We need more leadership tutorials in academia
It took me a long time, actually a very long time, to learn that I don’t always have to say “yes” to requests coming from my advisors, supervisors, and colleagues. I decided to write this article to share it with the current graduate students and postdoctoral researchers with similar backgrounds who spend most of their current life in universities or institutes and do not hold a “principal investigator (PI)” status. I hope this article helps them to reduce their stress level and encourage them to enjoy their years in academia more than before.
Academia is a great place to soak up all of your personal resources that could be used in a more productive yet enjoyable way. While learning new things gives you a pretty great feeling and that’s usually one of the main reasons you’d pursue your higher education, academia does not necessarily lets you enjoy this great feeling, mainly due to a high level of stress and pressure. It is your sole responsibility to take a moment every now and then, breathe deeply, think, and plan for your work life. Get the control of your work life in your hand. This will help you to be healthier, happier, and use your time more productively and more important than all to blossom your creativity. Learn to say “no” and open up some time for yourself!
Learning to say “no” is crucial for survival in academia. Start from a point in time and practice from there on. Of course the first time is pretty hard and you might feel so embarrassed, scared of the consequences, and irresponsible (especially if you are considered as a minority in this labeling country), but believe me, it will empower you as you go. Quite understandably, when you do not have enough power in a hierarchical system, such as in academia, you always feel obligated to accept all requests that come from any higher level person. This to some extent makes sense, but you have to stop it.
Let me design a typical scenario and ask what you would do in that situation: let’s say you are a graduate student receiving a request from your advisor to write an annual report for the National Science Foundation (NSF) proposal that awarded sometime last year. Your advisor tells you that the deadline is tomorrow and you only have 24 hours to finish the report. Being a bit fair, they might even apologize for the fact that they had forgotten to inform you sooner about this and they were too busy to work on the report themselves. Ok, fine, but you already had planned to work on a paper that was due the next day and you had to take care of the regular lab work and you had to take care of a project you were leading and so on (let me not even say that you might have a family and you might need to take care of your children, etc.) What would you do?
In most cases, you’ll stop sleeping, eating, walking, and talking, and just work on the report and handle a lot of stress in 24 hours just to accomplish what your advisor has asked you (back of the envelope calculation: how many body/brain cells will you loose during this 24 hour process?!). While this might sound reasonable that a student should naturally accept such a request from their advisor, I totally disagree.
It took me a long time to realize that I should not sacrifice my time, schedule, and productivity for unorganized people (and not necessarily for organized people either), even if they have a higher “rank” in this hierarchical system. If you have a higher rank, you’ve got to prove you deserve the rank. Unfortunately, this is not the way it currently works in academia. Accepting the random requests from here and there will just let this malfunctioning system continue misusing people and treating them as labors without enough human rights. These words might sound a bit harsh, but I think this is exactly what happens in many research groups in academia.
In my opinion, PIs need to take more responsibilities in their group compared to their students; they are the ones who are supposed to be “role models” for their students and postdocs. They are the mentors. They should teach the next generation of scientists, engineers, and doctors how to take roles and how to perform good in them. Putting a lot of pressure on their students and postdocs just because they have defined or accepted so many projects without estimating the power, or assigning last minute tasks just because they were too busy to do earlier (or any other excuses) are signs of poor management.
In my opinion, we seriously lack management training in academia. We have a lot of talents, but we never teach them how to lead a group. We just hope it comes naturally with their science knowledge and talent; it does not. PIs are leaders and managers; they need to learn how to manage their time, how to take responsibilities for their mistakes, how to plan for their work, and most importantly how to treat people.
In my eleven years of working in academia, I have only encountered with a couple of PIs that I appreciated not only their science, but their leadership. These people care deeply about their employees; they appreciate their time and energy as much as they value their owns. Everyone is first a person to them and then a worker. People are not only machines capable of running experiments and analyses, producing results, and bringing fame and/or money to the lab. These PIs are mainly very organized; they do not hand over their group meetings to let’s say seniors in the group, they check up on both the work and health status of their employees on a regular basis, they meet their deadlines, and provide opportunities for their people (such as nominating them for awards, introducing them to other potential collaborators, making them aware of conferences and meetings, paying them enough or increasing their salaries for appreciating their good work, helping them develop skills they need for their future jobs and always making sure to encourage everyone in the group.)
As I am getting closer to the real managing positions, while on the limbo of a lecturer/independent researcher position, I have started thinking about these issues a lot more than before. I have realized how important it is to share our stories and thoughts with each other about our work experiences. Of course, I acknowledge that these are only my personal opinions and I share them with the hope that it helps students, postdocs, or faculties. If you ask me how you can learn to be a good leader, I’d say: read books, listen to talks and podcasts, take online courses, ask for advice from great leaders around you, think and practice, but always remember to place yourself in other people’s positions to see how you’d like to be treated, and regularly ask your employees for feedback.
“Think”, my favorite sculpture at Columbia University in front of the Philosophy Department.