The Secret to Workplace Happiness: Great Leadership

My friends, we have a treat. Today you are going to meet Kyle Huggins, who is the founder and C E O of Management mogul, and he is really invested in making the world a better place through teaching leadership skills. And, you know, I talk about this a lot, but we are not born knowing how to do anything, let alone leadership or science or any of the things you've learned along the way. So what I would like to do today is talk to Kyle about how he helps people develop the leadership skills, which are not all the classic leadership skills you might think about, but things like building subtle influence and rapport and trust in your teams and how you layer that on to get to where you want to be in your career, which might be all the way up to cso. Right. How do you move through the career ladder confidently, feeling like you know what you're doing and having the influence that you really want to have while making your team and your company a better place? These are all things we're going to discuss. I think you're going to really, really like it. Kyle's awesome. So, without further ado, here we go. I'm Karina Klingman, scientist turned CEO of a talent strategy consulting firm. I've helped over 85 biotechs hire and develop thousands of amazing employees. So I know what works and what doesn't work when it comes to landing a job and then excelling in it. I created the Biotech career coach podcast to give you simple, actionable, step by step strategies to help you land your dream biotech job, then move up the career ladder. If you are exploring career path, looking to learn about biotech, or simply striving to be the type of person who makes an impact and gets promoted, you're in the right place. Kyle, I'm so excited to have you on the show. We know each other from a totally different place, but I got to know you in that space, which I want to talk about because I think it's important. We're both investing in our own development, which is kind of a theme here. But I would love to hear a little bit about you and why we're having this conversation today.

Yeah, no. Thanks for having me, Karina. My name's Kyle Huggins. I am the founder and CEO of Management Mogul, and this offers programs to new and aspiring leaders to reduce stress in their lives, work less, and just make the workplace just a better place. And so when I met you, you mentioned what you were working on, which is connecting people to careers, especially people who have been in school for A long time, and maybe newer to having a career, but not newer to adulting and getting along in life. And you said that a lot of times these people find themselves in leadership positions rather quickly in their careers because of their expertise. And the problem is, as we all know, a lot of people don't get solid leadership training out there, either from their companies or from other resources. You approached me and said, hey, I think it would be great to connect because I think that my audience might be interested in what you have to offer to help them advance their careers and actually maybe learn something that could help them.

Absolutely. And you have a really interesting background. Could you walk us through your career path and how you've came now to wanting to teach some of these leadership skills?

