grant-writing, it probably is a job for Beyond the Bench!
New cohorts are forming for January. Learn more here.
