practical leadership for biopharmaceutical executives

Practical Leadership for

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1. Clinical Research in Asia. U. Sahoo (ISBN 9781907568008).

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3. Practical Leadership for Biopharmaceutical Executives. J. Chin (ISBN 9781907568060)

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Practical Leadership for Biopharmaceutical

Executives

Jane Y. Chin

Biohealthcare Publishing (Oxford) Limited

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To Cass F. Chin

Contents

Acknowledgements xiiiList of abbreviations xvAuthor’s note xviiAbout the author xix

1 ‘Leadership’ as a phenomenon 1

Introduction 1 Qualitative research methodology 3 Data analysis 5 Conclusion 14 Objectives of this book 14

2 Seven managerial leadership competencies 17

Leadership competence versus capacity 17 Competence in role: competence for tasks required of the leadership role 18 Autonomy-cohesion: competence in imparting autonomy and creating cohesion 21 Trust: competence in creating trust and working from trust 23 Steadiness amid uncertainty: competence for effectiveness amid incomplete/imperfect facts and/or tension 25 Balanced execution: competence for balanced execution in the face of increased complexity of role 27 Communication: competence for expressing clearly, to the scale appropriate to the audience, and with the intended result 28 Growth/cultivation: competence for developing current and future capability in self and others 30 Conclusion 32

x Practical Leadership for Biopharmaceutical Executives

3 Three commitments of pharmaceutical executives: presence 35

Introduction 35 The purpose of maintaining presence 36 Motivating and energizing employees 40 Energized teams brim with ideas 47 How team creativity is compromised 48 A biopharmaceutical executive’s communication awareness 50 Case illustrations of managerial communication failure 54 Debriefing the case illustrations 56 Contextual presence in corporate politics 60 Conclusion 62 Chapter summary 63 Practical application of competencies within this commitment 65 Additional questions for biopharmaceutical executives 68

4 Three commitments of pharmaceutical executives: stewardship 69

Introduction 69 Authority to give people jobs (assign them tasks) 70 Case illustrations of poor stewardship of managerial authority 72 Debriefing the case illustrations 74 Authority to give people objectives (assign a direction) 80 Authority to serve industry and company 93 Conclusion 96 Chapter summary 96 Practical application of competencies within this commitment 97

5 Three commitments of pharmaceutical executives: development 103

Introduction 103 Prerequisites in personnel development 105 How an executive uses the ‘stretch’ approach in development 115 Consistency of process in development 118

Contents xi

Individual contributor to first-line manager: key development challenges 119 Capabilities today, capabilities tomorrow 125 Spotlight on field medical science: a case of developing employees in a novel role 126 The biopharmaceutical executive’s own leadership development 133 Knowing that one does not know: blindspots 136 Conclusion 140 Chapter summary 141 Practical application of competencies within this commitment 143

6 Self-concept as ‘leader’ 147

Introduction 147 Origin of leadership self-concept 148 Leadership self-concept in executives’ managerial awareness 149 Role of structure in managerial leadership 151 Conclusion 153

7 Conclusion: a new model of biopharmaceutical executive leadership 155

Appendices

1 Executive demographics 1612 Aggregate descriptions of subjective experiences of leadership 1633 Sample interviewee descriptions for ‘presence’ 1694 Sample interviewee descriptions for ‘stewardship’ 1735 Sample interviewee descriptions for ‘development’ 179

References and further reading 183

Index 185

Acknowledgements

To Kirk J. Leister for opening the pharmaceutical industry’s door to me.

To Charles E. Wenner for being my teacher and mentor.

To Edward McNiff for being a role model, colleague, and friend.

To Benjamin Gilad for showing me that being gutsy is glorious.

To Glyn Jones for believing in this project.

To the biopharmaceutical executives who participated in this book: your courage and vision keep me optimistic about the future of our industry.

List of abbreviations

CEO chief executive officerCRO clinical research organizationEVP executive vice presidentGCP good clinical practiceIQ intelligence quotientKOL key opinion leaderMAH managerial accountability hierarchyMD medical doctorMoR manager-once-removedMSL medical science liaisonNDA new drug applicationPI principal investigatorPR public relationsR&D research and developmentROI return on investmentSOP standard operating proceduresSoR subordinate-once-removedSVP senior vice presidentUSPTO US Patent and Trademark OfficeVP vice president

Author’s note

The author would like to make it clear that in order to simplify the text throughout ‘he’ includes ‘she’ and no sexist bias is intended.

About the author

Jane Y. Chin is founder of 9Pillars, through which she teaches mid- to senior-level pharma executives how to create a powerful personal brand so they can have more confidence, advance in their career, and become remarkable leaders. Chin’s seminars on executive personal branding have been delivered through leadership-focused social enterprises including India’s LeadCap and the UK’s Leaders Café 2020 Ltd. Chin was founder and president of the Medical Science Liaison (MSL) Institute, LLC from 2004 to 2011 and founding publisher of MSL Quarterly, the field-medical science liaison profession’s first management journal. For her contribution to the medical science liaison profession, Chin was named one of the 100 Most Inspiring People by PharmaVoice magazine in 2006.

Chin has a BS degree in microbiology from Cornell University (Ithaca, New York) and a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Buffalo at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (Buffalo, New York). She also has a certification in competitive intelligence from the Academy of Competitive Intelligence (Boston, Massachusetts).

The author may be contacted at:

9PillarsTel: 1 (310) 876-2680E-mail: [email protected]

1

‘Leadership’ as a phenomenon

Abstract. This book was written on the premise that ‘leadership’ is not an isolated concept that is definable by a list of ‘leadership traits’ or certain types of ‘leadership personalities.’ Thus operative conditions or ‘themes’ that created the phenomenon of ‘leadership experience’ in biopharmaceutical executive interviewees were the focus of the qualitative study for this book. Two interdependent and interacting major thematic categories (‘themes’) were identified: competence and commitment. These themes create leadership behaviors that would produce a leadership experience for the biopharmaceutical executive. A third theme was identified in most, but not all of the executives’ interview data, and pertains to the biopharmaceutical executives’ ‘self-concept’ as a leader in their organization or in the industry.

Keywords: commitments, competence, qualification, presence, stewardship, development, trust, execution, communication, growth, self-concept as leader, ideals, self-awareness

Introduction

Very few books exist that are specific to biopharmaceutical leadership. Rarer still is a book specific to the executive rank defined as ‘upper-middle management.’ This book specifically examines the biopharmaceutical executive leadership experiences at the ‘upper-middle management’ rank. This executive rank consists of roles that require

2 Practical Leadership for Biopharmaceutical Executives

management of relationships: relationships with their managers (who, at this level, are often chief executives), other peer-level executives and subordinates.

Many biopharmaceutical executives enter the industry as subject- matter experts; they come from a science- and healthcare-based professional or educational background. For many biopharmaceutical executives, business management is not their native field of study. Yet today’s biopharmaceutical executives must be prepared to manage their organizations in a complex business environment. The biopharmaceutical industry is increasingly fragmented as traditionally ‘vertically integrated’ functions become outsourced. This is also an industry that incites regulatory scrutiny, public criticism, and a perception that it is not yielding therapeutics ‘fast enough,’ ‘innovative enough,’ or ‘cheap enough.’

The discovery-to-commercialization horizon of biopharmaceutical products continues to lengthen in years, and with this slow progress comes mammoth R&D investment costs that also have steadily increased over time. (Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, a non-profit research group based in Boston, Massachusetts, has calculated that in the United States, a biopharmaceutical product would cost an average of more than $1 billion and more than seven years from the start of clinical trials to gain approval to market – see http://csdd.tufts.edu.) The stakes are higher for biopharmaceutical organizations to staff their executive management roles with employees who are capable of navigating today’s complex industry landscape and who are prepared to confront tomorrow’s new industry challenges.

‘Leadership’ is a key concern for biopharmaceutical executives, but this book does not aim to uncover a list of ‘leadership traits’ or identify ‘leadership personalities.’ I believe that ‘leadership’ is not an absolute and cannot exist in isolation, and therefore yields no uniform set of traits or personalities that a biopharmaceutical executive can acquire that magically transforms them into a leader. This book is written on the premise that ‘leadership,’ and in particular ‘biopharmaceutical executive leadership,’ is the result when the biopharmaceutical executive who is qualified for his role gives the optimal response to the demands of his organization. Thus

‘Leadership’ as a phenomenon 3

arguments about whether ‘business executives or subject-matter experts (scientists, clinicians, and physicians) make the better biopharmaceutical leader’ do not address the operative conditions that produce leadership behaviors and only distract us from the more important task of building a better ‘leadership-producing’ environment in our biopharmaceutical companies.

This book is based on an exploratory, qualitative study that asked biopharmaceutical executives how they would recognize ‘good leadership’ in the middle- and upper-management ranks.

Qualitative research methodology

This qualitative study was designed to allow participating biopharmaceutical executives to cite their experiences and opinions about ‘leadership’ by asking them to describe how they would recognize examples of ‘good leadership.’ This qualitative study uses the ‘grounded theory’ methodology as proposed by Strauss and Corbin (1998), in which the theory produced is grounded in research data.

Sixty-seven percent of executives selected for this study are at the management level that organisational psychologist Elliott Jaques called ‘manager once-removed’ (MoR) (Jaques and Clement, 1994). According to Jaques, managers-once-removed are a group that has not been well studied, yet the relationships between managers-once-removed and their subordinates’ subordinates (subordinates-once-removed or SoR) are critical to the systems for ‘getting work done’ in organizations (these systems are called the ‘managerial accountability hierarchy’ or ‘MAH’ by Jaques). In the biopharmaceutical organization, executives who are managers-once-removed are usually occupying the vice president (VP) or senior/executive vice president (SVP/EVP) level. They serve as the integrators of corporate strategy between their chief executives and the functional employees who must accomplish the tasks required to achieve corporate strategy.

Through this study, I aimed to identify factors that would create a ‘leadership experience’ and allow a biopharmaceutical executive to


recognize this experience as an example of ‘good leadership.’ Specifically I looked for the following:

Situations that would require a biopharmaceutical executive to 1. ‘behave like a leader.’Behaviours or actions that the biopharmaceutical executive 2. should display or take to ‘be seen as a leader.’

Executives to be interviewed were identified through my professional network of executives; these executives were my first- and second-degree contacts (word-of-mouth referral by a first-degree contact).

Selection criteria were:

the executive’s position in their organization; •size of the organization; and •the executive’s tenure in the biopharmaceutical industry. •

Executives who were ‘managers-once-removed’ were preferred. Those who were first-line managers had to have had at least five years of experience in a management role, where they would have been likely to have had reasonable experience working with supervisors who would have been ‘managers-once-removed.’ Effort was made to represent a spectrum of company sizes. The maximum number of interviewees included for this research study (12) was based on the research approach (qualitative, ‘grounded theory’ methodology) and available research time (six months).

The initial query e-mail was sent to prospective executive interviewees. The query included a brief explanation of the general purpose of the study (‘a book on biopharmaceutical leadership’), the intended audience for the study results (‘upper-middle-management biopharmaceutical executives’), and what the executive may generally expect during the interview (for example, how long the interview may take and whether the executive would have an opportunity to ask questions about the research). Executives understood that their personal identities and corporate affiliations would remain confidential.

Interviews were conducted by telephone. Interview questions were deliberately broad to encourage executives to give their own


interpretation of good leadership, for example: ‘What makes for good leadership in a biopharmaceutical company?’ or ‘What will make you look at an executive and say “this is a good leader”?’ Based on the executive’s response, I may ask for additional examples or for clarification of a statement.

The demographics of the executive interviewees are shown in Appendix 1. Interview subjects were predominantly male (83 percent). A range of company sizes were represented, from ‘start-up’ companies with less than 100 employees to global biopharmaceutical companies with 100 000 or more employees. Seventy-five percent of the executive interviewees had worked in more than one biopharmaceutical company during their professional tenure. Thirty-three percent of the executive interviewees supervised individual contributors and were identified as ‘managers’ (M). Sixty-seven percent of the executive interviewees supervised managers and were identified as ‘managers-once-removed’ (MoR). The least tenured biopharmaceutical executive had nine years of industry experience; the most tenured executive had 30 years of industry experience. Ninety-two percent of the interviewed executives held advanced (doctorate) degrees in science, medicine, or pharmacy.

Data analysis

Biopharmaceutical executive leadership themes were identified by analysing over 50 000 words taken from interview transcripts and interview notes to generate thematic categories and subcategories (see Figure 1.1).

First, a list was generated from the raw data to describe how each executive interviewee ‘experienced leadership.’ Executive interviewees expressed 2–4 of these ‘experiences’ for a total of 36 descriptions of ‘leadership experience.’ The complete list is shown in Appendix 2 on aggregate descriptions of subjective experiences of leadership.


Raw transcript (50 000 words)

List of leadershipexperiences (36 items)

List of behaviors andactions (36 items)

COMPETENCE

Identification of major thematic


category

Identification ofsubcategories

List of competencies (7 items)

SELF-CONCEPT




category

List of situations, requirements, or demands for competencies (3 items)

COMMITMENT

Locus of leadership

self-concept (2 items)

category

Figure 1.1 Scheme of data analysis that yielded two major thematic categories and one incomplete major thematic category.

Executive interviewee #1

This subject experiences leadership as:

The ability of the leader to energize the team and set clear •directions for objectives – often learned through acting as first-line manager, which makes this an important part of the development track.

As an example, descriptions of ‘leadership experience’ distilled from interview transcripts of three executives are shown below.


The ability to convey the value of an idea both to the •customers (physicians, patients, other external stakeholders) as well as to the internal stakeholders of the company – usually managers tend to be good at one aspect but not the other.Spending a lot of time with their people and building trust •so that managers are able to evaluate and appreciate ideas that come forth from the trenches, since subordinates here are often those who are first to detect trends and changes.



A strong personal identification as a change agent, a force of •change on a mission in industry. Clashes with perceived adherence to status quo confirmed leadership experience.Expression of personal values – standing up for what is right •even if unpopular or risky. This executive’s belief that ‘doing the right thing’ would be rewarded was eventually proved to be correct.Congruence between what one preaches and practices. As an •example, executives who preach the importance of innovation need to remove roadblocks to innovation instead of creating them.



Having a baseline of experience and knowledge – competence •in the role itself, not just having the ‘soft skills,’ i.e. charisma, to compensate (because he had had personal experience with such


Next, a list was generated from the processed data to describe specific actions or behaviors that are shown as part of the executive interviewees’ ‘leadership experience.’ As an example, actions and behaviors from the three sets of descriptions of ‘leadership experience’ are shown below.

an executive who severely set back the company even though he was very likable and a good communicator and charismatic) – as well as to be credible and gain personal authority from one’s own subject-matter expertise.Being able to customize communication and scale according •to audience needs – this came through his former journalism training and would include communication specificity and clarity. (This aspect is particularly crucial considering the regulatory filing/submission process when vague or poor communication can make or break the company by delaying filing process.) The ability to ‘be inspirational’ (to move others to move in the direction he wants them to move) and communicate the vision and be ‘diplomatic.’Dealing with imperfect facts/incomplete picture – again •journalism training prepared him for this. Ability to navigate through and remain effective through tension (i.e. between commercial and clinical/medical departments) – rather than antagonistic, and to accept this from a ‘nature of the ecosystem’ perspective.



Being able to point the team in the right direction. • The ability of the leader to energize the team and set clear directions for objectives – often learned through acting as


first-line manager, which makes this an important part of the development track.Being able to communicate with different types of •stakeholders. The ability to convey the value of an idea both to the customers (physicians, patients, other external stakeholders) as well as to the internal stakeholders of the company – usually managers tend to be good at one aspect but not the other.Being ‘there’ for people. • Spending a lot of time with their people and building trust so that managers are able to evaluate and appreciate ideas that come forth from the trenches, since subordinates here are often those who are first to detect trends and changes.



Having strong opinions and values about one’s role. • A strong personal identification as a change agent; a force of change on a mission in industry. Clashes with perceived adherence to status quo confirmed leadership experience.Doing what is right. • Expression of personal values – standing up for what is right even if unpopular or risky. This executive’s belief that ‘doing the right thing’ would be rewarded was eventually proved to be correct.Acting with integrity. • Congruence between what one preaches and practices. As an example, executives who preach the importance of innovation need to remove roadblocks to innovation, instead of creating them.


The list of 36 descriptions of ‘leadership experience’ generated in the second step was further analyzed for common and overlapping concepts. The result was a list of ‘competencies’ which was the study’s first thematic category, and is defined as:



Being able to do the job one is hired to do. • Having a baseline of experience and knowledge – competence in the role itself, not just having the ‘soft skills,’ i.e. charisma, to compensate (because he had had personal experience with such an executive who severely set back the company even though he was very likable and a good communicator and charismatic) – as well as to be credible and gain personal authority from one’s own subject-matter expertise.Being able to communicate appropriately and effectively. • Being able to customize communication and scale according to audience needs – this came through his former journalism training and would include communication specificity and clarity. This aspect is particularly crucial considering the regulatory filing/submission process. Vague or poor communication can make or break the company by delaying the filing process; an ability to ‘be inspirational’ (move others to move in the direction you want them to move) and communicate the vision and be ‘diplomatic.’Being effective when faced with uncertainty or tension. • Dealing with imperfect facts/incomplete picture – again journalism training prepared him for this. Ability to navigate through and remain effective through tension (i.e. between commercial and clinical/medical departments) – rather than antagonistic, and to accept this from a ‘nature of the ecosystem’ perspective.