Yeah. So my career path started pretty rocky. I graduated with a liberal arts degree, like right after the crash of 08, but a few years later. And so the economy wasn't really awesome, and so jobs were pretty sparse. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I thought maybe I wanted to go into law, go to law school. So I worked at a law firm. I was like, eh, not the thing. Then I said, okay, well, maybe I want to work in the nonprofit sector, do some good in the world. And so I tried my hand at that. I was like, also not the thing, just not for me. And then I stumbled upon, and I say stumbled upon because I didn't know that this company existed. It's this company called Deloitte. And for those who don't know what it is, it's a global company. They've got about 450,000 employees worldwide. But a lot of people don't know about them because they don't really advertise themselves. They offer business services to businesses and to governments. And so I had a referral who connected me to this company, which was awesome for me because I was floundering. I was like, what am I doing with my life? How am I going to move forward? And I found this company and I was like, wow, there's so much opportunity here because they were involved in advanced analytics that were going on at the time. Right now they're like a leader in AI. And so I knew that there was opportunity in this company. And when I started, I started out at the very bottom. Uh, they have a very, I wouldn't say a strict hierarchy, but there's a path that you have to follow. And they started me at that entry level. And when you're there, you just show up and you say, what do I need to do how fast you need it done, and you do it with a smile on your face. Uh, that's really the goal, is to just impress people to do a good job. Uh, but as you move up that ladder, eventually you're gonna find yourself in a position where you need to be using leadership skills. You're gonna be leading others. And I had never had a leadership position in any of my prior roles, and I was super nervous about actually having to guide someone. Would they even want to follow me? Would they? Would they trust my guidance? Would I set up something that would just be a complete failure? And not only would I fail, but I would bring all of them down with me? And so all these thoughts were in my head. And what was awesome is that I had several mentors who helped me along that path as I advanced through the career ladder. So I got to that first level where you are essentially leading one to three people. I call this a team lead. And when I went into that level, the main thing that my mentors focused on with me was something that I call influence. There's a category of things, and one of them was, how do you convince other people to want to follow you, even if you don't have power and authority? I mean, I was at the bottom, and I had to maybe convince someone who was four levels above me that maybe their idea wasn't so awesome, at least in my opinion. How do I say that in a meeting without risking my career or upsetting them or whatever? And so she really taught me, how do you influence people in a way that they trust you and that they want to follow you? Another mentor really taught me office politics. A lot of people do really good work out there, but they don't get promoted, they don't get recognition, they don't get the raises, because, frankly, their leadership just doesn't know that's what they're doing. And so I had someone who said, kyle, you're doing amazing work, but no one knows about it, and you want to get promoted, so let me help you. And so she taught me how to navigate office politics and how to get those promotions pretty quickly. And I was thinking, I was promoted three times in four years. So that was the second thing that I learned going into to leadership. And then the third thing was just emotional intelligence in eq, I would say that emotional intelligence wasn't something that just came naturally to me when I was younger. And so when I met this person, he was like, hey, like, just be in touch with people's feelings. Like, how they feel is gonna influence how they make decisions. And so I started implementing all of that. So those are like the main things that my mentors taught me. And that got me to that first level where I was leading one to three people as a delivery lead. And people wanted to work with me, they liked working with me. And I was like, all right, this is good. I, I actually feel like I know what I'm doing. But then the time came for me to get promoted to that next level of leadership, where you are actually a leader of leaders, that team lead, that, that position that I was holding before, I was going to have three or four of those people under me, and each of them was going to have one to three people. So when you start to do the math, you can see how it's not difficult for you to find yourself leading maybe 20 people. And how do you do that? How do you scale to that level? Even if people like you, if you know office politics and you know emotional intelligence and you know how to convince people to do things, that's all fine and dandy. But if you don't know how to build systems at scale, you're never going to succeed at that level. And a lot of leaders end up burning out there. And so I had another mentor who came at this point in my career and he said, listen, you've got the influence side of things down, people want to follow you, and that's great, but you don't know how to set up these systems. And so I'm going to teach you how to do that so that way you can advance further in your career and keep scaling up. So he taught me these methods and it worked. I learned how to establish people who were under me, to give them authority and accountability, how to teach them. And suddenly I found myself leading these larger teams and frankly, I was working way less than I was ever working as an individual contributor. And it was because he had taught me how to do this scaling. And so that, that's really where I came to the point in my career where I said, okay, I can continue moving up the career ladder here and at this company. Really, you're going to become a equity owning partner or not? That's really the goal here. And I had to say to myself, is this what I want do? I want to be a partner here? And I think the partner track there is great, but just for personal reasons, I just felt like that wasn't what I wanted to pursue. And so I said, well, what am I going to do next? And I had a friend, we were sitting down Having drinks one night. And she said, you're really good at teaching other people how to do all these things, that you learned the influence side of things and the scaling of things. And she's like, you taught me how to do this. You're teaching others. There was a way that you could do that to help a lot of other people. That would be great. And I said, you know what? Why don't I look into that? And so that's why I ended up founding Management Mogul, my training and coaching program. So that's just series of events that got me to where I am and why I'm doing what I'm doing.

That's a great origin story. And I love that you call out the mentors along the way, because mentorship is so important. And I think people feel badly that they don't know how to do these things, but nobody's born knowing how to do these things. And I would love my audience to think back, reflect back as early as you can remember. Did you have a PhD? No, you did not. You were not born knowing all of the science that you know now. You had to learn, and you learned through targeted programs, targeted programming, mentors, and systems that got you to where you are. But what's really interesting, and you called this out earlier when I was telling you about what I do, it's just so fascinating because most folks listening to this have at least one advanced degree, if not multiple. And you actually have many of you, especially if you have a PhD, you may have a family, you may have children before you actually enter the workforce. You are typically, I think the average age is 31 to finish a PhD these days. So you are a fully fledged adult who is now entering the workforce with advanced degrees and sometimes going into small companies where they need leaders because they have folks who don't know the science as well as you do. So you're instantly expected to be able to manage those individuals. And it's not fair. It's really hard.

