Stephen H Baum Leadership

Met new CEO of Rockefeller University, Mark Tessier-Levigne this week. Brief conversation about leadership took place before the wonderful Women & Science program (more about that later).

Formerly the Chief Scientist at Genentech, he had thousands of research scientists reporting to him. Could he tell who would be the most productive? What were the leadership challenges? Answers…some scientists rise meteorically while others have a steady but slower trajectory of contributions. What is needed is treating each set appropriately, making sure they are on the right projects and with the right resources.

What leadership lessons do you carry with you into this new post as president of a major research university? Among other answers: the best any leader can do is to try to make good decisions (best is the enemy of good) after gathering input from the right sources; there are no perfect decisions and plenty of good decisions can have bad outcomes but few decisions are truly irreversible; almost any timely decision is better than prolonged indecision as the organization needs it to function well.

He believes it a privilege to lead an institution with such a track record and reputation of breakthrough developments. For me, it is a privilege to hear (and meet personally at lunch) world class scientists such as Leslie B. Vosshall who leads the Neurogenetics and Behavior laboratory doing ground-breaking work in scents and behavior. She communicated the advanced science underlying her lab’s findings, parallels and differences between visual and olfactory processes in humans, the consequences of the findings and the research methods and practices — but did so in a way that was digestible for the lay public and incredibly entertaining at the same time (great analogies, interesting and funny anecdotes and visual aids). She and her colleagues have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to convey complexities of genetics and biology in terms as simple as traffic patterns, sports and other every day experience.

What a privilege and pleasure to be in their presence. You can connect with them at their website which helps them raise funds to support women in science:

Women & Science Rockefeller University

That’s my view. What’s yours?