Next, I went back to the list of ‘leadership experiences’ to identify the situations, requirements, or demands that called for the competencies in this study. The result was the study’s second thematic category, which consists of ‘presence’, ‘stewardship,’ and ‘development’ as subcategories. The second thematic category was identified as ‘commitments’ and is defined as:

Competence is the ability of the biopharmaceutical executive to respond to a situation, a request, or an expectation from his managerial role. Subcategories in this theme are called ‘competencies.’

Commitment is the biopharmaceutical executive’s sustained effort to meet his competencies. Subcategories in this theme are ‘presence,’ ‘stewardship,’ and ‘development.’

During the identification of the second thematic category, another theme emerged from the transcript data that addressed the executives’ self-view as managerial leaders. The result was the study’s third thematic category, which consists of ‘internal locus of leadership self-concept’ and ‘external locus of leadership self-concept’ as subcategories. The third thematic category was identified as ‘self-concept as leader’ and is defined as:

Self-concept as leader is the biopharmaceutical executive’s awareness of himself as a managerial leader or as exhibiting ‘leadership behaviors or characteristics.’

The three subcategories of commitment are discussed as individual chapters in this book. The seven subcategories of competence are first introduced in Chapter 2, then presented as a list of practical applications within each subcategory of commitment. This allows


biopharmaceutical executives to recognize potential opportunities for leadership behaviors, and how each competency may manifest within each type of commitment. The two subcategories of ‘self-concept as leader’ are presented as a short chapter that invites executives to reflect on their self-view and self-awareness as managerial leaders.

Theme #1: Competence

‘Competence’ is the biopharmaceutical executive’s ability to take action and make decisions as part of his commitments. The types (subcategories) of competencies identified in this study were as follows:

Qualification for role • – the biopharmaceutical executive is capable of performing the tasks assigned to his role.Autonomy-cohesion • – the biopharmaceutical executive is capable of imparting autonomy to his subordinates and creating cohesive teams.Fostering trust • – the biopharmaceutical executive is capable of fostering mutual trust between him and his subordinates.Steadiness amid uncertainty • – the biopharmaceutical executive is capable of acting in the face of incomplete/imperfect facts and tension.Balanced execution • – the biopharmaceutical executive is capable of managing both the immediate demands and the long-term needs of his organization.Communication • – the biopharmaceutical executive is capable of expressing himself clearly, to the level of detail that is appropriate to his audience, and for the result he intends.Growth/cultivation • – the biopharmaceutical executive is capable of growing the skills he and his subordinates need to perform current duties, and developing the potential of himself and his subordinates for the future.


Theme #2: Commitments

‘Commitment’ is the biopharmaceutical executive’s sustained effort to meet his competencies. The types (subcategories) of commitments identified in this study were as follows:

Presence • – the biopharmaceutical executive honors his commitment to invest his time consistently with key stakeholders in his role. Stakeholders may be internal and external to the organization. Internal stakeholders may be above and below the executive’s management level.Stewardship • – the biopharmaceutical executive honors his commitment to preserve the integrity and sanctity of his role through appropriate deployment of management authority and organizational resources.Development • – the biopharmaceutical executive honors his commitment to consistently develop current role-based capacities in himself and his subordinates, and to build future capacities in himself and his subordinates.

Theme #3: Self-concept as leader

‘Self-concept as leader’ refers to the biopharmaceutical executive’s perception of himself as having leadership characteristics or exhibiting leadership behaviors. The two sources (subcategories) of leadership self-concept identified in this study were as follows:

Internal locus of leadership self-concept • – the biophar-maceutical executive has formed his leadership identity prior to attaining a managerial role. His leadership identity may be part of a larger personal ‘ideal’ or ‘value’ of his identity in life.External locus of leadership self-concept • – the biophar-maceutical executive has formed his leadership identity through his managerial role. His leadership identity emerges from the managerial role he holds in the organization.


Conclusion

When Ben Gilad was asked for the traits of ‘the best’ competitive intelligence (CI) officer, he stated:

The best strategic risk/early warning analyst is someone who is a detail-oriented big-picture type of person, fearless and full of self-doubts, a great political networker introvert, analytical to a fault with a sixth sense (he does not have to see the dead, though), and finally, a broad-minded, focused person. (Gilad, 2004)

Gilad’s deliberate use of contradictions is to show that ‘the best’ cannot be simplified to a list or discovered with a personality test, and that he has worked with ‘the best’ intelligence officers who come with a range of different personalities. Instead, Gilad proposes conditions that companies should provide to allow ‘the best’ intelligence officers to emerge.

Thus leadership cannot be reduced to a list of personality traits or even interpersonal skills, just as ‘leaders’ come with different personalities and interpersonal skills. Yet without a practical framework of commitments that come with a biopharmaceutical executive’s managerial role and the competencies that he must fulfill, the idea of ‘leadership’ remains an abstraction that is shrouded in mystery and elitism. Identifying the operative conditions in a biopharmaceutical executive leadership experience allows the executive to develop his managerial leadership. Reflecting on the origin of his leadership self-concept allows the executive to increase his self-awareness of the ideals and managerial roles that are shaping his approach to managerial leadership.

Objectives of this book

This book identifies interdependent and interacting themes that yield leadership experiences in biopharmaceutical executives. These themes bypass arguments about whether ‘business executives or scientific and clinical executives would make better leaders in the


biopharmaceutical organization.’ The ‘business or science’ arguments distract from the important task of identifying operative conditions in producing leadership behaviors so that we can create environments that can produce managerial leaders in our biopharmaceutical organizations.

The qualitative research study conducted for this book aimed to identify situations in which biopharmaceutical executives needed to ‘behave like a leader’ and the actions and behaviors that the biopharmaceutical executives should exhibit when faced with these situations. The study focused primarily on ‘managers-once-removed,’ biopharmaceutical executives who supervise managers. Elliott Jaques cited MoR as the role that is critical for ‘getting work done’ in organizations, though managers-once-removed are a group that has not been well-studied in the biopharmaceutical industry.

Major thematic categories of leadership experiences were competence, commitments, and self-concept as leader. Competence is the biopharmaceutical executive’s ability to respond to a situation, a request, or an expectation from his managerial role, and consists of seven subcategories called competencies. Commitment is the biopharmaceutical executive’s sustained effort to meet the requirements for his competencies, and consists of three subcategories: presence, stewardship, and development. ‘Self-concept’ as a leader is the biopharmaceutical executive’s awareness of himself as a managerial leader or as exhibiting ‘leadership behaviors or characteristics’ and consists of two subcategories: internal locus and external locus of leadership self-concept.

These themes give biopharmaceutical executives a practical framework to develop their managerial leadership abilities and increase their self-awareness of the ideals and roles that shape their approach to managerial leadership.

2

Seven managerial leadership competencies

Abstract. The biopharmaceutical executive is qualified for his managerial role when he is capable of performing the tasks assigned to him. He must be able to give the autonomy his subordinates need to do their jobs and create cohesive teams. The executive fosters mutual trust between himself and his subordinates. He can be decisive in the face of incomplete/imperfect facts and remains effective when confronted by tension. The executive is capable of managing both the immediate demands and long-term needs of his organization. He expresses himself clearly, to the level of detail that is appropriate to his audience and for the result he intends. The executive is capable of growing the skills he and his subordinates need to perform current duties, and developing the potential of himself and his subordinates for the future. Biopharmaceutical executives who have a good command of these competencies are effective managerial leaders in their organizations.

Keywords: competence, competencies, qualification, autonomy, cohesion, trust, tension, uncertainty, complexity, communication, growth, development, cultivation, insight, emotional resilience

Leadership competence versus capacity

The competencies identified in this study came from the data collected that dealt with a specific type of action that the


biopharmaceutical executive should take under a specific leadership condition. ‘Leadership competence’ is specifically chosen instead of ‘leadership capacity’ to describe these traits because ‘competence’ describes the presence of the behavior or trait without measuring the degree of mastery of that behavior or trait. On the other hand, ‘capacity’ describes a degree of mastery and requires a validated scale for measuring that degree of mastery.

The seven leadership competencies that were identified in this study are described below, with a list of data sets of leadership experiences from executives’ interviews.

Competence in role: competence for tasks required of the leadership role

A biopharmaceutical executive must be able to clearly define his leadership roles and also the roles of his subordinates in order to be able to assign tasks and accountabilities to his subordinates, as well as define how their results directly affect his performance in his leadership role. Executives must then energize their team members to complete tasks and achieve objectives as part of their leadership roles.

Competence in a biopharmaceutical executive’s leadership role may be explicitly defined by the job description under which he was hired to perform specific tasks. If an executive lacks a key competence required of his role and does not fill this gap by either gaining the skills and knowledge needed to perform the tasks or hiring subordinates with the missing competency, he cannot be effective even if he has other leadership competencies. One executive in this study described the setback in the progress of a clinical trial that his company faced when the president of the company lacked a basic understanding of the clinical development process. This rendered the company’s trial non-compliant with good clinical practice (GCP) standards and risked the company’s viability in the marketplace. The company’s founder and chief executive did not have a scientific background, and was unable to directly assess the candidate’s competence for the role. The candidate was hired based on his high aptitude in communication and interpersonal skills. This does not

Seven managerial leadership competencies 19

mean that founders and chief executives of biopharmaceutical organizations must be well-versed in science, but that they should have an advisor who has the ability to rigorously assess role-based competence and to aid them in making critical hiring decisions.

Most biopharmaceutical executives enter the industry as subject-matter experts, and their expertise contributes partly to their competence in their leadership roles. Many executives who come from scientific and clinical backgrounds have a strong identification with their role as scientists and clinicians in healthcare, and want to improve patient care through their leadership roles in the biopharmaceutical industry. These executives may feel a deep connection with their identities as scientists and clinicians. They may use their subject-matter expertise and position in leadership roles to be a force for change in their organizations, and come to feel that they have important missions in the biopharmaceutical industry.

Competence in role also requires biopharmaceutical executives to balance their attention to corporate stakeholders and subordinates, and be receptive to cues from subordinates and stakeholders. Biopharmaceutical executives have the difficult task of managing people who are working with extended project timelines; these executives are in a unique position of motivating people whose work will become relevant in the distant future.

Competence in a biopharmaceutical executive’s leadership role may also be implicitly defined as the knowledge, experience, and emotional maturity that should be available to the executive in optimally executing the tasks he was hired to do. These are often assumed to be present, but such assumptions are not always correct and become potential human resource issues if the executive hired is unable or unwilling to gain the competence implicitly required for the role. One challenge is that these implicit requirements are usually identified by deficits in that requirement, and the consequences of these deficits become apparent in the organization.

For example, one executive in this study talked about having ‘coping skills’ and a level of emotional resilience that allows one to weather the storms that may occur in an organization or face up to difficult chief executives. The biopharmaceutical executive’s ability to remain composed and project a level of confidence amid the chaos


can serve as a stabilizing center for his subordinate. If the executive has punishing travel demands, he must be able to continue delivering his best performance despite the physical stress of travel. These are traits that you would not read about in the job description in the same way that you might find statements like ‘must be able to lift ten pounds,’ but it is often these implicit skills that are important in leadership behaviors in biopharmaceutical organizations, and should be part of the professional growth that accompanies competence in role.

Sample data set of leadership experiences for competence in role

If multiple competencies are identified in a statement, the competency for ‘competence in role’ is highlighted in bold:

Has a strong sense of self-awareness that he IS a leader, that he •LIKES to lead, and that he MUST work in a leadership position with others; clearly defines his own leadership roles (setting the course of action) and those of his team members (carrying out the tasks); recognizes that he has hired very bright people and therefore invites their opinions and views this as a learning opportunity.Is able to clearly define the expectations (or expected roles) of his •people, and is able to tailor communication at the appropriate level of detail. In this case, he has four distinct expectations as a manager and can communicate these clearly to his people, being able to help people repeat desired performance and learn for themselves how to avoid poor performance, and giving them the autonomy to learn from their experience rather than intervening in their tasks.As the leader has the ability to energize a team and set clear •directions and objectives – often learned through acting as first-line manager, which makes this an important part of the development track.Has a baseline competence of industry experience and knowledge – •competence in the role itself and not relying primarily on ‘soft skills’ including charisma to compensate for lack of competence in role (because executive had personal experience with such a


colleague who severely set the company back even though the person was very likeable: his communication skills and charisma masked his incompetence). Credibility and personally gained authority should come in part from one’s subject-matter expertise and competence in role.Has a strong personal identification as a change agent, • a force for change on a mission in industry. Clashes with forces adhering to the status quo were interpreted by the executive to be the result of his demonstration of leadership and were therefore met by resistance.Is a subject-matter expert who is driven by innovation and the •primary desire to contribute to healthcare and to patients, and therefore benefits company.Leadership is based on one’s truth-seeking nature as a scientist, •first and foremost; this identity as a subject-matter expert becomes a major component of the executive’s leadership identity.Balances time working in the field with people with time being •visible to internal stakeholders; spends time at corporate headquarters, especially during the initial period of transition into management.Is a good listener, listens carefully to people so that he can detect •the cues needed to manage them effectively.Pays close attention to his people by spending time with them •and by motivating them for the long term, especially given the nature of the biopharmaceutical business; recognizes that people must deliver products that are relevant in the distant future.

Autonomy-cohesion: competence in imparting autonomy and creating cohesion

Regardless of rank, biopharmaceutical executives strike a fine balance between giving people autonomy to do their jobs and retaining the appropriate level of control to monitor overall progress of the department. Executives who are unable to trust their people to carry out assigned tasks or those who demand absolute control for one reason or another (for example, those who have perfectionist tendencies, those who recently made the transition from a position as an individual contributor, or those who observe their people as not


prepared or competent enough to carry out the tasks) are less likely to foster autonomy.

The executive has authority to assign roles to his subordinates, but he needs to make sure that the subordinates understand what they are asked to do and what they are accountable for, and how they are to achieve their part of the objectives. Then they must have the autonomy to do the jobs they are asked to do. Executives who demand absolute control need to address the real reasons behind an unwillingness to give autonomy – and address these using the available resources before the team becomes dysfunctional. If the executive was recently a first-line manager or is managing a first-line manager, he should ensure that the transition from individual contributor to manager is successful, and that the managerial role focuses on facilitating the team’s results rather than trying to do the team’s work. If the executive observes that subordinates are unable to perform their tasks, he should ensure that his people receive the training and coaching necessary to elevate their competence to the appropriate level. The executive may consider coaching to address fear-based control issues (i.e. the executive is afraid of losing control for whatever reason).

Executive behaviors around autonomy can create a subculture within the team and affect subordinates’ behaviors relating to control. If people view their executives as demanding absolute control and role model this behavior, they may do the same within their own team units, by using methods of control such as withholding key information, or try to undermine or take over each other’s roles to gain control of their own positions. This has negative effects on the ability of a team to behave cohesively to carry out an objective requiring concerted and coordinated effort. Cohesion comes from the team behaving as a unit, where individual components of the unit understand and can autonomously carry out their roles, and also respect each other’s roles as integral to the result produced by the team.

Sample data set of leadership experiences for autonomy-cohesion

If multiple competencies are identified in a statement, the competency for ‘autonomy and cohesion’ is highlighted in bold:


Has self-confidence as a leader rather than harboring false •confidence and coming across as arrogant; trusts himself so that he can trust others, rather than being suspicious of everyone’s motives or demanding absolute control (micromanaging).Has an ability to give people autonomy • and trust them; a deep level of trust between the leader and team that is built on the executive’s openness and sharing of information so that the team can be most productive and feel ‘settled’ even during turbulent times; pays great attention to people – both subordinates and supervisors.Is able to clearly define the expectations (or expected roles) of his •people, and is able to tailor communication at the appropriate level of detail. In this case, he has four distinct expectations as a manager, and can communicate these clearly to his people, being able to help people repeat desired performance and learn for themselves how to avoid poor performance, giving them the autonomy to learn from their experience rather than intervening in their tasks.Has a strong sense of self-awareness that he IS a leader, that he •LIKES to lead, and that he MUST work in a leadership position with others; clearly defines his leadership roles (setting the course of action) and those of his team members (carrying out the tasks); recognizes that he has hired very bright people and therefore invites their opinions and views this as a learning opportunity.Enables a facilitative, ‘grease the wheels’ process wherein the •executive creates the environment for optimal performance for people to work in, and then lets people do their jobs.