Absolutely. And I saw that also at my company. And again, I worked at Deloitte for 10 years before I decided to move here. So I got to see pretty much everything that came about. And there are really two different types of employees that work there. There were the people who were essentially hired in, toward the beginning of their career in the first few years, and that was really the only job that they knew. And so they were deloiters. They grew up in that company and they learned the culture and all of that. And so in the. I would classify myself as one of those, I didn't start right out of college, but pretty soon, and then I spent 10 years there. It was really the job I knew. And so as I advanced through that company, I got to see all the ins and outs of how it worked. And I watched. Even without just having my mentors, I was able to watch all these other leaders and see how they operated in the company. But then we had the second category of employees, and this would be people who were more established in their career and who are being hired in mid level. I mentioned that career ladder before for that first category. Everyone's starting out at that bottom level, and then you're being brought up so you get to see everything. And then when you're leading people at the mid level, you know what it's like to be that individual contributor at the bottom because you were that person. But when you come in at the middle and you haven't been around like everyone else has, it can be really difficult. And we had many people who would come hired in our company, and they were hired for their expertise. Maybe they were really good at networking computer systems or something like that. And we said, this is great, let's bring you in. But they did. They lack those leadership skills. And oftentimes what they ended up doing was having to find someone to mentor them. Either that or they floundered. And frankly, a lot of them left because they were frustrated. And so for anyone who's out there who's saying, hey, I'm going into a company and I feel like I'm coming in midstream and I don't know everything, and I don't feel like I got all the leadership training, I want to say, unfortunately, that's pretty normal. And the way to address that is to say, okay, I don't know what I'm doing with the specific skill set. That's not a reflection of my ability, that's not a reflection of my character or my value. It's just where I happen to be today. And so how can I up my game so that way I can be successful, but also just make sure everyone around me is happier. The Workforce Institute said that 60% of people feel that their workplace is the biggest impact on their mental health. I want everyone just to stop and reflect on that, because where do you spend most of your time? Like, really in today's day and age? We spend most of our time at work. That's why we make friends at work. That's why a lot of people meet their significant others at work. Like, work is a huge Part of our lives. So if 60% of people are like, yep, number one factor for my mental health is my workplace, who do you think is probably one of the biggest contributors of that in their life? It's probably their direct manager, their supervisor, their leaders, whoever those people are. And so my thing is that if you really want to make the world a better place, there are lots of ways that you can do that. You can donate your money, you can volunteer your time, but if you want to make a huge impact, one of the things you can do is, is invest in your ability to lead others in a successful way. So that way everyone's just having a better time. And that's also one of the reasons why I do this, is because I just saw so many people who were just, I don't want to use the word suffering because it sounds like an extreme word, but they were just burning out as individuals who are leaders or the people who were under them were miserable. And it doesn't have to be that way. But frankly, it's because a lot of people, they're not malicious. They're not trying to make it hard on everyone. Most people mean well. They just don't know how. And if you would take the time to figure it out, then it would obviously be a lot easier for you.

Absolutely. If you have not yet listened to the career chat that we did with Keith Wharton Jr. I encourage you to go back and listen to that. Because he has never held a traditional leadership role, yet he's expected to influence global teams. He is a. He is an unofficial team lead. He doesn't have any direct reports, and yet he leads global teams. How does he do that? He does it with what Kyle mentioned earlier, and we talked about this during that conversation. The leading through influence, getting people on side. Right. So it's all of the things, those skills, and that's something that he had to learn. He came from a long academic career and came into industry and was like, oh, this is actually really hard. Right. And so that's a skill in and of itself. And it's something that's really common in biotech where you may come in and you may not have direct reports, and yet you're supposed to influence a team using your knowledge and expertise because you're the subject matter expert on some piece of this project and you need to get people on side for that. And that's so, so important. So I want to circle back to that a little bit. And within your programming, how do you specifically address that? For my individuals who are coming into Situations like that, which is so common.

Yeah. So my programming really is organized around those two categories that I mentioned, your influence and your, what I call methods. And really the way I define those is influence is do people want to connect with and follow you? That's influence. So that's that draw that you might have on people. And then methods is how do you get things done, how do you execute? And really what it comes down to is you mentioned here in your prior example that influence is really important. But a lot of times people come in and they're really good at the influence part and maybe what they need is help on the methods part. And so what I like to do with my clients is to work with them to figure out what is the focus area that we want to focus on. Because I don't want to just do a cookie cutter, hey, here's everything for you. I do produce a lot of content on Instagram and I put out other information. So if you want to just digest everything, go for it. But if you're interested in like taking the time to specifically focus on something, we will figure out what it is that you want to focus on. Is the area that you want to focus on your ability to persuade other people, whether you have a position of power, influence or not. And, and how do you do that? How do you connect with people on an emotional level that makes them want to do that? If you're someone who feels like you struggle with that, then, yeah, let's focus on that. But if you're someone who says, yeah, people love working with me, but I'm just, I'm waking up at 5am and I'm going to bed at midnight and I'm grinding and I haven't taken a vacation in two years and I've got all this personal time banked, ready to use, but I don't think I can use it because I'm just so tied up in this work and I think everything would fall apart if I left. If that's what you're describing, then I would say, okay, it's time to look at some methods. How can we design and set up systems and tools for you so that way your team can operate semi autonomously without you? What I always like to say in those types of examples is assume that some emergency happened that meant that you couldn't be at work for a week and there was no time for you to set up anything there. There's really no opportunity for you to come in and try and text people from wherever you are. Handling this emergency would Everything fall apart, or would it not? And if that's where you find yourself, then the methods is going to be the thing. So really what I like to do is home in on what is the specific focus area. Is it more influence, Is it more methods? If it's both, great, we can focus on both. But I like to diagnose what is that root cause of the pain that you're feeling. And then focus on tailoring the content for you and then not only providing content, but as part of the coaching programs that offer. We'll start with that assessment. We'll come up with a game plan to help you work through things. Then I'll say, okay, here's the content that I think is applicable for that game plan. Help get you that information and then you'll put it into practice and I will help hold you accountable to make sure that it's actually done. And honestly, that last part is really big because there's so many people out. I mean, if you wanted information on being a good manager, being a good team lead, like, frankly, just type it into Google, go to YouTube. There's no like lack of information out there. So if you just want to digest information, like you can go out there and get it. I mean, I even provide information like that. But if you want to actually see change and actually see a difference positively in your life, then you have to make that program. You have to stick to it. It's like an exercise regimen. And then a lot of times you need that feedback loop coming back to help you course correct. So that's the one on one programming that I offer.

