🎙️ Podcast Link 🎙️
What would I tell my younger self at the point I was starting my leadership journey? 🤔👣
That’s the topic of today’s Hacking Academia video 🎥 – I like to do the more philosophical ones on a Friday afternoon! 🧘♂️🌤️
I, like most people, am a “leader in learning” 📚 – it never stops. That said, it’s been a pretty packed 15 years of learnings, mistakes, insights and tips from others 💡, and this is a small fraction of what I think I would tell my younger self about what I’ve learnt about leadership… so far.
Things like:
🔥 that it’s simultaneously one of the most fulfilling but also most challenging things you can do
📅 it’s not just about enacting the “grand visions” – a lot of leadership is about turning up, even at those toughest times
🧭 that, perhaps moreso than most other things, it’s a continuous learning journey: what you learnt as an individual contributor only has limited transferability to leading a group, and then as that group grows in scale, you need to learn lots more at each stage
🤝 interdependence – you will increasingly rely on those around you, as they will on you – anything where you’re the critical cog for everything is not a recipe for successful leadership
🪟 transparency and consultation – both are important, but are constrained due to realities in many situations. I’ve grown to particularly be a fan of transparency – not everyone will agree, but everyone should understand the grounds under which decisions were made
💔 self-care and empathy “limits”: you cannot afford to completely and utterly dedicate your emotional self to every challenge going on – you will break – and you serve no-one if you’re a wreck yourself. This can be especially difficult transition for small group leaders who are used to completely pitching in to the utmost extent to look after their (very small) number of members
⚠️ beware the “always right” trope, but you do need to be mostly right, as often as possible. If you’re continuously screwing up, it’s possibly a sign that you’re out of your depth and need to step back and pick up some more skills and experience
🛠️ authentic technical experience: no experience at all, or a deep tech expert in the area you’re leading? I’m in the middle on this one: you want to have, or deliberately acquire, at least some deep technical knowledge in the area
⚖️ bad management negates good leadership – and often you don’t have the luxury of separating the two
🌬️ the increasing role and importance of soft influence
👟 “take a step in their shoes”: leading is a great way to generate understanding of and empathy for those who lead you
🌈 the tricky balancing act between optimism and reality
Hope you enjoy it – feel free to share what you would tell your younger self about leadership! 😊
🎙 Podcast link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2191455/episodes/16914947
Thanks to Sean Di Lizio for the candid photo! 📸
#Leadership #HackingAcademia #management #softskills
Full Video Notes
This is a picture of me from around 15 years ago, when I first started on my leadership journey. Recently, I’ve been reflecting—partly due to the mentoring and advising I now do—on what I would say to my younger self about leadership. That reflection is the focus of today’s Hacking Academia video.
My leadership journey began in a way that is familiar to many in academia and research. It started with supervising a single PhD student, then a handful. It gradually progressed to leading a group, then taking on joint or deputy leadership of increasingly large groups. Eventually, I became the director of a large robotics research centre, with all the responsibilities, opportunities, and challenges that come with the role.
I would never claim to be a great leader. I consider myself a leader in learning, and I think I will continue to be one for the rest of my career. I believe many others would say the same about themselves. That said, it has been an incredible journey, one filled with lessons—some painful, some deeply fulfilling—that have shaped my understanding of leadership and my personal approach to it. These are the lessons I would share with my younger self, and with anyone beginning a similar path.
The most obvious starting point is that leadership, in my experience, is incredibly fulfilling. But it is also constantly challenging. It is challenging because you’re regularly faced with unfamiliar situations. The skill set that served you well as a junior academic does not always translate easily to leadership. And it is challenging because leadership is a continual learning process.
The first misconception I would correct—at least for my younger self—is that leadership is not solely about grand visionary initiatives. Those are important, and being a visionary certainly helps. But a large part of leadership is simply showing up day after day. It means engaging in the work of leading, even when you’re tired, even when things are difficult. Turning up and being present is an essential part of the role.
One of the interesting aspects of leadership is that, as you progress through different levels, the learning never stops. What you learn from leading a few PhD students or postdocs helps, but it does not fully prepare you for leading larger, more complex teams. Each step up introduces new dynamics, responsibilities, and skills you need to master.