Trust: competence in creating trust and working from trust

The biopharmaceutical executive’s confidence in himself in a leadership role may be a reflection of how readily he trusts others in his organization, especially his subordinates. This trust may begin during the hiring of employees, where the executive trusts that he


has hired people who have the competencies necessary to do the tasks assigned to them, who conduct themselves with integrity, and who have the degree of emotional resilience that can preserve productive and collaborative relationships with their colleagues and supervisors. If the executive has indeed hired such individuals, then building trust requires trusting them (working from trust) and allowing people to do their jobs as expected from their roles.

Executives who have been viewed as inclusive and highly confident are those who proactively invite their people to openly discuss issues, share their ideas or concerns, and ask questions. Executives who have developed a high degree of trust with their people can readily share information that can help their teams remain productive and stable for the long term and amid corporate crisis. Ultimately, trust is the basis of aligning what the executives ‘preach’ and what they actually ‘practice,’ and whether the biopharmaceutical executive is viewed as a trustworthy leader whose words are matched by their actions.

Sample data set of leadership experiences for trust

If multiple competencies are identified in a statement, the competency for ‘trust’ is highlighted in bold:

Has self-confidence as a leader rather than harboring false •confidence and coming across as arrogant; trusts himself so that he can trust others, rather than being suspicious of everyone’s motives or demanding absolute control (micromanaging).Has a strong sense of self-awareness that he IS a leader, that he •LIKES to lead, and that he MUST work in a leadership position with others; clearly defines his leadership roles (setting the course of action) and those of his team members (carrying out the tasks); recognizes that he has hired very bright people and therefore invites their opinions and views this as a learning opportunity.Has an ability to give people autonomy and • trust them; a deep level of trust between the leader and team that is built on the


executive’s openness and sharing of information so that the team can be most productive and feel ‘settled’ even during turbulent times; pays great attention to people – both subordinates and supervisors.Has an inclusive approach where people are given an opportunity •to interact with the executive, valuing the expertise and knowledge that people contribute.Is collaborative – asking people’s opinions and learning from •their experiences as a way to build good working relationships and trust.Spends a lot of time with their people building trust so that •managers are able to evaluate and appreciate ideas that come forth from the trenches, since people here are those who are first to detect industry trends and business changes.Congruence between what is preached and what is practiced. As •an example, executives who preach the importance of innovation need to remove roadblocks to innovation, instead of creating them.

Steadiness amid uncertainty: competence for effectiveness amid incomplete/imperfect facts and/or tension

Remaining steady amid uncertainty is not about having all the answers but about whether the biopharmaceutical executive can make the best decisions when confronted with more questions than answers, and when confronted with incomplete facts, or when inundated with information on a daily basis. This competency is based in the biopharmaceutical executive’s emotional resilience to act with steadiness when he finds himself in an unsteady environment. It is the same emotional resilience that will allow him to conduct himself productively when faced with tension, antagonism, resistance, awkwardness, anger, ethical compromises, and other instances where strong emotions (in himself and from others) dominate the atmosphere.

The challenge with assessing this competence is that some of the degree with which an executive displays emotional resilience may be


influenced by external conditions or the intensity of the situation. For example, an executive who is able to make decisions in the face of occasional tension may not exhibit the same level of effectiveness when confronted with continual bouts of tension. An executive who may be able to handle moderate levels of uncertainty may not be able to be effective when confronted with high levels of uncertainty. An executive who can defuse a mild conflict may be at a loss when confronted with extreme anger or verbal outbursts.

These differences in degree of competencies may be addressed through coaching or by the executive acquiring the cognitive level that accommodates this increase in demand. This is comparable to Elliot Jaques’ idea of being a ‘big enough manager’ (Jaques and Clement, 1994).

Sample data set of leadership experiences for steadiness amid uncertainty

If multiple competencies are identified in a statement, the competency for ‘steadiness amid uncertainty’ is highlighted in bold:

Works effectively in an environment with increasing complexity, •when information is lacking and decisions need to be made – or, when there is too much information that is dumped on the executive daily, is able to identify and pick out relevant information and ignore the rest.Deals with imperfect facts or the incomplete picture – again, •journalism training prepared this particular executive for this. Is able to navigate tension and remain effective when tension arises between commercial and clinical departments; accepts this type of tension as the nature of the business rather than perceiving it as a personal attack or deliberate antagonism.Has a willingness to tell the truth to people and • hold tough conversations with people.Develops an appropriate level of self-confidence and acquires •good coping skills when confronted by those who are unable to manage their own behaviors; remains professional and calm,


displaying consistency in temperament under pressure; is a calming presence to others; displays exemplary behaviors.Has a strong personal identification as a change agent, a force for •change on a mission in industry. Clashes with perceived adherence the status quo were interpreted by the executive to be the result of his demonstration of leadership and were therefore met by resistance.Expression of personal values – standing up for what is right •even if unpopular or risky. This particular executive’s belief that ‘doing the right thing’ would be rewarded was eventually proved to be correct.

Balanced execution: competence for balanced execution in the face of increased complexity of role

This leadership competency is an integration of other leadership competencies described in this chapter but has a distinct characteristic of its own. This leadership competency is specific to the biopharmaceutical executive’s ability to ‘manage change,’ which in the biopharmaceutical industry can also mean ‘managing the complexity that comes with change.’ It goes beyond the skill of prioritizing what information is obviously important when the executive is flooded with information about the business, about the therapeutic landscapes the business operates in, about the socioeconomic factors that may affect its immediate and future market position, about the regulatory trends that govern its operations … in addition to all the internal e-mail communications and corporate meetings that fill up executives’ time.

This competency is difficult to isolate because of its interdependence on other leadership competencies. This perhaps makes the competency one of the most subtle forms of leadership – and may be labeled the ‘art’ of leadership. Biopharmaceutical executives who are experts in the art of leading not only take into consideration what is obvious, but notice details and nuances that their peers do not. Whereas experienced executives are masters of information, the truly skilled executives are masters of insight. These masters of insight will be the ‘renaissance men and women’ who can successfully lead the biopharmaceutical industry.


Sample data set of leadership experiences for balanced execution

If multiple competencies are identified in a statement, the competency for ‘balanced execution’ is highlighted in bold:

Works effectively in an environment with increasing complexity • , when information is lacking and decisions need to be made – or, when there is too much information that is dumped on the executive daily, is able to identify and pick out relevant information and ignore the rest.Balances visionary thinking with building infrastructure that •allows daily tasks to be done in a productive and safe manner; cites an executive he worked for who was visionary but ignored the creation of policies that would direct the subordinates’ activities in a stringently regulated environment.

Communication: competence for expressing clearly, to the scale appropriate to the audience, and with the intended result

The communication competency in the biopharmaceutical executive’s leadership role is more about the mechanics or ‘skills’ of communication. It requires careful deliberation of the purpose of the communication, how it is communicated and whether it is communicated in a manner appropriate to the venue and audience expectation, and finally is grounded in the intended result that the executive desires to gain from the communication. Whether the biopharmaceutical executive is communicating with internal or external stakeholders, he is mindful of the potential audience perception and tailors his communication to best achieve his objectives.

In the biopharmaceutical industry, communication is a critical competence, both verbal and written. Commercial speech is ‘regulated speech’ where government agencies and consumer interest groups are only two of the constituents scrutinizing the appropriateness and


intent of biopharmaceutical companies’ messages – both formal (advertising, promotion, press releases, and official statements) and informal (informal or casual statements made by biopharmaceutical employees). Biopharmaceutical companies’ written communications are documents that become perpetual records, and their written communications in terms of regulatory filings directly affect the companies’ ability to commercialize and conduct business in a therapeutic market.

Sample data set of leadership experiences for communication

If multiple competencies are identified in a statement, the competency for ‘communication’ is highlighted in bold:

Is able to clearly define the expectations (or expected roles) of his •people, and is able to tailor communication at the appropriate level of detail. In this case, he has four distinct expectations as a manager, and can communicate these clearly to his people, being able to help people repeat desired performance and learn for themselves how to avoid poor performance, giving them the autonomy to learn from their experience rather than intervening in their tasks.Has ability to convey the value of an idea both to the customers •(physicians, patients, other external stakeholders) as well as to the internal stakeholders of the company – usually managers tend to be good at one aspect but not the other.Is able to customize communication and scale according to •audience needs – this arose through this particular executive’s former journalism training – including communication specificity and clarity. (This aspect is particularly crucial considering the regulatory filing and submission process. Vague or poor communication can make or break the company by delaying the filing process.) Has the ability to ‘be inspirational’ (to get others to move in the direction he wants them to move willingly and with enthusiasm), and the ability to communicate vision and be ‘diplomatic.’


Growth/cultivation: competence for developing current and future capability in self and others

‘Growing others’ (developing people) is part of biopharmaceutical executives’ leadership role, and a competency that enables high performance today and builds toward competitive advantage tomorrow. ‘Growing oneself’ (developing one’s leadership skills) is a discipline that begins with self-awareness and an honest assessment of one’s learning gaps and blindspots. If the executive believes that he has nothing to learn, then he is not motivated to engage in learning activities, just as he is unlikely to hire the personnel he needs if he believes that he can ‘do it all himself.’

The biopharmaceutical executive must be willing to venture out of his comfort zone to grow, to integrate professional and personal experiences that contribute to his leadership development, to use assessment tools available to him in the learning process, to actively draw lessons from his former and current ‘on the job’ experiences, and to be a disciplined learner. This requires the executive to be consistent in his investment in learning, and to continually aspire to broaden his mind and viewpoint to the next cognitive level of his personal development. This focus on personal growth does not always have to be a major ‘project’ or demand that the executive embark on educational programs or exhaustive learning processes – it can be as straightforward as everyday actions that are simple and reinforce leadership behavior.

An executive who is personally familiar with different growth modalities can apply his knowledge and experience when developing his employees. But the executive is a very specific kind of coach: his primary purpose is grounded in getting the tasks done and achieving corporate objectives, and his secondary purpose is to build a competitive organization for the years to come. This means the executive may focus on subject-matter-specific skills or interpersonal skills – any gaps that prevent an individual from being an effective contributor or manager. Thus the biopharmaceutical executive focuses both on improving employees’ performance and building their potential, just as he works on his current performance in a leadership role and builds his own potential for tomorrow’s leadership challenges.


Sample data set of leadership experiences for growth/cultivation

If multiple competencies are identified in a statement, the competency for ‘growth/cultivation’ is highlighted in bold:

Has a high degree of self-awareness of what he knows and •doesn’t know, so that he can act accordingly to hire talent and fill competency gaps.Continually develops his own leadership skills, being interested •in the leadership topic; reads books and attends workshops and seminars.Has a willingness to grow into the leadership position and be out •of the comfort zone.Continually develops himself by being receptive to available •leadership development programs and courses, and using 360-degree multi-source feedback to identify his own learning gaps.Has innate qualities or skills (‘nature’ or having been born with •the qualities of leadership) that are then reinforced through formative personal and professional experiences (‘nurture’ or having acquired leadership skills).Has acquired some of his learned ‘street smarts’ from growing •up in a tough neighborhood which has given him some skills when dealing with people, especially those with more experience and tenure than him but who are now reporting to him.Leadership skills can be learned and grounded in simple and •consistent actions, such as greeting people in the office every day.Has a facilitative role whereby he enables growth of his people •along the management track; has listening skills as a requirement of this role as leader.As the leader has the ability to energize a team and set clear •directions and objectives – often learned through acting as first-line manager, which makes this an important part of the development track.Is able to clearly define his expectations (or expected roles) of his •people, and is able to tailor communication at the appropriate level of detail. In this case, he has four distinct expectations as a manager, and can communicate these clearly to his people, being


able to help people repeat desired performance and learn for themselves how to avoid poor performance, giving them the autonomy to learn from their experience rather than intervening in their tasks.Coaches people through the problem so that they learn to •become better thinkers and can solve their own problems rather than spoonfeeding them the answer or using it as opportunity to boast how much he knows.Stretching and growing people are key leadership activities, •knowing where people want to go so you can take them there, challenging people with difficult tasks to make achievement more rewarding.Develops an appropriate level of self-confidence and acquires •good coping skills when confronted by those who are unable to manage their own behaviors; remains professional and calm, displaying consistency in temperament under pressure; is a calming presence to others; displays exemplary behaviors.Has self-confidence as a leader rather than harboring false •confidence and coming across as arrogant; trusts himself so that he can trust others, rather than being suspicious of everyone’s motives or demanding absolute control (micromanaging).Trains the next generation of scientists and prepares researchers •to acclimate to work in the biopharmaceutical industry; encourages them to be collaborative and talk to each other.

Conclusion

The chapter describes the seven leadership competencies of the biopharmaceutical executive’s leadership role, but does not include data that can validate ‘leadership capacity’ or the ‘degree of competence’ exhibited by an executive. Whatever capacities biopharmaceutical executives think they currently hold in these seven competencies, one trend is clear: ‘people’ are at the heart of biopharmaceutical executives’ leadership competence (see Figure 2.1).

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3

Three commitments of pharmaceutical executives:

presence

Abstract. Biopharmaceutical executives honor their commitment to be present within their organization and are watchful of the quality of environment in which their employees work. Executives continually energize and motivate their teams, foster a creative environment for new ideas from team members, and take advantage of each opportunity to learn about their team’s needs. Executives develop an awareness of their communication and adapt to their audience’s needs and for the results they intend from communicating. They are aware of all aspects of their communication that are seen and interpreted by others, including non-verbal and contextual elements of communication.

Keywords: presence, visibility, availability, engagement, listening, stability, trust, motivating, energizing, gaining confidence, role modeling, personal authority, ideas, communication awareness, non-verbal communication, written communication, intent, contextual presence, corporate politics

Introduction

The biopharmaceutical executive honors his commitment to be present within his organization by consistently investing his time


with internal and external stakeholders of the organization. This commitment is for the biopharmaceutical executive to ‘pay attention’ or ‘give attention’ to people and business factors that affect the viability of his organization. The executive can be physically present or ‘maintain a presence’ if he manages virtual and remote teams.

Physical presence gives contextual information that is not wholly transmissible via voicemail, e-mail, and teleconferencing or videoconferencing. Physical presence is preferred, but equally important is the executive’s consistency in his presence and his level of engagement appropriate to the situation. An executive who must frequently leave his subordinates can still maintain his presence with them by connecting with them via weekly teleconferences, and by making the best use of the time that he has when he is physically with his subordinates. On the other hand, an executive who rarely travels does not have a presence within his organization if he is rarely found by the subordinates who need him or, when he is found, appears unapproachable or inaccessible.

‘Presence,’ as defined in this study, can mean:

being visible; •being available; •being engaged. •

The purpose of maintaining presence

Being visible is simply that: the executive is ‘seen’ within the organization. In times of organizational turmoil, the visibility of its executives can be an important stabilizing influence for subordinates who are anxious about the future of their company and the fate of their jobs. When the executive wants to appear ‘available’ to people in his organization, he shows that he is receptive to being approached. An ‘open-door policy’ is one way that biopharmaceutical executives communicate receptiveness. The executive can also use non-verbal communication to show his receptiveness, for example by smiling and maintaining an ‘open’ body gesture; frowns and folded arms are not ‘open’ gestures that show receptiveness.

Presence 37

‘Being visible’ is critical for biopharmaceutical executives at all managerial levels but particularly for managers who are making the transition from an individual contributor role and especially for those managers whose individual contributor roles were based outside the corporate headquarters. A common mistake for new managers is to remain embedded in their former work boundaries instead of expanding their presence to their current work environment, which includes visibility to internal stakeholders. A sales executive was oblivious to this blindspot when he first made the transition from the field sales role to a field sales manager role:

This was one of the mistakes I made early on, because my vice president said that I needed to make some time and periodically come into the home office. He was right. With a [managerial] position, you have to be able to talk with everyone. That’s the only way you can identify who your supporters are in the organization ... and the people you have to be careful of.

Prior to the promotion, the executive had worked in an organization that destabilized because of poor sales of its commercial product. This heightened the executive’s vigilance to ‘drive sales in the field’ at the new organization. However, he subsequently learned that his effectiveness in a managerial role should also include being visible within his organization and ‘making himself available’ to work with his peer-level internal stakeholders and his supervisors. The executive summarized the importance of gaining people’s confidence: ‘It’s a matter of winning people over rather than just focusing on sales.’

Establishing ‘presence’ may be as simple as taking small and consistent actions. These are not always easy tasks for biopharmaceutical executives who are temperamentally introverted or withdrawn. This requires the biopharmaceutical executive to consciously make an effort to do something that can feel foreign and very uncomfortable. However, with courage, practice, and positive feedback, an introverted biopharmaceutical executive can train himself to initiate a greeting when he sees people at the office. One of the research executives interviewed believed that most scientists want to remain introverts and thrive in the solitary environment of


research. When a scientist becomes successful in a biopharmaceutical company and is promoted, however, the scientist finds himself in a role where he can no longer remain hidden:

... Suddenly the scientist has to lead people; he has to talk to them and go around hearing what people have to say. Even if he is shy and an introvert, he can train himself to say ‘hello’ to people. He has to be motivated and courageous to greet people first, instead of waiting to be approached by others. As people begin to respond positively to him, the scientist realizes that it was not as difficult as he had feared.

