Moving from Technical expert to Impactful Lab leader

A leader starts with the desire to learn how to lead and the courage to put what you learn into practice.

A leader is not necessarily just a title that is worn, as seen with great informal leaders and sometimes poor and ill-equipped "assigned" leaders.

It took me a long journey of many years, twists and turns, functioning in several leadership roles without adequate training and mentorship to find answers. That formed my mission to share all I eventually learnt over the years with other laboratory leaders.

In one of my role as a Core Lab supervisor, I went to the manager for guidance. The response I got was,

"I had to figure this all out by the seat of my pants!".

I was upset with my manager and soon after, I quit. In hindsight I know that she herself didn't know what to do either!

I've been told by many lab leaders, from supervisors to directors, that they felt that they were thrown in these positions to swim or sink and everyday it's a guessing game. Some guesses work and some don't.

I spent the last decade studying leadership, team dynamics, staff engagements, lean processes, workflow efficiency and return on investment in laboratories.

Instead of skipping industries to work on my craft somewhere else, I dedicated all those years pulling up my sleeves in labs and demonstrating the lab's value to the rest of the healthcare team. I did this through visible projects that are aligned with patient outcomes.

My dream is to share many of the techniques and skills that I learned, with other Healthcare leaders who have the desire to learn how to lead and the courage to put what you learn into practice.