After almost 20 years of watching academic leaders build and
manage research programs, I categorize all leadership approaches into one of
two models:
- · Departmental leadership
- · Principle investigator leadership
Departmental leadership
stems from base funding that provides for core faculty positions. Not only departments have this type of
funding, but also many other organizational structures, and notably research
centers with some longevity that has allowed them to develop such base funding. With this type of funding the departmental
leader can build an organization that fits with a particular mission. If the mission is to create an organization
that contributes to innovative research and education in bioinformatics, then
the departmental leader has some leeway to hire core faculty in bioinformatics. Typically the departmental leader will shape
the specifics of the mission to their own perspectives gained from their past education,
research and service. Sticking with the
bioinformatics example, the departmental leader may decide to focus on
structural or systems biology because they have particular interest in this
area and recognize this is an area with much research potential in the future
since it may be clear that funding agencies are prioritizing the importance of
these fields. The area may also be one
in which students increasingly have the aptitude and interest in pursuing. Maybe most important, the departmental leader
may recognize that many of the resources that are available to support the
development of this area are already on campus.
The bioinformatics program needs resources on campus that have the
potential to produce the biological data that can be analyzed, or a systems
biology effort would require campus resources that provide mathematics and
computer science expertise to collaborate in the development of the research
programs of the core faculty.
Departmental leadership is most effective when developing an
existing organization. By promoting the
mission of this organization, the departmental leader increases the amount of
funds for supporting core faculty, builds the reputation of the organization,
and supports the education of future leaders according to the mission. The departmental leader is most effective
when their primary function is in motivating existing faculty to support the
mission and succeed at their own personal missions for education, research and
service. Their ability to move the
organization towards a reputation in a particular discipline is dependent upon
their ability to gain a consensus among the faculty about the mission of the organization,
and then to obtain that mission through faculty recruiting and the support of
the faculties efforts in education, research and service.
Principle
investigator leadership stems from a mission based on subject matter
expertise and the funding that expertise attracts. This seems to be the most effective model for
leadership in developing new education, research and service initiatives.
In these cases, the principle investigator leader is the thought leader who takes
ownership of an initiative. In many cases this principle investigator
leader is hired from outside the institution to build the initiative, but that
isn’t always the strongest strategy, particularly when the success of the
initiative depends in large part on the existing resources of the
institution. The principle investigator leader usually has an appointment
as professor, and is rarely also the administrative head of a department,
division, school, or college. In cases where the principle investigator leader
is an administrator, they are usually administrators of research. This
individual must have a reputation in the area that is being developed. The stronger the reputation, the more
successful the initiative. A major component of the mission of the
initiative will be in-line with this reputation and the principle investigator
leader will lead many projects that could be considered “core” projects of the
initiative. Other faculty affiliated with the initiative are collaborators
on grants and contracts, or full-time research faculty frequently funded by the
grants or contracts. These faculty
usually will have some close connection to the leader’s area of interest,
though they may be completely peripheral in that interest, being maybe focused
on an area that was spun off from the principle investigator’s original
efforts. Faculty in these organizations
will initiate their relationship to the young initiative through collaborations
or full-time roles on initiative-funded projects, and then develop their own,
though related interests, obtaining funding for them to establish their own
role as a principle investigator in the initiative.
Initiatives with longevity are composed of faculty affiliates
and core faculty who have varying degrees of connection to the research of the
leader, with the initiative held together by a mission and frequently one or two
large “core” grants or gifts. These
initiatives require the skills of a department leader, so either the original
leader assumes this role by moving away from their function as key grant and
contract principle investigator, or the individual focuses on continuing to
build their own education, research and service activities and turns over the
organization administration to a newly appointed individual with department
leadership skills.