A biopharmaceutical executive who came from the UK observed that having a ‘presence’ within the organization is a major expectation of employees working in US-based companies, and particularly in start-up organizations:

I came from the UK, where a culture of ‘management knows best’ may still prevail at some companies. I used to work for a chief executive who was a visionary, but he wasn’t a communicator. He didn’t tap people in the corridor on a daily basis and he didn’t walk into offices to ask people about their weekend. You can’t do this in the US. You must have your door open. You must talk to people. Especially in a ‘start-up’ environment where employees are taking a risk joining the company, they expect to be informed.

In recent years, e-mail may have overtaken voicemail as the ‘evasion tool of choice.’ For biopharmaceutical executives who frequently travel, e-mail can be the main line of communication between the executives and the rest of their organization. However, e-mail does not afford the level of engagement that telephone conversations can. In some cases, e-mail can compromise the quality of the executive’s presence, by introducing the potential for message misinterpretation. E-mail communication relies on the receiver’s interpretation of the sender’s intent; colloquial syntax or vernacular can create misunderstanding between speakers of different languages. Even riskier is the false sense of ‘emotional safety’ behind e-mail communication.

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One of the executives interviewed believes that the impersonal nature of e-mail tempts people to say things to each other that they would probably never say when they meet face to face. He has observed executives who sit in adjacent offices e-mailing each other instead of talking with each other, using e-mail as an evasive or convenient alternative to ‘walking down the hall to have a person-to-person conversation.’ Therefore, if the executive receives an e-mail from a nearby colleague, he gets up from his chair, walks to that person’s office, and has the conversation. The executive also requires at least one face-to-face meeting before any collaboration can occur, and lives by his rule to ‘never, ever send rude or inflammatory e-mails!’

In many situations, interacting in person may be less convenient and more a symbolic appearance or gesture than e-mailing. Yet this ‘impractical’ gesture can, in the long term, offer biopharmaceutical executives very practical advantages by increasing the probability that the executive gathers the most complete picture of the communication that occurred during the interaction, and decreasing the probability of miscommunication or misinterpretation of the executive’s intention.

‘Listening’ is a foundational skill of biopharmaceutical executives’ presence. Good listening skills require the executive to harbor no agenda or preconceived notion that predisposes him to hear only what he wants to hear, and distracts him from important cues that he may not be ‘looking for.’ The executive may want to ‘actively listen’ by rephrasing what he has heard and asking the speaker for feedback. The speaker may confirm the executive’s understanding of the communication’s message and intent or give further clarification. The manager who detects these cues may investigate potential causes: is the subordinate’s workload too ambitious? Are the project deadlines unattainable given available resources? Is there a competency gap that requires additional training or manager’s coaching? If managers ‘tuned their listening’ to work-only cues, they will miss what they perceive as trivial conversation or ‘small talk.’ These managers would then miss an opportunity for early intervention when problems have not yet escalated.


This is one of the reasons why a Canadian-based research executive pays attention to what his subordinates may offer about their work–life balance. The executive admitted that he was not always a ‘good listener,’ and that he had learned that his listening skills could improve from an unlikely source:

I was not always a good listener. I am striving to become a better listener based on feedback I received from my children. I thought I was a good listener, but realized from my children’s feedback that I was easily distracted; for example, when they were trying to tell me something, I may be half-listening and half-looking at my [mobile e-mail device]. I made an effort to improve my listening skills by listening more attentively, and by showing that I was indeed listening by summarizing what I had heard.

Today, many biopharmaceutical employees work in multidisciplinary, multinational ‘virtual teams.’ The biopharmaceutical work environment appears more fragmented, as the industry becomes increasingly global and as work groups become increasingly specialized. Companies that license compounds have to work with their partner organization(s)’ discovery and development groups. Companies that outsource commercial or clinical functions have to work with service providers and clinical research organizations (CROs). Moreover, biopharmaceutical executives are at the interface between their employees and those of partner organizations. How well biopharmaceutical executives maintain their presence and liaise will determine the success of both the partnership and the companies involved.

Motivating and energizing employees

Considering the role of the biopharmaceutical industry in healthcare, the ability of biopharmaceutical executives to engage and energize their employees is no trivial skill. One executive said that biopharmaceutical employees and executives may not take seriously

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the task of ‘energizing people’ because it sounds ‘like a gimmick’; images associated with this activity may include extravagant seminars and effervescent speakers who give employees loud, motivational speeches.

Developing therapeutic products takes more than a decade; for many employees, a decade is longer than their potential tenure with their organization. This means many biopharmaceutical employees are working on projects in which they were not involved during the inception and may not be there to see the completion. Yet these same employees must work with a high level of commitment and enthusiasm that comes from feeling motivated by their contribution to their organization and to healthcare. Energetic events aimed to rally enthusiasm can be fun for both corporate executives and employees. But the burden remains with the biopharmaceutical executive for ensuring that his people know that they are significant contributors to their organization and to healthcare. Employees do not expect all biopharmaceutical executives to exude charisma, but they do expect their executives to genuinely care about their contribution to the organization.

What does an energized team look like? Team members are motivated by their executives and inspired by their sense of contribution to the organization. They seek solutions to problems. They welcome challenges. They foster a synergetic and creative environment, and the results of synergy and creativity are recognized by all members of the team. They enjoy coming to work and working together (collaborating). Each team member is confident in his ability to contribute, and is confident of the same in his colleagues.

Biopharmaceutical executives interviewed in this study offered seven ways to energize teams:

Executive gains his team’s confidence in his managerial 1. leadership.Executive appeals to his team’s personal ideals as contributors to 2. healthcare.Executive detects and reorients individual agendas to focus on 3. team objectives.Executive is ‘tuned in’ to his team’s energy level and mood.4.


Executive uses growth challenges to motivate his team.5. Executive models the behaviors and energy level he wants from 6. his team.Executive offers a stabilizing and calming presence to his team.7.

Earning employees’ confidence

The biopharmaceutical executive gains his team’s confidence in his managerial leadership by his competence, confidence, and consistency in his managerial practices. For an executive who comes from a scientific background, his subject-matter expertise is one way of gaining his team’s confidence, especially when he can transmit his knowledge and skills to team members. This has been a useful approach for one research executive, who said that many of the biopharmaceutical executives he respects come from research backgrounds and are not afraid to get into the laboratory to work with the scientists. This particular executive once spent six months teaching his research team surgical techniques to develop a cardiovascular rat model, saying:

On the one hand, you can say that I was wasting my time because of my position at the company. On the other hand, I know how to do this procedure, and my goal was to teach others how to do it. This is one of the few scientific skills I have left; let me at least give it to the next generation of scientists. I believe that if you work with your hands, it enhances the intellect; this certainly has been the case with me.

The biopharmaceutical executive should carefully consider the activities and the level of his involvement, but teaching his team specialized skills and knowledge can earn that executive significant ‘personal authority.’ This ‘personal authority’ as defined by Elliott Jaques (Jaques and Clement, 1994) makes the difference between ‘good enough results’ and ‘outstanding, even scintillating results’ from subordinates.

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Appealing to employees’ ideals

The biopharmaceutical executive reminds subordinates that their contribution is significant to the organization and to healthcare, so that they feel they have an investment in the results of their work.

Subordinates are more likely to maintain a high level of commitment if they personally believe that they are making a difference in people’s lives. They will proactively seek opportunities to contribute, and seek to improve their current skills or to acquire new skills. One of the executives in this study appeals to his employees’ personal pride as biopharmaceutical scientists whose work advances healthcare:

I tell my scientists that if their children ask them what they do, to tell their children that they save lives everyday.

The executive said that one of his scientists gave her son this answer when he asked about his mother’s profession. When his mother said, ‘We save lives every day,’ her son asked if she were a firefighter. The scientist said, ‘Yes, I am. We put out fires all the time, especially at the managerial level!’

The biopharmaceutical executive needs to spend time with his team to uncover their individual ideals and personal values, so he can make an effective appeal to them.

Focusing on team objectives

Egos and personal agendas are present in any work team; the biopharmaceutical executive’s role is to detect behaviors that are counterproductive to team effectiveness. The executive can then reorient these behaviors to ensure that egos and personal agendas do not interfere with the ability of the team to accomplish its tasks. One of the executives who has experience managing both field medical science liaison teams and field sales teams observed that sales teams tend to appear more cohesive and motivated as a unit compared with field medical science liaison teams and even corporate scientific groups. These functional teams are made up of individual


contributors, and while the level of competitive behavior may not be a driver, competition is in fact frequently used as a motivator for field sales teams.

Instead, the executives managing these teams may be the primary drivers of their teams’ cohesiveness and ability to work as a unit. Therefore biopharmaceutical executives should use the tools and resources available to them to address personality conflicts and reorient individual agendas so that the team can work effectively together.

Attention to employees’ moods

When the biopharmaceutical executive is ‘tuned into’ his team, he is paying attention to his team members’ energy levels and mood, and adapts accordingly to gain the level of commitment he needs from his team. One of the executives in this study has found that much of his experience of building upon his team members’ strengths and facilitating team cohesion was gained from his role as a first-line manager:

This is one of the reasons why I believe that to be effective as an executive at this level, you must have first-line management experience, where you have to demonstrate your ability to energize and mobilize your teams. It is in these positions where you first learn how to gauge the energy of your people.

The executive suggested that his colleagues pay attention to the mood of the group during a particularly contentious meeting and during teleconferences when team members are not physically interacting.

Challenging with growth

One of the executives in this study has found that regardless of management level or educational background, people will ‘rise to

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the occasion’ when they believe that they can accomplish something unique and worthwhile. This executive has found that the best way to motivate people is when they feel that they are on a mission and making a difference; people will then confront a task that was previously seen as ‘impossible.’

As an executive advances in the organization, he continually works with personalities and temperaments that test emotional resilience. One executive who has worked with three different CEOs during his career observed that none of the chief executives he had worked with had modified or ‘changed’ their behaviors to create a better working relationship with their subordinates. He remembered working for one chief executive who had a ‘volcanic’ temper:

Those who didn’t know the CEO’s personality could be emotionally wrecked by the way he treated them. Yet the next time you saw him, he was absolutely delightful to you; in the meantime, he may have just annihilated somebody’s self-confidence!

The executive said that one must ensure exemplary behavior, especially the more senior in rank one becomes, because people inside and outside the organization are watching the executives’ behaviors. If the executive was faced with an angry or confrontational person, he reminded himself that the behavior was probably not directed deliberately at him. While we wish that every single executive is ‘self-actualized,’ the executive had seen many go through several leadership development programs and yet:

... These people never modified their behavior no matter what words came out of their mouths. Now, you have an option – you stay with them – or you walk away. Unfortunately, the more senior an executive you become, the more you need to have these coping skills.

Executives who have acquired these coping skills can serve as role models for their team members when they succeed in their own challenges within the organization.


Modeling desirable behaviors

Another way for biopharmaceutical executives to energize their teams is to model the behaviors they want to see from their team members. Executives can set the energy level they wish from their team members by exhibiting that same level of energy themselves. In fact, displays of poor managerial leadership may be due to modeled behaviors in the executive’s past. One of the executives in the study used to work for a supervisor who was a highly capable clinical scientist, but who had poor interpersonal skills and poor managerial leadership skills. The supervisor’s mode of helping his team members was to treat them very harshly. The more highly the supervisor thought of a subordinate, the harsher his treatment of that subordinate. If the supervisor thought nothing of a person, he would have wasted no time giving any feedback.

But my boss would publicly humiliate his subordinates by saying things like, ‘What were you thinking? Do you have any idea what you’re doing?’

The executive said that this supervisor would subsequently return to his office and regret his behavior, yet the supervisor never tried to change or modify that behavior. It appeared as if the supervisor ‘could not seem to help himself.’ The executive did not think this type of behavior to be the exception in the upper management ranks of biopharmaceutical companies:

Unfortunately, I think this type of behavior is tolerated in our industry. Many of our leadership ranks are being staffed by clinicians or scientists who have been trained in this manner. They model the abusive behavior that they had learned during their graduate school or medical school training.

How the biopharmaceutical executive handles the ‘little details’ of interpersonal skills are as important as how he handles the ‘big situations,’ and his subordinates may be modeling his behaviors. Serving as an example is ‘leading by example.’

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Providing a stable presence

One of the executives in this study believes that one of the most important tasks in his role is to be a stabilizing and calming presence for his people, especially when the organization is in turmoil. If the organization is restructuring and the executives seem to be hiding from their people, this derails the motivation and momentum of the work teams. People reorient their energy away from doing their jobs and begin to speculate on their executives’ absence. When they believe their executives are ‘there and available for them,’ their anxiety may be alleviated amid the uncertainty.

The biopharmaceutical executive should not be a source of anxiety for his people, but sometimes his temperament may cause anxiety. One of the executives in this study started his tenure in the biopharmaceutical industry with tremendous surprise at how quickly people feel insulted or offended:

When I started in industry, I was overwhelmed by how people could hold a real grudge against you, but some people seem to function that way. One of my first bosses who worked as the president of the company was an incredibly angry person. He would always have a red face! People would work around his temper, and they had to walk softly around him, as if they were walking on eggshells.

Biopharmaceutical executives who may feel very passionate about their work can be very forceful when they are communicating with others. This passion can be motivating to some employees, but most people rarely stay motivated around anger or fear.

Energized teams brim with ideas

Ideas invigorate (or ‘regenerate’) the team’s energy. Motivated teams consistently generate new ideas, but this can only be sustained when new ideas are appropriately handled by biopharmaceutical executives. Executives foster an idea-generative environment when they receive


ideas with an open mind instead of immediately dismissing their value or merit (‘This will never work!’ or ‘This is not an option’) and also when they implement their subordinates’ ideas. Ideas that have made their way to the top echelon of biopharmaceutical companies have had executive sponsorship, where an executive has carefully considered the validity of the ideas and subsequently followed through with supportive resources. Executives have to be champions for their teams’ ideas if those ideas are to have any chance of having an effect on the rest of the organization.

What frequently occurs is that executives are either unwilling or unable to champion their teams’ good ideas. There may be various reasons why an executive would be unwilling or unable to champion his team’s ideas: perhaps an executive was unable to assess the relevance and validity of an idea; perhaps the executive could not communicate the merits of the idea to his managers or chief executives; perhaps the executive did not fully understand the idea.

Subordinates quickly cease activities that they perceive as ‘futile.’ When the activities pertain to the generation of new ideas in an industry that is based on the products of innovation, biopharmaceutical executives must be very careful of how they handle every single idea they receive from their people. Each new idea is a learning opportunity – non-viable ideas are especially useful for biopharmaceutical executives to learn about their subordinates’ creative processes. If a biopharmaceutical executive continually receives ideas that are outside the scope of corporate objectives, he may want to evaluate whether his team members lack key information about their objectives, whether they misunderstand their objectives, or whether they need to acquire specific skills or knowledge to work more effectively toward their objectives.

How team creativity is compromised

Biopharmaceutical executives can destroy their team’s creative processes and reduce their likelihood of getting new ideas if they

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treat their subordinates’ ideas superficially, fail to give subordinates credit for their ideas, or behave apathetically or antagonistically toward subordinates who submit new ideas.

If biopharmaceutical executives handle ideas from their team members superficially, this erodes subordinates’ future willingness to bring forth ideas. An executive may say to his subordinates, ‘Yes, send me your ideas, I want to hear your ideas,’ but then fail to respond to or follow up subordinates who do submit ideas. This incongruence between words and action confuses subordinates. Subordinates do not know if an executive is not responding because he did not notice the idea (since executives are inundated with information they may have missed it), because the idea lacked merit, or because the executive did not understand the idea. Whatever the reason, if an executive’s behavior appears dismissive or incongruent with their claims, it will discourage subordinates from submitting new ideas.

One of the executives in this study had a supervisor who habitually undermined his contribution of ideas at meetings:

Whenever I spoke at meetings, I was constantly interrupted, and in a way that was outright antagonistic. I got to the point where I stopped speaking in meetings, because I found no value in sharing new ideas.

The executive had managed a project that resulted in his organization receiving accreditation for human research protection. This was a significant achievement and the executive was recognized externally and received numerous awards from his professional affiliations. Yet:

... Never once was my name mentioned in the company, it was always about how this was done by the department; it was almost like my boss did not want to give me the credit.


A biopharmaceutical executive’s communication awareness

Much has been written about the technical skills of communication so this chapter does not aim to ‘teach’ communication skills. Instead, this chapter examines the ‘practical’ aspects of communicating in a managerial role. Today’s biopharmaceutical executives are working in multinational businesses and are interacting with colleagues from different countries and cultural backgrounds. One UK-based biopharmaceutical executive has worked with multinational teams and observed that certain cultures focus on the individual’s achievements and merits, while others emphasize the idea of ‘honor’ or ‘saving face.’ These cultural elements permeate the executives’ communication approach. At one point the executive had worked with a board of directors that:

... had an American, a Frenchmen, an Italian, a Brit. You know that everyone is processing the information a little differently – and you have these different vocabularies!