Stephen Covey and many others talk about interdependence, and that concept is central to leadership. You cannot do it all yourself. If you try, you will likely fail. You must trust others, work with others, and accept that things will sometimes go wrong. Sometimes you will be the one to make a mistake. That shift—from individual contributor to collaborative leader—is often the most difficult for high-achieving individuals in academia and research.
Two concepts that come up often in leadership and management are consultation and transparency. Consultation means asking for input from those affected by a decision or from those who may offer useful perspectives. Transparency means explaining, as clearly as possible, why a decision was made, what the contributing factors were, and how the outcome came about.
Both are important, but in my experience, transparency is often underrated. In many situations, broad consultation is either impossible or impractical. Constraints may limit what can be changed, no matter how much feedback you collect. In those cases, transparency becomes even more critical. Even when people disagree with the decision, it helps if they clearly understand the reasoning behind it.
Another reality of leadership—especially in academic environments—is the need for empathy. Many academic leaders care deeply for their teams. They are willing to stay late to help a struggling student or staff member, and they often provide support that extends into personal life challenges. However, there must be limits. If you follow every issue to the end for every person you support, you will burn out.
Earlier in my leadership journey, I over-engaged with some processes to the point where I became physically unwell from the stress. You need boundaries. You need to care, but you also need to look after yourself. Bringing in others to help with support roles is not just helpful—it is essential.
There’s a leadership principle used at Amazon that says, “leaders are often right.” This is a tricky idea. It is unrealistic to expect leaders to be perfect. At the same time, in order to lead effectively, you need to make the right calls most of the time. Constant misjudgment erodes team morale and can reflect that you may not be ready for that level of leadership. If that’s the case, it may be worth going back to refine your foundation before stepping up again.
There is also an ongoing debate about how much technical expertise leaders should have in the areas their teams work in. On one extreme, some leaders have no direct experience. On the other, some tech companies expect leaders to be able to outperform their team technically if needed. I think the right approach lies somewhere in the middle. Good leaders, in my view, should have had deep, authentic experience in at least some of the areas their teams work in. If they haven’t, they should have made the effort to upskill and engage with those areas meaningfully.
Leadership and management are often discussed as interchangeable, but they are not. You need both. I’ve seen individuals who are inspirational leaders but terrible managers. Poor management undermines good leadership. Unless responsibilities are split, a leader should also be a competent manager.
As you move further up the leadership ranks, soft influence becomes more important. Early on, you may have direct reports you can instruct. Later, you must work with peers, other leaders, and external stakeholders. You cannot simply tell people what to do. You must persuade, negotiate, and align interests—especially when your goals don’t automatically align with theirs.
One challenge I’ve returned to throughout my leadership journey is balancing optimism with reality. Early on, I was all energy and enthusiasm. I encouraged my team to go for everything. Later, I became better at understanding how competitive things really were and could see the low odds for many opportunities. But taken at face value, those odds are discouraging. Where I’ve landed now is a blend of both. I maintain optimism and a can-do attitude, but I also help my team understand the realities and prepare for setbacks. That balance—between ambition and honest expectation—is hard to master, but very important.
Another benefit of leadership is the empathy it builds for those above you. You will often find yourself criticizing decisions made by others in higher positions. But once you’ve been in leadership yourself, you start to understand how complex those decisions can be. Often, there are constraints and considerations you cannot see from the outside. This perspective makes you a more understanding and fair colleague.
Leadership is not for everyone. Some people choose to remain individual technical contributors, and that’s absolutely valid. Others are focused on leadership as their primary path. Many people are somewhere in between, finding that leadership naturally becomes part of what they do as they advance. There is not a lot of formal training for leadership in academia. We try to encourage people to take those opportunities when they arise. But in truth, most learning happens on the job, through trial and error. You will make mistakes. Hopefully, your environment allows those mistakes to become learning experiences.
I strongly encourage everyone to try leadership at some stage. It brings many benefits, including skill development that will help across both technical and non-technical areas of your career.
Finally, a little humility. If I had been asked to give these reflections 15 years ago, I would have said many things. A few might have been on target. Many probably would have been naive or cringeworthy. I have no doubt that 10 or 15 years from now, I’ll look back at this video and realize how much my views have changed again. But this is an honest snapshot of where I am now. Everyone’s leadership journey is different, but I hope these reflections are useful to others navigating their own path.