Leading and managing this lab is not the easiest task, but if done right is an enjoyable and very rewarding experience. This page contains best practices and advice from previous leaders for current and future leaders to use.

Be open about procedures, policies and selections.
It's often way easier and beneficial to be open than it is to close things up. The circulation of information is critical to the success of the lab - being open will help people be aware of the whole situation as fast as possible. If you need to select people for conferences or positions, be open the process so everyone knows what's happening.
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Things don't have to be perfect, just go for it!
Since we're all learning here, things will definitely not be perfect. If you're confident something will be beneficial, go ahead and push for it. Get people to help you out - if small mistakes or bumps happen treat them as learning opportunities for yourself and the lab.
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Take action if you think something needs to be fixed.
Don't assume that someone is going to take care of it - bring it up to the other leaders if you think it should happen and help to push it forward. The others won't know unless you bring it up. Read more

Big accomplishments can only come through teamwork and communication.
You cannot do things alone and you need a team of 3-4 people to help run the lab. You need to know them, trust them and be able to rely on them when you drop the ball (we all forget things or mess things up). If you find that you cannot trust people then something is broken down the line about the process (not enough training time, task is not clearly defined, etc.)
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Mistakes are absolutely essential to learning: plan and budget for them.
Students especially will make mistakes and do things wrong. Forgive, move on and help each other out. Mistakes are critical to learning - if you cannot fail then how will you ever know what you're doing is right? Make sure that you leave in the time and budget for people to fail so they can learn.
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Skills take time to build, so tread carefully and plan accordingly.
Trivial things to you may not be for others. Don't forget at some point you were probably bad at certain things.
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Reflect on the things that you do.
Consider how you or your team can improve on the task that you handled but don't put yourself down. If you did the best you could at that moment, you did the best that you could. Think about how things went wrong and how they went right. If things went really wrong, look at changing policies or procedures and document!!
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Read books
Leadership books will give you some perspective on different kinds of leadership styles and environments. Not all of the advice will be applicable but reading will give you more tools to choose from when the time arrives.
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Created by kluong on 2016/02/26 23:51.