A challenge facing executives who enter the biopharmaceutical industry as subject-matter experts is that they fail to adapt their communication to different audiences. Executives who are used to presenting data as subject-matter experts continue to present data and communicate the same way, even when their audiences have changed. They do not adapt the communication and scale the level of detail appropriate to their audience. They may even fail to pay attention to the purpose of a communication. One of the executives in this study gave an example of a senior-level medical executive who gave a presentation at a company function:

I had a gut feeling that he wasn’t going to be a good leader when I first saw him present for a session at the company meeting. This was part of a larger developmental meeting for the company, and the session was supposed to be inspirational. This was where he should tell us what a great pipeline the company has, and that we are still working for a good company. Instead, he got

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up and gave a dry presentation. He was just not inspiring or dynamic. He focused too much on the details and on the data.

Subject-matter experts who become biopharmaceutical executives run the risk of overusing jargon, ignoring audience expectations, assuming that the audience can make sense of the details presented, and even expecting audience members to accept their eccentricities. While these risks may be regularly tolerated in some academic settings, biopharmaceutical executives who come across as lacking consideration for their stakeholders are risking their effectiveness as managerial leaders within their organization. Today’s biopharmaceutical executive must heed the importance of communication to his managerial leadership. He must objectively assess whether he may be ‘stuck’ in a particular mode of communication instead of tailoring his communication approach to the audience and to the purpose of the communication.

This may be part of a larger industry debate about who would make a ‘better’ biopharmaceutical chief: someone who comes from a business background, or someone who comes from a scientific or clinical background. Communication awareness is often used as an example of skills that scientists or clinicians lack when making the transition to a business executive role. Biopharmaceutical executives are not trained in communication awareness as part of their graduate or medical education, nor are they given a ‘book of rules’ that teaches them ‘how’ to communicate for ‘what’ purpose and ‘why.’ Some may participate in professional workshops that teach them communication skills, but for the most part, executives have been learning by trial and error, and by suffering the consequences of their mistakes.

Biopharmaceutical executives in this study were asked where they gained their communication awareness. Many cited experiences from their personal lives or from past professional experience outside the biopharmaceutical industry. One executive said that he learned to communicate from his marriage:

... before you get married you think you’re right about many things; then after you get married, you realize that your spouse is right about many things.


This made the executive more comfortable asking for input and soliciting for his people’s opinions. He was also comfortable dealing with dissenting opinions or with opinions different from his own.

Another executive said that his father had taught him about communication awareness. The executive’s father had worked as a salesman, and the executive remembered as a child going along with his father and learning about communication skills:

The wisdom from my father was, ‘If you can’t be good, at least be brief.’ My father was an incredible salesman and I loved going on sales calls with him and watching him work. My father warned me not to show your intelligence by giving people complicated words that mean nothing to them. If you know your subject matter expertise, your job is to help others understand it ... and if you don’t know the answer to the question, just say ‘I don’t know’!

The executive also had a stuttering problem during his childhood years and worked with a speech therapist to overcome his stutter. As a result, he had found the speech therapy sessions extremely valuable in raising his communication awareness. The speech therapist encouraged the executive to learn to listen to himself when he spoke, and pay attention to what he said and how he said it:

Very few people know how to listen to themselves – most people don’t. My speech therapist also said that when people are finally listening to you, give them the truth. If you don’t believe in what you’re saying, no one else will believe it, either. I think that was the basis of my most important leadership skill, to be able to communicate to a large number of different people.

One executive in this study grew up in a tough neighborhood which he believed forced him to become ‘street smart’ and learn how to communicate with different types of people. He later found his ‘street smart’ skills useful when communicating with different types

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of people in his managerial role. The executive routinely asked his subordinates and peer-level colleagues for their opinions about an issue. Even when he was ‘the boss,’ and many of his subordinates had been with the company longer than he had and some were much older than he was, he wanted to learn from his people’s experience and, more importantly, what his people were thinking and how they perceived their work environment.

Another executive in this study began his career as a journalist, which he credited for his communication skills and for the level of communication awareness he now has as a biopharmaceutical executive. He believes that executives must not ignore the skills of ‘being understood’ and how they are projecting themselves to others. This executive found that his journalism experience had complemented his scientific training. When it comes to communicating with CEOs or with investors and government regulators, he has found that his journalism skills have served him as well as his training in genetics and molecular biology:

I need to synthesize a copious amount of information into a simple, understandable story that my CEO understands, or that the regulators can understand, or that our investors can understand, or that people in the sales department can understand. This is an under-appreciated skill for many pharmaceutical executives.

The executive also oversees regulatory filings, which are syntheses of large amounts of data. How well the company communicates its data in written form (as regulatory dockets) can make the difference between the company’s drug gaining regulatory approval for commercialization and it not gaining approval. Because of his journalism expertise, he has been working with his company’s chief operating officer, an inspirational and highly skilled verbal communicator who needed to refine his written communication so that he could communicate more clearly and succinctly.

Therefore communication awareness also extends to written communication, which is critical not only as a matter of self-preservation or career image for the biopharmaceutical executive,


but also to the company’s competitive advantage and survival. How the biopharmaceutical executive communicates ‘on paper’ can have far-reaching consequences for both the executive and for the company. Yet written communication skills receive less attention than verbal and non-verbal communication skills in managerial leadership.

Additionally, written communication should be sampled at regular intervals as part of internal audits. This helps ensure that appropriate (legal) communication is occurring between employees at all levels of the organization, and especially between employees and stakeholders external to the organization. Company e-mails, memoranda, and internal company newsletters require care in their formulation as do external communications and postings on social media websites. Just as companies can retain an enduring record of its digital and physical written assets, the World Wide Web has a perpetual archive of digital content. Because the biopharmaceutical industry is highly regulated, and its business processes from discovery to clinical development to commercial practices are subject to intense scrutiny, written communication skills should be a part of every biopharmaceutical executive’s professional development.

Case illustrations of managerial communication failure

The two cases below were adapted from the experiences of executives in this study as examples of managerial communication failures that can occur, especially in ‘managing up’ (managing supervisors or chief executives).

John

John began working with a CEO who appeared so single-minded that ‘the CEO seemed almost obsessive.’ For example, if a problem came to the CEO’s attention, he would not be able to think about anything else until the problem has been contemplated thoroughly in his mind and resolved.

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When John first joined the company, the CEO had asked him to write a strategy proposal. John was to review the existing workforce and deliver to the CEO a proposal on the company’s research and development strategy. As part of this assignment, John spent the first three months of his tenure speaking with over 150 people in his organization before beginning his proposal. As John worked on his assignment, he came to a conclusion that the company’s scientists had particularly strong competencies in the biologics area.

In his proposal to the CEO, he recommended that the company invest its resources to develop the biologics capabilities of its research function. John had no idea that his recommendation for the company’s R&D strategy was the complete opposite of the conclusion that his CEO had already arrived at in his mind. This was December, when winter holidays were approaching and the year was drawing to an end. John completed his proposal, sent his recommendations to the CEO, and left the office to go on winter holiday for the remainder of the year.

When John returned to his office in January of the new year, he went to see the CEO about his report. As John went through the door, he was met by a stack of papers – his proposal – flying high across the room, thrown by the CEO. The CEO followed up by shouting at John, ‘That is NOT a strategy!’ John learned that the CEO wanted the company’s R&D investment in small molecules and not biologics, and that John’s proposal had positioned the company in a different direction than the position the CEO had in mind. However, John and his CEO eventually did come to an agreement about how they should position the company’s R&D direction.

Ken

Ken describes himself as a ‘change agent’ whose mission is to improve the biopharmaceutical organization. During a corporate restructuring process, the new manager of Ken’s department was


announced. Ken was shocked when a peer-level executive, Henry, was announced as the new manager of the department. Henry had never expressed a desire for the position, at least to Ken’s knowledge. Ken immediately went to the manager-once-removed, the executive who appointed Henry to the position, to find out more about the decision process.

Ken asked the executive about Henry’s leadership philosophy and what Henry’s vision was for the department. Ken was not able to find out this information, but did learn that the executive was Henry’s mentor when both worked at one of the company subsidiaries in the UK. Ken strongly believed that this was a case of a promotion made on the basis of a pre-existing relationship rather than on the basis of the candidate’s merits.

Ken learned that the executive subsequently warned Henry that Ken resented the appointment because Ken wanted the manager position. Ken strongly denied his interest for the position, and insisted that he simply wanted to know whether Henry had a vision or a plan for the group. Ken was driven by his sense of mission and identification as a change agent, and believed that managerial leaders should be visionary and courageous. Meanwhile, Ken was unable to get the answer he wanted from Henry about how the group would move forward.

For the next two years, Ken had a strained working relationship with Henry that sometimes became contentious. Ken felt that Henry still believed that Ken wanted his job, and was therefore guarded and suspicious of Ken. Ken had told Henry that he did indeed wish to advance in the organization, but that he had no desire for Henry’s position. Ken believed that Henry was also threatened by Ken’s influence within the organization.

Debriefing the case illustrations

John

In John’s case, two aspects of his communication breakdown were intent and timing.

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Intent or ‘why’ – why did the request occur?

John was under the impression that this was a straightforward assignment: find out the core research strengths of the company and make the recommendation based on his findings. However, the CEO’s intention may not have been the ‘fact-finding’ assignment that John had assumed. The CEO’s true intention may have been for John to confirm the conclusions that the CEO had already drawn in his mind, or for John to find out how to build an organization that would support the direction that the CEO had already decided upon.

If John had probed the CEO’s intentions for the assignment or looked for the CEO’s underlying assumptions about the assignment, he may have discovered that the CEO believed that his organization should pursue small-molecule-based therapeutics as an R&D strategy. Then John would be doing a different assignment; he may then be evaluating the organization’s competencies to support this strategy.

Timing or ‘when’ – when should the information be shared?

Because of the CEO’s obsessive personality, John should not have given his CEO any information unless John was there to immediately answer the CEO’s questions. In other words, John should not have sent the CEO an important report and become inaccessible (leave for a vacation). The CEO was be left to ruminate and obsess about the content of the report, and grow increasingly frustrated because he could not ask John questions. As a result, the CEO’s pent-up frustration culminated in his outburst when he finally saw John after the winter holidays.

From our ‘outsider’s perspective,’ John’s CEO – or at least, the CEO’s personality – appears to be a source of the problem. When a CEO has a difficult personality or leaves his subordinates to guess his intent, problems arise. John was working with a CEO that many would see as ‘an ineffective managerial leader.’ However, John was able to identify a guiding process that could help him manage his future interactions with the CEO. John paid attention to how his CEO’s mind ‘worked’ (‘one thing at a time, one day at a time’), what


types of problems to bring to the CEO for discussion, and what types of problems never to bring to the CEO (‘never bring him people problems’). As a result, John established a productive relationship with his chief executive. This also allowed John to become a better managerial leader for his subordinates in the organization.

Ken

Ken’s case was more complex because it involved both Ken’s manager and the manager-once-removed (the manager’s manager). The case was described from Ken’s perspective, and we assume that Ken truly had no desire for Henry’s position. This was a case where Ken needed a ‘big enough manager,’ which was how Elliott Jaques described the need for managers to be at least one-level of cognitive complexity (‘stratum’) above their subordinates to be an appropriate managerial leader for those subordinates (Jacques and Clement, 1994). Henry may be at the same stratum as Ken, or one stratum below Ken; the result was that Ken could not truly accept Henry as a leader, and continually pointed to Henry’s lack of vision for the organization as proof that Henry was not competent for the role.

There are three aspects that deserve attention in this breakdown in managerial relationship:

‘How’ – how did Ken respond to the promotional announcement?

Ken’s response was swift. He expressed surprise and publicly questioned the manager-once-removed about the basis of the promotion. Ken’s concerns may have been valid and shared by many colleagues. However, Ken’s outspokenness made him the most visible opponent to the managerial appointment. Henry and the manager-once-removed interpreted Ken’s opposition to come from Ken’s desire for the managerial position.

Ken also ‘went above Henry’s head’ right after the announcement by meeting with the manager-once-removed, who appointed Henry. Ken wanted to understand the candidate selection process as well as

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the vision and qualifications the appointee had to be chosen. These were valid queries, but Ken’s direct approach only bolstered the perception that Ken actually wanted the position. Ken’s actions had made the manager-once-removed wary of Ken’s intent, so he warned Henry that Ken may undermine his authority and threaten his job. These events made Ken appear to Henry as the key adversary, and made Henry guarded and suspicious of Ken’s actions.

‘What’ – what made Ken respond in this manner?

It is important to note that Ken viewed himself as a ‘change agent,’ and this self-identification had been a key driver in Ken’s biopharmaceutical career. Ken has a pure intent that was born of his personal ideals. Ken was trained as a physician and had a professional track record of standing firm in his opinions about what was ‘right’ or ‘best’ for the organization and for patients.

Because Ken was deeply connected to his mission and saw his leadership as part of this mission, his behaviors supported his self-identification as a ‘change agent.’ Part of being a ‘change agent’ was to break through the status quo and change a culture of mediocrity and ‘business as usual.’ Ken knew that this made him a target for those whose power rested on the existing culture; those people would view him as a threat or an enemy. As a result, Ken often went outside the organization to gather recognition and visibility. Ken was able to transfer some of this recognition and visibility into his organization to gain personal influence with his subordinates and some of his peer-level colleagues.

Fanning the flames of insecurity

Ken was able to earn significant personal authority by virtue of his visibility outside the company as a ‘leader role model,’ which eventually garnered his recognition. This made Ken’s peers and subordinates see him as a mentor or a role model. Ken’s influence may have caused Henry to suspect that Ken was gathering support to usurp Henry’s authority. As a response, Henry began to identify people whom he trusted to be ‘on his side.’ This informally divided


the department into those who were ‘on Ken’s side’ and those who were ‘on Henry’s side.’

When Ken received recognition from an outside professional association for his leadership activities, Henry said to Ken: ‘You have such a great reputation on the outside compared to the reputation you have here in the department.’ Ken’s response was: ‘It all depends on who you talk to on the inside.’

This response would further fan the flames of Henry’s insecurity and give Henry ‘proof’ that Ken was after his job. This essentially confirmed Henry’s fears that Ken had plans to oust him. If Ken made any effort toward reconciliation, Henry would only interpret his attempts as part of Ken’s tactic to take Henry’s job.

This was exactly what had happened: Ken had made several attempts to assuage Henry’s anxiety and to convince Henry that he wanted to reconcile. Ken’s efforts were futile and did not improve his working relationship with Henry. As Ken continually felt undermined, micromanaged, and antagonized by Henry, he grew increasingly convinced that Henry was unfit for the managerial position. Eventually, Ken took early retirement and left the organization.

Ken admits that he was more effective managing subordinates than he was at ‘managing up,’ but Ken also believes that this is a common fate among biopharmaceutical executives who see themselves as ‘change agents’ in their companies.

Contextual presence in corporate politics

The above examples show the complexity of managing the ‘total package’ when communicating. Once an impression is made, biopharmaceutical executives may find that they are tied to that impression. If the impression was not what the executive intended and he wants to change it, he may find an uphill battle facing him. Communication ‘damage control’ can be a more arduous task than communication ‘control.’

Learning by trial and error increases the probability that biopharmaceutical executives spend significant time with ‘damage control’ rather than focusing on their managerial role. Therefore a

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biopharmaceutical executive must become aware of the ‘total package’ of his communication: the words he chooses, the tone he uses, where he gives his communication, his facial expression when he communicates, his body language or gestures, how he holds his posture, the timing of his communication (for example, how long he waits to deliver bad news), and even his choice of attire when communicating a specific message.

These ‘contextual’ elements of communicating will be observed and interpreted by subordinates and internal stakeholders as part of the executives’ ‘message.’ This requires the executive to develop the full extent of his communication skills, and to recognize both the immediate and long-term consequences of his communication. The executive should realize that all aspects of his communication may be interpreted as part of his intent. When biopharmaceutical executives are working with multinational teams, they may want to pay attention to their use of idioms that may be foreign to a non-native English speaker, or avoid words or phrases that may be humorous to him but offensive or incomprehensible to his audience.

Even the simple act of ‘showing up’ can be interpreted by observers as part of communication. If a company sends its public relations (PR) spokesperson to face the media and the public about a crisis rather than sending its chief executives, this decision of ‘who shows up’ is interpreted by observers about the company’s intent and stance in the matter. If a biopharmaceutical executive talks about the importance of ‘showing up’ but he fails to ‘show up’ for the same activities, this incongruence is noticed immediately by his subordinates. If the executive tells people that a corporate function is elective but he punishes those who did not attend, he is ambushing his subordinates; one of the executives in this study had a peer-level colleague who did exactly this.