I love that you say that. And that's certainly a point I want to circle back on because we, you and I met through a coaching program and we're both entrepreneurs. And so it maybe comes a little bit more naturally to us to. We don't have structures within our employers to get this. But I always feel that when I pay for something, commit to it, show up and do the work, and somebody else is there expecting me to do that, I get more out of it. That's why we were forced to go to school when we were younger. Right. Could we have just gone to the library and found all the books we needed to get through school? Probably. How many people would actually do that? Probably not that many. Right. And so it continues. Right. And same thing. Could you have organized your own PhD studies somewhere?

Maybe?

I mean, with science it's harder because it's expensive and we don't all have labs. But in any PhD program, let's say English. Let's say history. Yeah. You could learn. You could get that level of education if you wanted to.

Yeah.

How many people do, though? It's. The structure is important.

The. The structure, absolutely. And as you were saying that, another thing came to mind. There's a. A story slash, I guess, joke. I don't know if it's terribly funny, but something that he says, and it's. Someone has a problem with their car, and they take their car to the mechanic, and the car's been making some funny noises. It hasn't been running well, and they're worried. They're like, oh, my God, it's this going to be a lot of money. Take it to the garage. And the mechanic looks around the car, maybe runs a couple tests, and then he takes out a wrench and he just hit a part of the car and then turns on the car and it's running fine. Right. They take it around the block and everything's, you know, ship shape. And comes time to pay, and he's like, all right, that'll be a thousand dollars. And the person's like, what. What do you mean, thousand dollars? Like, all you did was you looked at my car for 10 minutes, and then you hit it with a wrench, like, why should I pay you a thousand dollars? And the mechanic says, you didn't pay me a thousand dollars to hit it with the wrench. You pay me a thousand dollars to know where to hit it. And the reason why I think that's important in this case is if you go out there and try and figure all this out on your own again. Like, you might figure it out, but you might have to hit that engine 50 times. And then when you finally hit that spot, you may not realize that the reason it's working is because you hit the engine there. You might think it's because of some false positive. So I. I feel like that's the biggest thing that I got from my mentors, is they were able to look at me and say, hey, Kyle, this is what I'm seeing that you're doing that isn't working. This is what's hurting you. Right. I had one person. This is early on when I was learning more the influence side of things, before I was even leading people. And I was doing something that was just undermining people's confidence in me, and I was doing it on a consistent basis. And I had no idea the small thing was making people not want to follow me. And she came to me and said, kyle, you apologize way too much. You're just apologizing and saying sorry when you don't need to. And she's, I understand why you're doing that. It's because you're a nice person and you want to take responsibility and you want to make sure you know you're in people's camps and you're doing what you need to do. But she's like, when you apologize all the time, then what ends up happening is people start to feel like you're not in control, that you don't have things within your realm of influence. And she said, it's just a subconscious thing that happens and people tend to lose that respect. And I see a lot of that in our workplace. Like, literally ever since then, when I've coached all of my staff that I've had in the past, whenever they're saying, oh, sorry this or sorry, they're starting sentences with that. I'm like, hey, just, just stop doing that. Because you're about to move into that team lead position. And when you do that, people just feel like you're frazzled, like you don't have anything under control. You don't need to start your sentences that way. I never would have figured that out on my own without them pointing out. And the thing was, is I. I knew this idea. Like, I had seen it. I think I'd read it in a blog or watched it on a YouTube video or whatever it was. But I didn't, I didn't take that next step of applying that knowledge to my situation, saying, this is something I'm doing. And that's because I was just so wrapped into my own world. And that's why it helps to have that third party perspective to look at you and say, this is what I'm seeing, this is what I think you need to do and you should focus on it. So that's another thing that I think is really key in working with someone is just having that perspective, that one you may not be able to have for yourself or just as impossible to.

Yeah. Oh, you're so right. I put out a lot of free stuff too. This podcast. I write a column monthly and people come back and they say how helpful it is, and that's all great. And then some percentage of those folks come and they actually join my free community and participate in there. And some percentage of those opt to work directly with me, which is through office hours. So they do the courses and then get the feedback right.

Yep.

