How to become a good leader?
As you know, I work as a full-time employee in the clinical laboratory of this Biotech company. I like it there, it’s a nice job. My team is made of 5 technologists, 1 lead and a supervisor. I’ve been working there for a little more than a year now and since there is a high turnover rate in the laboratory I work in, I already had three different leads. A lead is a person responsible of making sure that the team does its best to complete the tasks that were assigned to it at the beginning of the shift. I didn’t knew the first lead very well, she left a few months after I got hired, but the second and the current leads have completely two different views of what a leader is.
The second lead, Martha, was an overachiever. She cared about her image or reputation, so she would make sure that we complete the tasks assigned no matter what. She would push us to perform according to her standard, so we all had to be overachievers.
When we asked her why she is pushing us that way, she said “because I know you guys can do it”. I wasn’t sure if it was because she saw something in us or if it was because she wanted to believe that we could do everything that she asked for, but it was a lot.
In a way, I liked the way she led the team because it was organized, we knew what to expect, we knew we could rely on her, and we knew she would treat everybody the same.
The current lead, Rita, is the opposite of Martha, she asks us what tasks we are comfortable performing without feeling overwhelmed, which is great because we know that we don’t have to push ourselves too hard. She also asks our opinion before making a change in the workflow.
But she is not organized at all, so the members of the team are not treated equally. The ones who actually care about completing the tasks on time would perform more than the ones who just want to do the minimum. When asked about how she feels now that she’s a lead, Rita responded “nothing has changed, I even don’t feel like I am the lead”.
After comparing these two different leadership types I definitely think that Rita is lacking some experience, which is okay, she is doing something new, she is learning. But the big problem is that she doesn’t do anything to improve herself or compensating the fact that she doesn’t have experience. Her title changed but the person didn’t.
If there is only one thing I want you to take out when you close off the website is that no matter what you decide to do in your life, big or small: Educate yourself to improve your skill. If your title changes, the character has to change as well.
”Successful people do things that unsuccessful people will never do” - Unknown
When actors receive a script for a new movie, they don’t just wait until the shooting day and show up. They prepare the role, they searched ways to understand the character, and practice being the character.
When I decided I wanted to come live in a country whose main language is English, I took lessons to improve my comprehension of English, I watched movies in English to familiarize myself with the language, I prepared myself to be successful here.
What type of leadership style do you think is the best, the one who pushes their employees to a point where they can burnout, or the one who wait until some employees stand out and then rely on them?