The executive’s department held an off-site meeting and an elective function – a baseball game – was offered to its employees. The game occurred after regular working hours, and employees were told that attendance at the game was ‘optional.’ Some of the employees showed up at the optional event, others did not. At the first morning session the next day, the executive’s colleague publicly targeted those


employees who failed to attend the baseball game. Said the executive about his colleague’s action:

This person said to everyone that the baseball game was a company function, that it wasn’t meant to be fun, that attendance to the game should have been viewed as a scheduled corporate event and therefore mandatory. This person overanalyzed why people didn’t show up for an event that was meant to be optional and fun. To do this is to undermine your own ability to be an effective leader.

Perhaps the executive’s colleague was justified in his perception that what was labeled ‘optional’ was not optional if the organization’s executives had bred a culture of ambush and entrapment for its employees to fail. The colleague may have his subordinates’ interest in mind. He could have used better diplomacy and privately communicate his concern to subordinates who failed to ‘show up’ to an optional event rather than pointing them out publicly. But this is a symptom of a larger reality of how some corporate cultures can be rife with hidden rules of engagement that lie waiting like landmines for their corporate victims. In some cases, employees fall victim to these landmines set by their own executives.

Unwritten rules of engagement can be part of the ‘social’ or ‘cultural’ norms, though we are not referring to these norms here. Instead, we are referring to those unwritten rules that drive corporate politics and are used to sabotage or to divide a company’s employees as part of an executive’s quest for personal power. These are symptoms of a corporation whose executives are not behaving in a manner consistent with the accountabilities authorized in their managerial roles.

Conclusion

The burden of preventing corporate politics from distracting and interfering with employees’ ability to do their jobs rests on that level

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of biopharmaceutical executives who are managers-once-removed. These executives must observe their own managers and how these managers are working with their subordinates, and be acquainted with their subordinates-once-removed (their managers’ subordinates) enough to understand their employees’ work conditions. Only then can biopharmaceutical executives uncover subcultures within their organizations, and immediately address those subcultures that are detrimental to the productivity of the organization’s employees.

What today’s biopharmaceutical employees thirst for from their executives is an authentic respect for their capability and contribution to the biopharmaceutical organization. Employees may enjoy working with biopharmaceutical executives who have effervescent personalities or who are highly personable, but these are not as important as working for managerial leaders that they can trust. Biopharmaceutical executives at the managerial level, and especially those who are managers-once-removed, are the key to the internal health of their organizations. Biopharmaceutical executives must honor their commitment to be present within their organization, and be watchful of the work environment that they and their managers have created for employees.

Chapter summary

The biopharmaceutical executive honors his commitment to be present within his organization by consistently making an investment of his time with internal and external stakeholders of the organization. Executives should be visible to, available for, and engaged with their stakeholders. A commitment to presence begins with the biopharmaceutical executive using technology such as e-mails and teleconferencing to aid – not evade – communication with his stakeholders. He builds his listening skills so that he can pay attention to his subordinates’ cues about drivers of productivity that may come from either their professional or their personal lives.

The ability for biopharmaceutical executives to engage and energize their employees is no trivial skill, especially when therapeutic


product development often takes more than a decade from bench to bedside. Biopharmaceutical employees are often working with projects in which where they were not directly involved during their inception, and may not be with the company long enough to enjoy the results of their contribution. This puts the onus directly on the biopharmaceutical executive to ensure that his subordinates work with a high level of commitment and enthusiasm, and he does this by continually igniting their motivation and sense of contribution to the organization and to healthcare.

Executives in this study offered seven ways to energize work teams: gaining the team’s confidence in the executive’s managerial leadership, appealing to the team’s sense of mission or ideals about working in healthcare, detecting hindrances to team cohesiveness around an objective, paying attention to his team’s energy level and mood and adjusting his approach if needed, using growth challenges to motivate his team, modeling behaviors he wants from his team, and serving as a stabilizing and calming presence to his team. The executive also supports his team’s idea-generation process and fosters a creative and productive environment.

Biopharmaceutical executives who have developed their communication awareness understand all the elements of their communication – verbal, non-verbal, written, and contextual. They know that these elements are being observed and interpreted by others, and biopharmaceutical executives refine their skills so that their communications are interpreted the way they intended. In addition to an awareness of social and cultural norms in the work environment, biopharmaceutical executives pay attention to symptoms of poor managerial leadership, such as the presence of corporate politics or corporate sabotage. Biopharmaceutical executives make an investment of their time with managers and subordinates-once-removed so they can uncover and remedy deleterious subcultures in their organization.

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Practical application of competencies within this commitment

This section provides questions regarding the application of each of the seven competencies discussed in Chapter 2 that relate to the commitment which is the topic of this chapter.

I: Competence in role

In your current role, how much time should you invest in •‘people’ (subordinates, supervisors/chief executives, peers)? How much of this time is based on an explicit expectation of your role? For example, part of your role may be to ‘conduct quarterly performance reviews’ and this is an explicit expectation of your time investment with subordinates. How much additional time are you investing as part of the implicit expectation of your role?In your current role, how visible should you be to your •internal stakeholders? How much visibility should you maintain to which stakeholders? For example, should you be more visible to marketing colleagues, should you pay more attention to clinical colleagues?What communication venues, internal meetings, or public •forums (for example, investor meetings, advisory boards, corporate meetings, team-building events) are expected from your role? How do you create and maintain leadership presence in these situations?What written communication, including memoranda, e-mail, •and internal reports, are you expected to generate as part of your role? What principles – formal (as part of the company’s policies) and informal – guide your writing? What potential communications, legal and regulatory, landmines exist in each of the channels of written communication that you are accountable for?


II: Autonomy-cohesion

What type of presence has worked best in creating cohesion •among your team members? Is this through informal team meetings, formal team building activities, brainstorming or other creative sessions, or informal ‘happy hour’ type of gatherings?How often do you send e-mails or voicemails in lieu of •face-to-face conversations? How do you justify ‘which communications’ warrant personal presence and ‘which communications’ are ‘small stuff’ and could be e-mailed?How do you create leadership presence when working with •multinational teams, or with team members from different cultural backgrounds or spoken languages?How do you motivate or inspire team members to work •together if team members are:

co-located in the same space (members are working in the –

same building or campus)?distant from each other (field-based, telecommuting, or in –

different time zones)?mixed groups of those who are co-located and those who –

are distant from each other?

III: Trust

How often does your subordinate come to you to raise •concerns, ask a question, or share an idea?What examples are there of small acts of building trust that •you already engage in? For example making a point of saying hello to people, asking them about and showing concern for their general welfare.What small acts can you think of that you could engage in, •but do not yet do on a regular basis?What are potential ways that you can build trust through •verbal and non-verbal communication?What are potential ways that you can build trust through •written communication?

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IV: Steadiness amid uncertainty

What type of presence would you expect to provide during •times of tension? Open door? Proactive one-on-one session? Team meetings?What type of information are you proactively gathering by •each level of presence? For example, by being visible? Being available? Being engaged?How do you maintain leadership presence in an emotionally •charged situation or when directly confronted?How do cultural differences affect your approach to leadership •presence? For example, one culture may value a steady gaze as a way of showing that one is paying attention, but another culture may view this as rude or a way to intimidate.

V: Balanced execution

How do you weigh being present for the right reasons versus •delegating so you are not micromanaging?How do you balance spending the right amount of time with •internal stakeholders so you can create a perception of availability to colleagues?

VI: Communication

What verbal and non-verbal communication cues are you •observing and receiving in the presence of subordinates, peers, and supervisors?What verbal and non-verbal communication cues are you •exhibiting or showing in the presence of subordinates, peers, and supervisors? (Note: Videotaping yourself giving a presentation may be one way of uncovering verbal and non-verbal cues that you may currently be unaware of exhibiting.)


VII: Growth/cultivation

What balance of presence, availability, and engagement do •you think works when growing your subordinates’ current and future capacities? For example, when growing subordinates’ current capacities (performance), you may want to be available and ready to engage if the subordinate needs your feedback, but deliberately minimize your presence as the subordinate carries out tasks so you do not appear to be ‘watching over the subordinate’s shoulder.’Are you aware of the ‘presence mix’ of individuals you work •with, i.e. the degree of engagement or type of presence afforded by certain team members? If you are not aware, how will you gain this awareness? What questions will you ask, and to whom?What competency gaps have you identified when creating •leadership presence, be these oral communication skills, written communication skills, non-verbal communication skills (including poise, physical carriage, posture), listening skills, ‘difficult conversations’ skills, diversity or cultural awareness skills? How will you address these gaps, and within what timeframe?

Additional questions for biopharmaceutical executives

‘Am I really listening?’ • ‘What does it look like when I am engaged? When I am not?’ • ‘How often do I interrupt during meetings?’ • ‘Do I have a system in place to alert me of a need to modify my •approach? For example, have I created a code or signal with a trusted colleague, who will discreetly let me know when I need to pay attention to my leadership behaviors in this condition.’ ‘How many ideas do I receive from my team on a weekly •basis? What have I done with them?’ ‘What motivates my team? What inspires my team? That is •to say, why do my people come to work everyday?’ ‘How often do I send e-mails instead of talking with people? •Do I have e-mail etiquette? Do people know what this is?’

4


stewardship

Abstract. The biopharmaceutical executive honors his commitment to be a steward of the authority he has as a managerial leader in the organization. The executive’s authority allows him to formally assign roles to his subordinates through which they are held accountable, and his stewardship in this area is to ensure that subordinates are clear about their accountabilities and have the autonomy to do their jobs. The executive sets the direction for his team by assigning objectives based on overall corporate strategy and aims. His stewardship in this area is to guide his team along the objectives and provide the infrastructure and work environment subordinates need to achieve their objectives. Finally, the executive’s managerial leadership gives him the authority to preserve the integrity and ethics of his organization’s business practices.

Keywords: stewardship, authority, tasks, objectives, managerial role, managerial authority, autonomy, accountability, pressures, assigning, infrastructure, policies, work environment

Introduction

The biopharmaceutical executive honors his commitment to be a steward of the authority vested in his role as a managerial leader in


his organization. Three areas of authority identified in this study for which the biopharmaceutical executive has stewardship were:

authority to assign subordinates tasks through which subordinates •are held accountable and against which their performance is evaluated;authority to assign subordinates objectives that are attained •through subordinates’ contribution through their roles;authority to preserve the sanctity of his managerial role. •

Authority to give people jobs (assign them tasks)

Individual contributors are accountable for their individual output or results. Managers, on the other hand, are accountable at least in part for the output of their subordinates. Managerial roles therefore are vested with the authority to formally hire subordinates and assign tasks to them. Managerial leadership in this area starts with the biopharmaceutical executive serving as a steward of the authority entrusted to him.

The ability of an executive to hire subordinates is no guarantee that the same executive is able to allow those subordinates to do the jobs he has assigned them to do. If the executive is unable to give his subordinates autonomy to perform their tasks, then he is essentially acting as an individual contributor under a manager’s title. He loses credibility and trust with his subordinates in a managerial role because his behavior is not that of a manager who ‘assigns tasks,’ but as an individual contributor who ‘shares tasks.’ Poor stewardship of managerial authority erodes subordinates’ ability to work autonomously because subordinates have to ask for permission from their executive, which interferes with the subordinates’ ability to work cohesively as a team because they have no real authority to make decisions in their own roles.

Start-up biopharmaceutical organizations are fast-changing environments with smaller numbers of management levels than in larger companies. Employees in start-up environments must ‘do more’ with less infrastructural and resource support; their assigned tasks may therefore go beyond those normally expected from the

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same roles in larger organizations. Managerial lines can blur in smaller organizations, which makes stewardship of managerial authority a challenge for executives working in this environment. When executives in small organizations manage authority well, they can give their company tremendous agility in scaling the organization according to business needs.

One of the executives in this study described his company as a small, start-up ‘discovery organization’ that had all of the functions of a large biopharmaceutical company. An executive with the necessary expertise to build a team within that function was the managerial leader for the function in the organization. This model allowed the company to scale up quickly. As the company grew, its founders scaled up its discovery and development function and grew to approximately 100 employees in its home base in Europe with 100 employees in the United States, where the company aimed to launch its first commercial therapeutic product.

Company growth was organic and looked like a scaled-down version of a large biopharmaceutical company. At the time that the company’s lead therapeutic product entered phase III clinical trials, the founders began scaling up its commercial function. As the company waited for regulatory approval of its product, it had a sales force poised and ready for product launch, complete with a fleet of company cars. When the product failed to gain regulatory approval, the company quickly scaled down. As a response to this setback and as part of its long-term business strategy, the company soon merged with another start-up company with a late-phase pipeline product. The organization was able to respond with this agility because it had executives who could quickly build and manage functional teams.

On the other hand, the organization’s merger partner was a different story. The executive in this study described the key difference in the partner start-up organization:

The company we had merged with had a President/Chief Operations Officer (COO) who did everything. All 17 people at the company reported to him directly. The chief executive presided over everything and had to approve everything. The company had capable scientists, but they were never allowed to


make a decision. A week after the merger, the chief executive was eliminated. The employees from that organization who remained with us were incredulous that they had authority to do anything at all. They kept asking us, ‘I can really do that?’

The executive believed that the difference between these two start-up companies were the founders’ philosophies on managerial roles. One company’s founders built an organization where individuals were hired for their competencies and given the authority and autonomy to do the jobs they were hired to do. The other company’s founder built an organization where individuals were hired to do ‘do his bidding’ and given no authority or autonomy to do the jobs they were hired to do. Companies frequently focus on their executives’ ability to ‘acquire talent’ but pay little attention to the executives’ ability to create an environment that allows the ‘acquired talent’ to do their jobs. Executives who do not give their subordinates the autonomy to do their jobs create an organization of disenchanted and frustrated ‘talent.’

Case illustrations of poor stewardship of managerial authority

Poor stewardship of managerial authority can come from an executive’s perception of control. He may equate yielding control with giving up power and therefore seek to retain control. If he had recently made the transition from an individual contributor role, he may be reluctant to lose control over tasks that he still views as his own accountability. Poor stewardship of managerial authority results in poor resource deployment and inefficiency in the organization. Executives who are poor stewards of managerial authority will lose subordinates whose job satisfaction rests on their ability to work autonomously. Executives who are poor stewards of managerial authority will also be less effective in tasks assigned to their managerial roles, since they spend significant time controlling subordinates’ tasks.

The following two cases illustrate poor stewardship of managerial authority:

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Bob

Bob is a highly analytical and detail-oriented person who was effective when working with individual contributors. When he was promoted to the next-level managerial role, he began to supervise managers. Bob’s new subordinates were not individual contributors and therefore could not provide Bob with the immediate answers about a project that an individual contributor to the project would. Bob’s management style had been acceptable to his subordinates at the individual contributor level, but was perceived as ‘micromanaging’ by his subordinates at the managerial level.

Bob was aware of this tendency and wanted to improve his working relationships with his subordinates, so he made an effort not to demand to know every minute detail of his subordinates’ work. This improved Bob’s working relationships with his managers. Then, as part of an organizational restructuring, Bob began reporting to Pat, the new head of the department. Pat had a reputation for being an ambitious person who has an aggressive style when dealing with people. Pat began to make it his point to show that he knew more about Bob’s job than Bob did. In senior management meetings, Pat would query Bob about minute details of every project in Bob’s department.

In response to Pat’s behavior, Bob’s tendency to micromanage resurfaced. Bob began to demand that his managers know about the minute details of every project in their department so that he could be prepared for Pat’s demand for answers. Bob would not accept his managers’ response of ‘I don’t know that answer right now, but I will get the answer to you very quickly.’ For Bob, ‘very quickly’ was not quick enough because Bob wanted immediate answers. Bob’s managers began to feel the pressure of Bob’s micromanaging behavior, and as a result one of Bob’s high-performing managers resigned from Bob’s team and left the company.


Debriefing the case illustrations

These two cases illustrate the influence of managers-once-removed (the manager’s manager) in their subordinates’ managerial

Mike

Mike was another highly analytical, detail-oriented person who first joined the company as a research scientist. Mike’s outstanding performance on three key projects and his overall communication aptitude and confidence when working with scientific and medical stakeholders in the company led to his promotion into a managerial role.

In Mike’s initial transition into a managerial role, he appeared to struggle in the areas he had excelled as an individual contributor: communication and confidence. Since becoming a manager, Mike appeared to lack confidence when making decisions and when communicating with his internal stakeholders at the company. Mike appeared stressed to both his subordinates and his supervisor, Kate. Other internal stakeholders at the company began to question Kate about Mike’s suitability for the managerial role. Mike was aware of others’ doubts about his competence, which reduced his self-confidence further.

Kate responded to internal concerns about Mike’s fitness for the position by investigating the potential cause of Mike’s transitional difficulties. Kate discovered that Mike’s strength as an individual contributor had been his eye for detail and his thoroughness in research. As a manager, Mike had to make decisions without having all the information or the level of detail he was used to when he worked as an individual contributor. Kate then gave Mike permission to make decisions without getting ‘100 percent of the information’ and let Mike know that the executive team was aware of Mike’s learning curve. As a result, Mike regained his confidence and over time began to acclimate to the demands of his managerial role.