And they will have consumed all of these things I've put out there and they'll come to their first office hours with their resume, and I'll say, and we're tearing it all down. Yes, we've applied some of the principles. However, these are the major things that are gonna really tweak it. And it's all there. It all exists in the things that I've put out there. But it takes somebody else an outside perspective to come in and say, but really, let's drill down on this. And instantly they start getting interviews. And it's just that little outside perspective that, honestly, I think it's hard to look at yourself. It's hard to understand. You're too close to yourself. Hey, I just want to cut in to say that if you are enjoying this podcast, you may enjoy the Building Biotechs podcast from our sister company, Recruitomics Consulting, which is a talent acquisition strategy firm that specializes in helping small biotechs hire exceptional talent. In that podcast, we interview amazing people who are building biotechs. They are industry leaders in all different verticals, and it will allow you to explore career paths in biotech and to get to know companies that maybe you've never heard about. So if you are a biotech fan, you are exploring careers in biotech, I highly recommend the Building Biotechs podcast. We'll link that in the show notes, or you can search for it on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you get your podcasts. All right, back to our show.

Yeah. And I mean, you mentioned that you and I met in a coaching program for our businesses, and that's why I'm doing it. Right. And I do it for myself. I have even, I have informal coaches in my life where I'm like, hey, like, I want to get some feedback from you. I can use my friends for that, my family. So. But having that expert opinion for a specific area, obviously is going to help you 10 times your impact.

Yeah. Now, I want to talk about paying for coaching for a moment because again, like I said, we both offer a lot of free things. And that is great. And that is where some people are right now. And it's not a bad thing to consume that free information, especially if you're just embarking on this journey. But there is a point where you need to level yourself up. And so here in the leadership. Let's talk about it. In this leadership realm, you've just got your first job in biotech and it's not going great. And I hear this all the time. People come back and they're like, I just, I don't feel like people like me. I actually did A a podcast and a column on this very topic. People coming into their first job and not fitting in or not knowing why. And I feel like I'm rubbing some people the wrong way and I don't know why. And it's just this change in environment. And there I think you can get some free at that very first level. You can get some, you can read some books, you've got some great books on your bookshelf behind you, you can read some books, you can find some YouTube videos, things like that. And you can probably fix a few things where you're not driving people crazy, you're not leveling up yet, but you're not driving people absolutely bonkers. And then some companies, if you're lucky enough, will have a formal program that will help you to build these leadership skills. But in biotech that is rare. You may have that at a really big pharma, you may have that at some of the bigger biotechs, but it typically doesn't come in early enough, in my opinion. And if they don't offer it at all, it's on you to go out and get that, that training. And sometimes, though, employers will pay for it. So I've had a few really great employers that I've worked with and consulted for where we've needed to get people leadership training. And it was my recommendation that they go out and get a leadership coach external, outside of the company. And so that's one way that people can do this, right, is to ask the company for help. And the other way is to pay for the, for it themselves and to consider it part of their professional development.

What I can say is that in most companies, the best trajectory that you can have for increasing your income is obviously going to be rising up in the company, which tends to correlate with leadership. And that's like the vertical option that I'm thinking about staying in my company. I'm hired here and I want to get to that next level, maybe two levels up, and I'm going to get that big pay raise with it. And that I know I'm going to be successful because I know how to be a good leader. But there's another side to it that I think a lot of people don't really think about. They discount. And that is the horizontal aspect, that there's a big wide world out there of opportunity. And just because you happen to be working for a company now doesn't mean that you can't be working for another company or even working for yourself like you and I have done. And so I think that really the biggest thing is just giving you opportunity to pursue opportunity. And I know that sounds really meta, but I want you to think about the last time you took a risk, right? So if you're listening to this podcast, like, I want you to think that maybe close your eyes. What was the last financial risk I took? And maybe you haven't really taken a lot of financial risks in your life. And I want you to think about what state you were in. Were you in a state of financial security or were you in a state of financial emergency or somewhere in between? And my guess is that if you were in a state of emergency or close to emergency, the only reason you took the risk is because you felt like you had no other choice. You're just your. Your back was up against the wall and you just had to do it. And had you had other options, there's no way you would have chosen to take that risk because you're like, hey, I'm. This is not comfortable for me. But if you took a risk when you didn't really need to, when the stakes weren't so high, but you took it anyways, it's probably because you were in that place of financial security. And so obviously, you can build up a nest egg and do all these things for yourself to put yourself in that financial position. When we talk about career and having career security, by leveling up your leadership skills, you really are giving yourself more options to be able to operate in a lot of different companies. And so I think that's really the biggest benefit is knowing that I get all the time. I was having a conversation with a friend two days ago, and she said, hey, I know you do this leadership coaching thing. I want to talk to you about my company, because my leaders, they really suck. And I was like, all right, well, let's. Let's, you know, get this out of your system. Let's talk about it. And as we were talking about it, she was like, yeah, what can I do? What can I do? And we ran through her options as being an individual contributor. She's not a leadership, but, like, how can she try and change her situation? And we poked at it for about an hour, and we came to the conclusion that there wasn't much she could do other than leave. And so if you want that opportunity to have the horizontal aspect of being able to go to other companies, that gives you that freedom that when you're in a situation that maybe is outside of your control, that you have more opportunity to pursue that. So I think that's really the big benefit is gives you the opportunity to make more money by raising up in your company or to give you more opportunities to pursue other things, especially when there's maybe more money on the table for you or if you're in a really bad situation at work, like my friend was. And the Workforce Institute says that 81% of employees worldwide would prioritize good mental health over a high paying job. I mean, I just want you to let that sink in. 81%, the vast majority of employees would rather just have their mental sanity than to actually make more money. And then on top of that, 64% would admit that they would take a pay cut for a job that better supports their mental wellness. So again, 2/3 of people say, I would rather be paid less. So yes, you can invest in yourself to try and learn these skills for some sort of monetary benefit. But if I'm looking at these statistics, I'm saying that the real benefit is to your mental wellbeing because you're not stressed all the time, because you have more time on your calendar. You can take that vacation you want to take. And like I mentioned before, you can actually make the world a better place because you can make it better for your teams. I can't tell you how happy it made me when I would join new teams that were floundering and I would take over for a failing team. And everyone's like, we're miserable, we're unhappy and we don't want to work here. We all want to quit. And I'm like, stick with me for three months and then let me know if you have the same opinion. And that. At my old company, we had projects where, you know, managers would sometimes rotate, so this was very common. And after three months they said, wow, like, we love working with you. Like, you made our lives better. Like, we don't want to quit anymore because of the systems that you put in place and because you make everyone feel valued. And I'm like, yeah, I take a little bit of pride and satisfaction in the fact that I was able to make other people's lives better, better on a day to day basis because I did that. So yeah, the return on investment from doing this kind of thing certainly can be financial. But I think the bigger thing that people actually care about a lot more is feeling better themselves and just helping others around them feel better too.