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effectiveness. In other words, the behaviors of executives at this level can ‘make or break’ the effectiveness of their managers. Both Bob and Mike faced challenges in their transition as managers: Bob made the transition from managing individual contributors to managing managers, and Mike made the transition from an individual contributor role to managing individual contributors.

Bob was aware that his management style may have worked when he was managing individual contributors who could satisfy his requests for project details because they were directly working on projects, but his management style could not work for managers who are at least one step removed from projects. Bob’s behavior was perceived as ‘micromanaging’ by his new subordinates, and based on this feedback Bob was improving his effectiveness in his new managerial role.

When Bob began to report to Pat, it was a case of ‘a micromanager reporting to a micromanager.’ When people feel stressed or threatened, they may resort to their controlling behaviors as a coping mechanism. Bob’s stress response was to once again obsess with details. As a result, Bob lost an employee to his controlling behavior.

Mike could have suffered the same fate that Bob had suffered. Mike’s effectiveness came into question by other executives in the company. Kate admitted that in the past, the organization’s executives had been quick to fire or demote new managers who appeared to struggle in their managerial roles. Instead of making Mike another ‘statistic’ in the company’s ‘failed managerial promotions,’ Kate wanted to give Mike a chance to get through this period of transition and give him appropriate guidance.

Kate looked at Mike’s personnel file and prior psychometric assessments that were conducted as part of employee development. She found that Mike scored very high on attention to details and researching skills. Kate deduced that Mike was afraid of making a wrong decision because he no longer had the amount of time or level of detail that he had grown used to as an individual contributor. Kate did two things that made a difference in the outcome of this case: first, she gave Mike explicit permission to make a decision without having all the facts. Next, she made sure Mike knew that


other executives in the company were aware of his learning curve. In other words, Kate reassured Mike that it was not the end of the world if Mike made a mistake when acclimating to his new role.

Kate was fully aware of her role in the outcome of Mike’s case. If she had not done her own research into Mike’s background, she may not have identified this as part of Mike’s learning curve in a managerial role. Kate may then have given Mike additional pressure or stress that could have caused him to resort to his most familiar or controlling behaviors. Mike would then try to do everything himself. Instead of supporting his subordinates in doing their jobs, Mike may try to do his subordinates’ jobs so he would know all the details of their projects. The result would have been disastrous, either with Mike’s subordinates leaving him, or Mike being fired or demoted as a failed manager.

These two cases show how biopharmaceutical executives who are ‘managers-once-removed’ play a key role in the successes and failures of their subordinates. The executives’ ability to serve as good stewards of managerial authority becomes part of the corporate culture. Whether the organization’s culture ‘empowers’ its employees with the authority and autonomy they need to do their jobs or interferes with its employees’ ability to perform their tasks may be traced back to the managerial philosophies of the companies’ executives, and whether these executives are capable of preparing their subordinates for good stewardship of their managerial authority.

The biopharmaceutical executive’s stewardship of managerial authority extends beyond his own role to others’ roles within his organization, and particularly the roles of those he interacts with. This requires the executive to:

know the managerial authority for his subordinates’ roles and •for his chief executives’ roles;know the accountabilities and associated tasks or ‘deliverables’ •for his subordinates’ roles and his chief executives’ roles;know the pressures that his subordinates and chief executives •face in their roles.

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The biopharmaceutical executive’s mastery of navigating the lines of managerial authority is necessary if he is to serve as an effective ‘bridge’ between his subordinates and chief executives. The executive navigates the pressures that are faced by these two groups and manages resources to best meet the needs of both. He aims to satisfy the demands of his chief executives and, in turn, gain their support in the form of resources he needs to support his subordinates’ output and long-term productivity. The ability of executives to be effective managerial liaisons is especially critical for those who manage outcomes requiring very long timeframes or outcomes that have intangible value.

One example is an executive who manages an organization’s early R&D department. Because of the long-term nature of the biopharmaceutical business cycle and the uncertainties that accompany innovation-driven activities, early R&D requires significant investment in resources despite the tenuous return on investment (ROI). The company’s R&D expenses are enormous and the company’s chief executives are expected to create a viable return on investment. The combined pressures of R&D expenditure and delivering ROI may cause the company’s chief executives to grow impatient regarding the rates of return that are generated for their investment in the early R&D function.

In addition, many of today’s biopharmaceutical chief executives come from a commercial and marketing background. These CEOs are used to instant decisions and fast turn-around times, and they may impose a transactional mindset when running a biopharmaceutical company. One executive in this study has seen this trend of short-term thinking percolate through the upper echelons of the biopharmaceutical organization, and believes that this creates an environment that is counterproductive to the creativity needed for biopharmaceutical innovation. One symptom that this executive has seen from chief executives’ short-term thinking is the imposition of metrics that may be relevant in today’s world onto early R&D activities that aim to deliver products to a world ‘20 years hence.’

The executive has seen how these metrics have severely hindered the creativity of scientists who are under pressure to ‘innovate on demand.’ He believes that in order for biopharmaceutical executives


to protect the early R&D environment, they must communicate effectively with their chief executives and speak directly to the business pressures that their CEOs face. Executives must be prepared to deliver outcomes that are meaningful to their CEOs, including outcomes that may be more short term. They must be prepared to answer their CEOs’ questions about their companies’ product portfolio status, such as: ‘What compounds do we have in development? What products do we have in phase I, II, or III development? What is the status of our clinical study program for each product?’ The executive admits that he may not always be successful in protecting early R&D environments from short-term thinking and the impatience of the market, but being able to directly address the CEO’s concerns has been key in cases where he had been successful.

Another symptom of short-term thinking is when company executives become too reliant on commercial projections that are relevant in today’s market but unreliable predictors of the future. An executive in this study was a witness to this over-reliance on commercial projection in his organization. This executive was in charge of the company’s discovery function and had seen the deleterious effects of an operational mindset that is centered on a quarterly basis. To work within a quarter-to-quarter business cycle, the company’s executives relied heavily on market research and market projections. The executive remembered giving a presentation about a novel therapeutic product to the company’s corporate board of directors. When the therapeutic product was originally developed, its peak annual sales potential was predicted to be US$20m:

By the time I presented it to the board of directors, the peak sales were projected to be $1.6bn. So I said to the board that this was the standard 800-fold error in market research.

In response to the executive’s comment about the projection error, the CEO said that market research is ‘hardly ever that accurate.’ This made the executive question the value of market research in early phase R&D and even in clinical development. The executive believes that accurate data about the effects of a drug can be gained

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only from actual usage by a large number of patients – not from market research assumptions used primarily for financial projections. From this experience, the executive urged his R&D colleagues to ‘ignore all market research projections’ when prioritizing scientific and clinical program objectives.

At the other end of the spectrum of managerial authority and accountabilities is the role of subordinates and the results they are accountable for. For an executive to be an effective managerial leader, he must know the pressures that his subordinates face in their roles, and help subordinates understand each others’ (colleagues’) roles and accountabilities. This fosters team cohesiveness, prevents team members from duplicate efforts, and makes clear how each team member is contributing to the team objectives. One executive in this study has found formal team-building events useful in delineating the roles and accountabilities of members of the team. He described a particularly effective session with his team:

After we discussed the business, we then talked about (a) what I do, (b) what you do, and (c) what we do together. We wrote each of these in different boxes on the whiteboard in the room, so we could all see. This was a very important discussion for us to have. This tells my team that they have enormous scope to do what they do, and they do their jobs better than me. Then I explained what I wanted to hear from them, and that it was fine to have questions, but I also expected them to come with options and solutions when they did have questions. Finally, I explained what I do and my areas of decision-making.

The executive found the session especially critical when defining the boundaries of authority associated with each role and the accountabilities associated with each role. This knowledge freed subordinates from uncertainty and confusion, and during a time of organizational turmoil (the company was restructuring at the time), this knowledge gave subordinates a sense of stability to move forward as a member of a new functional team. Having clarity in one’s role and accountability, understanding the role and


accountability of one’s colleagues and supervisors, and knowing the rules of engagement that would guide one’s interactions with one’s supervisors can be a source of empowerment for people.

Authority to give people objectives (assign a direction)

Part of a biopharmaceutical executive’s managerial authority is to give subordinates objectives that they must achieve and make sure subordinates stay on course by providing the resources and the work environment they need to achieve those objectives.

Before the executive can set the course of action for his subordinates, he needs to make sure that the objectives are attainable. Additionally, the executive must be able to scale the objectives to be relevant for his subordinates and have the ability to communicate these objectives in a language that his subordinates can understand. If the executive’s subordinates are managers who are responsible for further transmitting these objectives to their own subordinates, the executive needs to ensure that his managers are capable of scaling their objectives and making them relevant and understandable to their subordinates. In other words, at each layer of management, the overall corporate objectives will be scaled according to the roles of the personnel responsible for delivering on a specific part of an objective.

Executives at each managerial level ensure the alignment of their teams’ contribution with the overall corporate objectives that are set by the company’s chief executives. An executive’s ability to clearly communicate the company’s objectives and scale the level of detail appropriately to his function is critical for getting the results that would contribute toward attainment of the objectives. Even a slight deviation in the interpretation or scaling of corporate objectives could begin a rapid unraveling of effective action across a functional team and have an effect on the attainment of objectives at the organizational level.

This study identified seven elements in the biopharmaceutical executive’s effectiveness in assigning objectives to subordinates and teams:

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Executive creates clarity in the objectives he assigns.1. Executive addresses subordinates’ skepticism or concerns about 2. the objectives.Executive manages information disclosure to ensure transparency 3. while preserving confidentiality.Executive evaluates progress towards achievement of objectives.4. Executive creates infrastructure to support achievement of 5. objectives.Executive enforces policies in appropriate conduct.6. Executive fosters a productive work environment.7.

Creating clarity in objectives

The biopharmaceutical executive may create clarity by first explaining the broad context of the chief executive’s vision and the key objectives that must be achieved to realize this vision. Then the executive must ‘scale’ or translate these key objectives into functional objectives that are relevant to the business units he manages. The executive ensures that his managers are capable of further scaling their functional objectives into specific tasks that may be assigned to subordinates. Managers would then establish accountabilities associated with these tasks and communicate them to their subordinates. Executives and their managers may set the direction or a course of action without prescribing specific actions and allow the functional team to formulate the tactics for tasks that support the achievement of objectives.

The executives may invite their managers to a discussion about the objectives or strategy and corporate direction. This discussion allows executives to evaluate how well their managers understand the objectives and whether they are equipped to translate these objectives in a way that is relevant to their functional teams. Part of managerial authority in setting objectives is to connect the results of individual contributors to the broader vision, so that subordinates can see the relevance of their work. Since biopharmaceutical employees work on large-scale projects with extended timelines, they may remain motivated when they can see how their work contributes to the


attainment of broader corporate objectives in their organization. This connection supports employees’ personal ideals as contributors to their organization and to healthcare, and is one way that executives can motivate their teams.

When the managers take functional objectives to their subordinates, they may want to invite subordinates to a discussion about the objectives and to ask questions, for the same purpose of evaluating subordinates’ grasp of the objectives they are accountable for achieving. Unless the managers have unique insight into a particular tactic or approach that best supports the achievement of objectives, managers may prefer their subordinates to collectively work toward the formulation of the tactics and approach they will take, so that subordinates have a sense of ownership in these objectives. One of the executives in this study routinely invites his subordinates to discuss the objectives they are given. The executive has found the discussions especially useful for getting a diverse perspective on an issue and for gaining insight that he otherwise could not gain on his own.

Addressing skepticism and concerns

There may be cases when subordinates may be skeptical of the objectives. This skepticism may stem from a belief that the objectives may be antithetical to the company’s competitive advantage or survival, for example if there is a perception that an objective is unattainable, or if there is a perception that to attain the objective would elicit behaviors from employees that are illegal, unethical, or harmful to the company’s reputation. This requires the executive to be diplomatic when addressing these concerns both with his chief executives and with his managers. One of the executives in this study said that ultimately there is no substitute for being open and honest about these concerns:

One way is to reach out to one’s supervisor and say, ‘I don’t understand this and I am not getting the picture. And if I don’t understand it, there is no way that the people reporting to me are going to understand this, and there is no way that they can act on it or reach these goals.’

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The executive suggested that a helpful approach to this situation might be to have a group discussion and involve the managers and key stakeholders who created the objectives. The executive would collect questions and concerns from his managers before the meeting and present these to the group. This would prevent any one individual from being ‘singled out’ and focus the discussion on the issues presented. The executive admits that even with the safeguard of anonymity, managers or subordinates who may not understand their objectives may still be reluctant to ask questions because they do not want to give the impression that their knowledge is lacking or that they are incompetent:

There is sometimes an expectation in the biopharmaceutical industry that its executives must always be analytical and strategic. Some managers may believe that asking questions may bring to their executives’ attention that they are lacking in some way. But for managers to survive and assume leadership roles, they must be willing to assess themselves honestly, and accept that no one person could possess the complete inventory of leadership attributes.

There may be cases where the executive has made his best effort to dissuade his supervisor or his peers from a particular course of action for which the executive has genuine concerns. If the executive finds that the executive team still wishes to pursue the objective, the executive may be facing a value judgment that is based in part on his managerial authority and in part on his personal values. The executive who faces this dilemma may choose to ‘go along’ with his peers and supervisors or to continue discussion until the concern is resolved. One of the executives in this study experienced this very dilemma, when he learned of the company’s decision to insert an investigational compound into human subjects and the executive had serious concerns about the safety of doing so. The executive chose not to go along with his peers and supervisors in their decision to proceed, and cited his managerial authority to support his position against the objective (see the section on ‘Authority to serve industry and company’ below).


Managing disclosure of information

Transparency is important in garnering subordinates’ trust, but there are instances when the executive is not allowed to reveal sensitive information around an objective. The executive must balance transparency with confidentiality and communicate in a way that will satisfy the employees’ questions and answer their concerns without revealing what is perceived to be confidential information. What executives may find is that subordinates are not necessarily interested in the specifics of the information that may pertain to the confidentiality or sensitivity of that information. Rather, subordinates may accept knowing only generalities that speak to the company’s stability and specifically the subordinates’ job security within their organization.

Biopharmaceutical executives strike a fine balance between disclosing information that can satisfy questions from their subordinates and safeguarding confidential or sensitive information that must be withheld at that particular time. This need to safeguard sensitive information is different from withholding information for other reasons. One of the executives in this study has seen his peers withhold information for different reasons: they may not have created a level of trust with subordinates that would have allowed them to share this level of information. Some executives may withhold information as a control mechanism and a way to safeguard their power. Some may not feel comfortable communicating information in a way that distills the essence of the communication without disclosing sensitive details. Some executives may avoid disclosure that can potentially lead to difficult conversations or manage the aftermath of an announcement (for example, subordinates’ reaction to news that the company is reorganizing).

The executive in this study has also seen some peers withhold information as a way of preventing rumors from spreading among subordinates, but said:

… A vacuum is filled with gossip so you may do better by sharing information. By eliminating guesses and gossip about what is happening with the company, executives can help their

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people channel their energies to remaining productive, as opposed to engaging in rumors and gossip that ruins the work environment.

This executive believes that it is important for his peers to cultivate a ‘trusted inner circle’ of employees with whom they can share important information. The executive has this level of trust with a group of his managers, and he has been able to transmit the essence of the information while safeguarding confidentiality or personal identities. The executive would keep his subordinates informed through timely communication and his subordinates have in turn continued to earn his trust by being responsible with disclosure and continuing to perform well during organizational turmoil.

Evaluating progress toward achieving objectives

Once the biopharmaceutical executive has set the objectives for his subordinates, he must have a way of gauging the progress of milestones relating to each objective. If milestones are not being achieved or interim results are not meeting expectations, then the executive’s task is to identify the underlying causes of delays and aberrations. For example, is the delay or aberration due to:

miscalculation of action plans? •misunderstanding of objectives? •poor deployment of resources required to complete the tasks? •lack of competencies in team members accountable for the •tasks?

Subordinates may have understood the objectives and have the right action plans in place but may lack the resources or competencies needed to achieve the objectives within the specified period. The executive must therefore create the necessary infrastructure to support his subordinates’ ability to achieve the objectives.


Creating infrastructure to support achievement of objectives

The biopharmaceutical executive must ensure that subordinates can perform their roles consistently and appropriately by providing the necessary infrastructure. Infrastructure can be physical resources (equipment, work tools, workspace), skills training and continuing education, procedures and policies regarding conduct, and the physical addition of human resources (hiring) if needed. The immediate need for infrastructure often relates to accessibility to equipment or availability of materials. For example, researchers in a company’s discovery function need the necessary equipment and workspace required to conduct experiments and tasks to progress toward their objectives. Without the minimum equipment, technology, and tools subordinates need to do their jobs, they would be set up to fail.