That is such a good story. I love that. And you should feel pride. That's so, so great. I want to bring a couple of stories from biotech into this. Highlight this as well. I worked with a client a few years ago that they were a small biotech and they were very niche. They had a really interesting technology that we. Only a few labs in the world were working on. So we were drawing pretty heavily from those labs. Basically every PhD and postdoc that came out of those labs, we were trying to snap up for that company. Right.

Okay.

And that meant that there was a culture that sort of came from those labs into this company. And we see this a lot where a small company kind of spins off of a bigger company. And we'll call them like little Novartis, because the whole leadership team came from Novartis or something. But this was weird because it was a very academic place. And then we realized we needed to hire in a leader. So bringing that person in, somebody in the mid level because nobody had any leadership experience and the culture was very insular. And so we hired in a leader and it was rocky. It was really rocky.

Yeah.

And this person had a very good track record of leadership in a different company, a different, totally different setting. So in those sorts of cases, if you find yourself in that situation, what are the tools to help to navigate that? Because you're coming into almost like a. Not a hostile work workplace. But they were hostile to this outsider, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it's. Yeah. Okay. So I have two thoughts, and one is on the influence side of things, and one is on the method side of things. That's what. That's why I organize everything, because I feel like they really. Everything falls into one of these two buckets. So on the influence side of things, people are not happy about this leader coming in and there's resistance. We don't want this person here. They're not one of us. They're from the outside. If you think about it for a second, why would someone put up resistance? Is it because they're just a bad person? Is it because they just wake up and they're like, how can I be unhappy today? Like, that's not why. The reason is because they feel unsafe. That's really what it comes down to is they don't feel safe. They don't feel security. They don't feel like their interests are going to be looked out for. And so if you want to focus on that influence side of things, when you come in as that outsider, it is your job. It is imperative that you help people feel safe. That's like the number one leadership advice I think I can give is if you want to do one thing, help people Feel safe, whatever that is in their jobs, security wise, that you're not going to throw them under the bus in a meeting, that if something goes wrong that they're not going to be blamed, all those things. And so I would really just focus on how do you make people feel safe? And there's a lot of practical ways you can do that. In one example where I came on to a team that was doing really poorly and everyone's like, I don't know if this guy can turn it around. I met with each person one on one for an hour and it was mostly a listening session. I was like, tell me what's up, Tell me what you've been experiencing, what has sucked, what can we fix all these things. And that built a rapport. So if you're coming in like in this example, I imagine that they've got maybe hundreds of people or something under them or however big this company was.

But small. Yeah, it's a small biotech. So maybe 20 people.

Okay, so even 20. So 20 people, I think you can manage. You could find time in one week to meet with 20 people. 120 people, 20 hours or maybe in two weeks or something like that. But even if you find yourself in a bigger situation where you're like, hey, I don't think I can meet with everyone, you can still meet with key stakeholders, for lack of a better term, key individuals, maybe those people who are directly under you, but just build those relationships. And the thing that I recommend to helping people feel safe is just ask them what's been going wrong and what can be done to do to be better and then go try and make those things happen. And then here's the third thing is communicate that to them. Let them know that you did those things. Make sure that they see it, that it is shown to them, if it's not just evident from them seeing it. So that's going to be on the influence side of things, on the method side of things, what I would say. And this is all about getting things done. I think that this is where it comes down to company culture. A lot of times people will resist because you just don't know how things are done here. And I'll give you an example of at least my prior company. One of the ways that people would struggle when they first started was the way that we set up meetings. So the way that we did meetings in our company was you had access to a global calendar system. I could, you know, put your email into Outlook and then I could see your availability and what I would do then is even if you were a partner in the company, you were the highest level. I didn't have to email you and say, hey, is it okay if we meet at 9 o' clock on Tuesday? Like, I would just put it on your calendar and then I would put it on your calendar. I would make sure that there was a zoom link, I would make sure that I said what I wanted to meet for and I would just put it on. And if you didn't want to meet with me, then our culture was is that you, as the person being invited would just decline or tentative or suggest another time. Right. So it was totally fine just to put the meeting on someone's calendar. That was just our cultural norm. But I feel like in a lot of other companies that's like very direct, like, how dare you assume that you can just put a meeting on my calendar? You know, you, you person down at the bottom of the company and I'm way up here. And so people just wouldn't do that. And so they would do this song and dance where they're emailing and asking and doing all this stuff. And it was just very inefficient. And you could always tell someone was new so they were doing this. So this isn't a specific leadership example, but what I'm saying is that there are certain ways of getting things done that are very nuanced to a company. And so if you're coming in as a leader and you feel like you've got the influence side down, you've met with people, they know and trust you, but maybe just the way that they do things is just fundamentally different than anything you've ever experienced before. And so it is your job coming in as the outsider. Yes, you may be the leader to at least understand how things are done. If you want to change them, then you can do that as the leader. You absolutely can do that. But also just remember that if you try and change something that's been around for a long time, you're always going to get resistance there. So my recommendation is to ask some of the people around you, like, hey, how are things being done? Have I done anything that just everyone's like, hey, that was really weird, like he shouldn't have done it that way. Go out and ask for that input to see what it's like to work in that company specifically. So those are my recommendations for the influence side of things and also for the methods side of things.

That's really valuable. It sounds to. We've probably read a lot of the same Books and things like that. But it sounds a little bit like dare to lead in terms of building rapport and learning. So we did that as a book club a few months ago because I think that rapport building is skipped a lot of the time. You don't realize how important it is. But if you just think back to all of the relationships where you've really respected somebody, if you really dig in, they took the time to build rapport with you. And likewise, you built rapport with them.

Yeah, you built rapport with them. And then you probably did one other thing. And this is something that I've really tried to do because every. I've looked at all the leaders that I've had in my life and there are leaders that I really respect. There are ones I'm like, there's no way I'd ever want to work with them again. And then there are a lot of people who are in the middle who I'm like, ah, I could take it or leave it. Like, they weren't super inspiring, but they weren't awful. So I looked at that group of awesome leaders and I was like, what do I really love about them? And yes, they built that rapport with me. But then here's the second thing that they did that I think is so critical is that they treated me as an equal from a respect perspective. Now, I want to be clear. The concept of leading is that other people are following, right? And sometimes, oftentimes there's hierarchies in companies. And what I like to say is that hierarchy exists for decision rights. At the end of the day, let's say you got two people and they disagree about how to move forward, they can still respect each other, they can listen to the ideas, they can talk about the pros and the cons and the merits of those ideas. But if at the end of the day they're still not in agreement, they're like, I'm sorry, we're just. This is our pointed issue. We, we can't come to agreement. I think A, you think B, so what are we going to do about it? And we use our decision rights structure, the hierarchy, to make that call for us. We say, well, whoever is in charge, we're going to do that thing because they happen to be higher in the hierarchy and it's not because the idea is necessarily better or not. We discussed it at length and we're still not in agreement, but we need to have a unified path forward. And so we're going to use that hierarchy to determine that for us. That is why hierarchy exists. It's for decision rights. And in my opinion, decision rights only if you were using hierarchy to put someone in their place to say, oh, your idea isn't as valuable as mine because you're beneath me. And the leadership structure and the hierarchy, that is what puts so many people off. And I think a lot, honestly, I think a lot of people unfortunately come by honestly. They think that's what they should do. Oh, I'm the leader. I'm in charge. I should do this. And I'm like, no, treat everyone with respect. Treat their ideas respect, and if they have a better idea than you, then give them credit for it and do it and implement it. And if that person feels like you've, yes, built that rapport with them, but also secondly, you have made them feel like they are your equal right, that you respect them. That is what carries teams forward. And yes, at times you may need to use your decision rights hierarchy to say, hey, push comes to stuff, we're going to do my idea. But I will tell you, in my experience, I think I had to use my decision rights position probably 10 to 15% of the time. Like I would say 80 to 85% of the time, I was finding a way to come to agreement with my team and they felt respected. And I think that is honestly one of the biggest things that you can do to solidify that rapport that we're talking about is so important.

Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's really valuable. Thanks for sharing that.

Sure.

I want to do one more really quick story that's also going to resonate. So let's talk about somebody who finishes their academic career and they jump into their first job in industry, and they are floundering a little bit, getting the lay of the land, but they're ultimately, they look at the folks who are running departments or even running the company, VP of research or Chief Scientific Officer, and they say, I want to be that someday. How do you set yourself up today to start to cultivate that influence? What are some small little things that you can do to make a big impact in your first job in industry?

That is a really good question. So I think that if your target is you're looking at that position, you're saying, I want to be there one day. I would say that is akin to saying, hey, I'm in Maine and I want to get down to Miami or some long distance, whatever distance you want to have. And to think that you're gonna do one quick thing and get there is a farce. Right, that's not gonna happen. It's not gonna work. It's gonna take a series of repeated steps to get there. So I think the biggest thing is to say to just recognize that, hey, that position may be a little far off from me, but what is that first stepping stone that I can do to move myself in that direction? And I think the first thing that I would recommend on the influence side and the method side is to really focus on the influence side. That is what I did personally. That is what I've seen so many people do. And I think that it's the, the method side really comes into play as you start to scale up and you get more and more people. But that's like, that's stepping stone number two. So I would really recommend focusing on those elements of influence. And I think that. But probably the biggest thing that you can do is foster that connection, foster that rapport, and then also just trust. How do you get people to trust you? Because that's really what's going to make them want to follow you. So one of the things that I've done recently is tested the market to see what newer leaders are worried about or what are they concerned about. And the number one thing that bubbled up to the top was the idea of people not feeling sure that once they were in a leadership position that people actually respected their decisions. They're. They're self conscious about that. And the best way to address that feeling, frankly, is to make sure that you have built trust with your staff, with your employees, even with your, your clients and the people who are above you. Trust is such a huge element because when you have trust, then people want to follow you naturally. And the inverse is also true. When you don't have trust, that means that people are going to resist and they're going to push back. And that takes mental time and energy for you to have to deal with all of that. And so to address this need that I've identified, I've actually developed a five day challenge called the five Days to Instant Team Trust, where I go through in each of the five days, core elements of building trust with your team members as a leader. And we actually just released the five Days to instanteam Trust. So if you are interested in receiving it, I think we're gonna put that in the notes for this podcast. You can also go to my Instagram and I will have information there for you to pick it up there as well. So if that's something that you feel you would benefit from, please go check that out. For a limited time, this is going to be a free resource as we are kicking it off because we want to make sure that this is a great product for everyone. And so I'm also going to offer the opportunity for people to provide feedback and say, hey, this didn't make sense to me, or hey, I really wish you had done this. And so as we are releasing this first version, we're making it free. So if that's something that is of interest to you, please go check it out.

Super. So people need to jump on this because it's not going to be free forever. I think people will really take you up on that because building rapport and trust within the team is something we talk a lot about, but we don't get any training for that in our PhDs, so that's just same in the business world. Yeah, it's not a thing we know how to do. Well, I am so excited to offer that to the audience. I think they'll love it and I'll make sure that we put this in our community as well. And other than that. So you mentioned your Instagram. Where else can people get in touch with you?

Yep. You can Find me on LinkedIn. My link there is in the notes and then you can also check out my website, that's Management mogul. Com. And I believe also the training should be hosted there as well.

Great. We'll put all of that in the show notes in case you want to click right through. And I'm really excited for people to take this next step in their career. I do so much coaching around the really early stages, getting the job and then getting settled in some of that rapport, building and getting to the next step. But I really don't focus on leadership training. That said, it is really important if your aspiration is one day to climb that ladder and be chief scientific officer or there's a lot of leadership along the way, a lot of influence along the way and you have to really bring people along on the journey with you. So thank you so much. This was amazing.

Oh yeah. Thanks so much for having me. This has been such a pleasure.

Yeah. Great. Well, we will do a part two with you as you build out your programs. I'm sure people are going to want to know what the next step is. What the next step is. You've got this five day challenge, what's next? So we'll have you back on after that.

Looking forward to it. Thank you.

Thanks so much for listening to the Biotech Career Coach podcast by the collaboratory Career Hub. To join our free Slack group and to get access to other great free resources and materials. Head over to CollaboratoryCareerHub.com and be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn. Pro Tip when you connect with me on LinkedIn, you get instant access to my entire network of biotech folks, which is powerful for your career. If you found this podcast valuable, please subscribe or follow us on YouTube so that you never miss an episode. And if you leave us an honest review, screenshot that review and send it to hello at collaboratorycareerhub. Com. We'll give you totally free access to our popular LinkedIn course so that you can learn all of the secrets behind creating a magnetic LinkedIn profile that drives your career forward. Have an amazing week and we'll see you back here next Friday.