The biopharmaceutical business requires significant intangible infrastructure that relates to the generation and preservation of the company’s intellectual property and to safeguarding the company against foreseeable liabilities. Procedural infrastructure relating to asset-/wealth-generation and procedural infrastructure relating to personnel conduct are critical to the company’s ability to do business according to the regulations of the country in which it operates. Procedural requirements that relate to the companies’ knowledge work may include:

guidance for regulatory filings for clinical development; •processes in data submissions for marketing approval; •quality control and assurance in manufacturing standards; •codes of conduct or rules relating to legal and ethical boundaries •around sales and marketing activities;documentation, processing, and storage of data generated from •knowledge work;protection of proprietary information generated from knowledge •work.

An executive in this study described the importance of having procedural infrastructure in the US, where biopharmaceutical organizations have come under intense scrutiny by regulatory bodies

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for conduct relating to promotional and reimbursement practices. He had joined a company that was operating under a legal consent decree for allegations of fraud, and found that the company’s employees were still working without operating procedures. This lack of governance over ‘at-risk’ activities caused the executive some concern. The executive was reporting to a senior-level executive who focused heavily on strategy but ignored infrastructural gaps that could incur further liabilities for a company already penalized by the government.

The executive therefore prioritized the creation of procedural infrastructure that guided high-risk activities such as promotional and reimbursement practices. The executive also met with other functional colleagues to formulate procedures that could guide subordinates’ interactions. Finally, the executive installed proper documentation and record-keeping processes so that the company would have the necessary ‘paper-trail’ to demonstrate its compliance with regulatory standards and company policies.

As company size increases, procedural and management infrastructure can cross a threshold from improving efficiency to reducing efficiency. Executives walk a fine line between creating policies and procedures that are not so restrictive as to ‘bind employees’ hands’ but not so vague as to be confusing or allow individual interpretations of the same procedure. Balancing documentation requirements against burdening subordinates with excessive need for documentation and multiple management layers of signatures is an example of the fine line that executives walk.

Infrastructure can also become a part of functional silos. An example is when different groups within the same organization use different platforms for storing or communicating information. Each group may have limited or no access to the other’s data and sometimes groups are unaware of the type of information other functions need. This is one of the factors behind organizational inefficiency when it comes to creating insight that can influence its competitive advantage in the marketplace. The answers to one group’s questions may exist in another group’s database but remain invisible beyond the group. Just as executives withhold information to hold onto their power in having that information, organizational silos may guard information within the group to preserve power for


the group. However, this occurs at the expense of the company’s bottom line and long-term competitive advantage.

One of the executives in this study saw the effect of functional silos on the company’s operational competitiveness. The executive spent years lobbying his organization to standardize data handling as a way to expedite the time needed to bring the company’s drugs to market. He had seen an enormous amount of resources wasted due to lack of standards, including hundreds of millions of dollars spent in manpower as a result of the duplication of effort or because of preventable delays in clinical development. Said the executive:

The gold mines in biopharmaceutical companies are their data – whether it is pre-clinical or human research data. The only way that you can get data into a format that becomes accessible is by standardizing the way you enter it into the company’s database and in a way that allows the company’s informatics to evaluate the data. Yet within the same company, everybody wants to do things a little differently. For example, when one person says the color ‘blue’ and actually means a certain color of ‘blue,’ another person may hear it and think of yet a different color of ‘blue.’ This lack of standards wastes millions of dollars.

Functional silos can also reduce the effectiveness of employee training infrastructure: this is especially true for training infrastructure that aims to prepare employees working in functional teams that may need to interact with each other. The more likely that multi-functional or ‘cross-functional’ interactions will occur, the more detrimental functional silos are, because one group is not informed of the rules of engagement that is acceptable or defined as ‘appropriate’ by another group. In the case of individual contributors from different functions who may frequently have to interact, training requirements that relate to the rules of engagement between functions and company policies that define the boundaries of functional interactions must be transparent and accessible to all pertinent functions.

One example is the boundaries of interaction between an individual contributor from a field sales function and an individual contributor from a field medical science function. Since both

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contributors are field-based and may interact with the same group of healthcare constituents, policies defining the boundaries of cross-functional interaction with healthcare constituents are important for differentiating the objectives of each functional role relevant to the healthcare constituents. Field sales teams will have a promotional objective, while field medical science teams will have a non-promotional objective. Company policies that describe the rules of engagement between field sales personnel and field medical science personnel when both are in front of a healthcare constituent (such as a physician) are critical for separating functional objectives if there are legal reasons for separating them. A common legal reason for separating functional objectives relates to the communication of off-label or off-licence information between the company and healthcare constituents.

Infrastructure can create competitive advantage for the organization when it improves employee performance and supports their achievement of objectives. Infrastructure should serve the organization and improve the integration of multiple information inputs within the company’s functional domains. Infrastructure becomes a hindrance rather than an asset to subordinates’ ability to achieve objectives when policies become too narrow in scope or so broad that confusion arises. Procedural infrastructure can improve performance when it provides the rules of engagement for its employees to work and collaborate effectively. Procedural infrastructure can even contribute to a biopharmaceutical company’s competitive advantage when it improves the company’s reputation as an ethical participant in the healthcare market. Whether infrastructure relates to data accessibility and standardization or policies and procedures for appropriate employee conduct, executives must ensure that their organization’s infrastructure remains an asset and does not become a burden to their subordinates.

Establishing and enforcing policies

In the biopharmaceutical industry, procedural infrastructure such as standard operating procedures (SOP) or practice guidelines are


created to require employee adherence to company standards of conduct and help protect the company from a legal and regulatory perspective. However, establishing policies and procedures without enforcing them would not confer any protection, especially when there appears to be an unwritten and conflicting standard in contrast to the company’s official, written policies.

As an example, if the company’s commercial function has a track record of sales or marketing practices that are inconsistent with what the company has established as acceptable promotional behavior, these ‘creative liberties’ with or blatant challenges to the company procedures (sometimes described by the expression ‘pushing the envelope’) can threaten the company’s reputation and overall market leadership. When policy violations are detected, the biopharmaceutical executive must uncover the underlying sources of violation to act in a way that enforces policies and deters future violations by his subordinates.

If violations have occurred as part of subordinates’ response to routine pressure from aggressive sales objectives based on ‘market projections,’ the executive must consider the effects of these objectives and both the positive and negative results from his subordinates meeting those objectives. Therefore he is weighing the short-term positive effect of achieving aggressive sales objectives that can cause subordinates to violate acceptable conduct against the negative effects of punitive actions against the company, the long-term financial impact and market positioning, losses in intangible factors like goodwill and corporate reputation, and the effect on employee trust and loyalty. If violations have occurred because of a lack of understanding how policies apply to employees’ daily activities, then training and continual education can remedy the situation and prevent future violations. If violations have occurred because the policies are not enforced, then enforcement itself is the issue. Enforcement actions that appear inconsequential when compared with corporate or personal gains that result from policy violations give employees the message that enforcement is mainly symbolic.

Subordinates are observing what results are ‘actually desired’ by their executives by the behaviors of the latter as opposed to what

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executives state are acceptable ways of achieving objectives. When executives create a work environment where policy violations are addressed visibly and swiftly, subordinates will take seriously what their company policies define as acceptable ways of achieving objectives. On the other hand, if executives create a work environment where they appear to tacitly embrace achieving objectives ‘by any means,’ subordinates will ignore what their company policies define as acceptable conduct and adhere to what is rewarded and punished by their executives.

Ultimately, procedural infrastructure acts as a deterrent against unethical behavior but cannot ‘legislate’ ethical behavior itself. What biopharmaceutical executives can rely on to encourage ethical behavior from their subordinates is their own ethical behavior to serve as an example for subordinates and peers.

Fostering a productive work environment

The biopharmaceutical industry depends on innovation. Biopharmaceutical organizations depend on their diverse functions to innovate and bring innovation to market. Creating a ‘productive’ work environment that supports innovation and commercialization is more important to the biopharmaceutical executive’s managerial role during times of industry consolidation. Mergers and acquisitions have become more common, which makes subordinates fearful of their job security within their organization. A broader concern resulting from industry consolidation is the potential increase in homogenization of ideas and approach to innovation as companies merge.

In any industry, change is inevitable, but a sense of stability is readily conferred by biopharmaceutical executives who are trusted by their subordinates to be there with them to weather business storms. It does not mean that executives are expected to control all circumstances, but that they may be trusted to make the best of any circumstance and to keep their subordinates informed. One of the executives in this study emphasized the importance of being temperamentally consistent given the complexity of the biopharmaceutical business:


Good leaders should not be constantly nervous, and people should not be surprised by how their leaders would react in situations. You want to be calm, determined, and always approachable.

This executive believes that the long-term nature of the biopharmaceutical business requires its executives to behave consistently, to be open to challenges and questions, and to provide stability to subordinates who will follow their executives on a long and creative journey. The executive said that the industry is staffed by many highly intelligent individuals who need to be in an environment where they are creatively challenged yet, at the same time, have the stability to remain productive in the long term.

A productive work environment can have structural characteristics. Some executives have created an ‘open space’ concept where walls are removed from laboratories to encourage research scientists to communicate and collaborate more readily. However, removing walls in laboratories does not automatically lead to removing barriers to communication and collaboration. Executives must model the behaviors they desire to see from subordinates toward fostering a productive work environment, and remove barriers to fostering such an environment.

Equally important for biopharmaceutical executives in fostering a productive work environment is their ability to detect symptoms of an unproductive environment so that they may address the problems before symptoms worsen. This requires executives to know how to assess changes in attitudes and behaviors from subordinates. Are people no longer speaking up at meetings? Has the level of engagement abated between subordinates and their executives? Have the number of questions asked at meetings decreased because people are afraid to ask them? Are subordinates increasingly isolating themselves from their executives or from each other? Are subordinates no longer as collaborative as before, or have they become more competitive than before? Is the competition ‘healthy’ and pushing each team member to deliver better performance? Has competitive behavior become unhealthy and created hoarding or sabotaging behaviors among team members?

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Signs of an unhealthy work environment may originate within executive ranks. The behavior of subordinates may be a reflection of that of the executives in the organization. If executives engage in ‘turf wars’ and exhibit territorial behavior aimed at increasing their own power and influence over their chief executives and peers, subordinates who observe and emulate this behavior will engage in the same activities. Subordinates may interpret this behavior as necessary to succeed in their organization. One executive in this study described the effects of an unhealthy work environment:

Sometimes people actually sabotage projects – even their own projects! I don’t understand how people can do this, but I know they do because I have seen it happen.

An unproductive work environment removes attention and effort from tasks oriented to achieving corporate objectives. Instead, people redirect their focus and attention to these ‘power plays’ in the organization. If left unchecked, an unproductive work environment becomes toxic to innovation, and is the true poison pill to a biopharmaceutical organization.

Authority to serve industry and company

A biopharmaceutical executive’s managerial authority requires him to be a faithful steward of the power his organization gives him. This stewardship applies in a broader context in serving the biopharmaceutical industry. This means executives are guided by personal integrity and a strong sense of ethics when making decisions that have an effect not only on their own organization but also on the biopharmaceutical industry as a whole. This can be a difficult task when executives are confronted by multiple sources of pressure to deliver results in terms of innovation, finance, and human resources. Biopharmaceutical executives as subject-matter experts can exert tremendous influence over their organization’s decisions. This influence may informally expand the executive’s managerial


authority so that, while he may not actually be the key decision-maker, he can change the mind of the person who is.

Biopharmaceutical executives may on occasion find themselves in the difficult situation of going against the majority vote around a decision. One of the executives in this study found himself in a situation where he disagreed with a decision supported by his peers and supervisor. The executive’s managerial authority included the supervision of the company’s clinical program. The executive therefore deemed himself personally accountable for the outcomes of all clinical research involving human subjects or volunteers who were administered the company’s drugs under investigation. The executive found himself in a meeting where his peers and supervisors supported administering an investigational compound to a human being. Although the executive was not directly tasked with administering the drug, he saw himself as ultimately accountable for the safety of any human subject that received the company’s products. The executive had a serious concern with the toxicity of the drug, and disagreed with the decision to administer it to human beings at that stage of development. The executive remembered this:

Although I wasn’t the person doing it, I felt such a strong responsibility for speaking up, that this was the wrong thing to do, and it should not be done. I took a very strong stance on this. It became an emotional debate because this occurred at the end of the year when goals were being set and milestones were being met, and people’s bonuses were on the line.

After the meeting, the executive was reprimanded by his supervisor and believed he was going to be fired for vocally opposing the decision. However, the executive also believed he had the duty to declare his concerns based on his medical judgment and in adherence with his sense of integrity and the accountability of his position. The executive kept his job and his supervisor proceeded with the decision to dose human subjects with the investigational drug. Consequently, the toxicity concerns raised by the executive emerged in animal studies and all the monkeys in the study died from toxicity. Drug

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administration was then terminated in studies involving human subjects, but the company was required to follow each human subject who received the investigational drug for a period of three years. The executive said that he felt bad for what had happened with the animal trials, but he also felt vindicated in his strong opposition to the decision. He was relieved that the toxicities proved fatal only in animals and not in humans. After this incident, the executive saw that his supervisor and peers were more willing to listen to his opinions and heed his recommendations more seriously than they had before. He also credited this incident as a demonstration of his integrity as a biopharmaceutical professional and the reason why he was able to benefit from ‘doing the right thing’:

… It helped me to get this position of chief medical officer of the company I am with right now. The person whose laboratory this compound came from, and against whom I stood in taking this drug to humans, he actually was the one who recommended me to the position. This was 15 years later, since that incident! He knew that my opinions were not about him or his lab, but rather, it was about the effect of a chemical on a human being.

When a subject-matter expert such as a scientist or a physician enters the biopharmaceutical industry, he may find that his expertise helps him establish credibility with his subordinates and peers. He may also accumulate influence over decision-makers in his organization. Because of this, the executive may find himself crossing (maybe occasionally violating) authority boundaries with relative ease, whether it is to stand for a position that he believes to be in the best interest of the company, or for a way of conducting the business that is conducive to the long and arduous nature of developing biopharmaceutical therapeutics. Yet herein lies potential landmines for a biopharmaceutical executive grounded in his subject-matter expertise: he may be perceived to focus only on the outcome from a singular perspective, regardless of the feasibility of supporting that outcome by his organization.

If a biopharmaceutical executive believes that the company should continue to support a project that has a poor cost-benefit ratio but


serves an unmet need from patients, he must present a compelling case to continue deploying resources, and that case may include both short-term and long-term gains that are not immediately realized. However, if the case is argued only from the singular standpoint of ‘helping patients,’ the executive may be viewed as not grasping the complexity of sustaining a biopharmaceutical organization, however noble his singular standpoint may be. This is not a call to sacrifice or betray one’s medical and scientific expertise to business. On the contrary, managerial leadership from those at the helm of a highly regulated business calls for men and women who can grasp the complexity of the biopharmaceutical industry. These biopharmaceutical executives must view all the factors contributing to the dynamics of the biopharmaceutical industry, and make decisions that simultaneously address the scientific, business, regulatory, and socioeconomic considerations of the therapeutic area.

Conclusion

One of the executives in this study believes that today’s healthcare environment has become so complex that it requires ‘renaissance men and women’ at managerial positions to lead their organizations in today’s biopharmaceutical industry. These executives must balance both scientific and business priorities when managing their companies so that their organizations can be successful, both as commercial entities and in fulfilling an important role in healthcare.

Chapter summary

The biopharmaceutical executive serves as a steward of managerial authority that allows him to assign tasks and accountabilities to subordinates, and give objectives that subordinates must achieve, as well as preserve the sanctity of his managerial role in the organization and as a professional in the biopharmaceutical industry. The

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executive must have a good command of authority boundaries for his subordinates and supervisors or chief executives as well as the accountabilities and pressures both groups face in their roles. This allows the executive to scale his communication of objectives so that objectives are relevant to his audience.

When the executive assigns objectives to subordinates, he must also support his subordinates’ ability to achieve those objectives. The executive accomplishes this by making clear the objectives he is assigning, addressing concerns from subordinates around the objectives they are accountable to achieve, managing the disclosure of information to help his subordinates understand their objectives while preserving the confidentiality of information, evaluating the progress of the objectives, creating an infrastructure that subordinates may need to do their jobs, enforcing policies or procedures for appropriate conduct in achieving the objectives, and fostering a productive work environment.

The executive’s stewardship of his managerial authority extends to his service as a professional in the biopharmaceutical industry. The biopharmaceutical executive must balance the business, scientific, and healthcare priorities in his decisions, and at all times serve as an example of integrity and ethical conduct.




What is the comprehensive range of competencies or capacities •you feel is essential to your role as a biopharmaceutical executive?What is the comprehensive range of competencies or capacities •you feel is essential to your subordinates in their roles?


What are the key competencies or capacities that are driving •your supervisors’ roles?Identify a case in your company where you perceive an •executive to be displaying exemplary behaviors consistent with his role (or rank) at the company. What are the competencies you observe that contribute to your perception?


Do your subordinates have a clear understanding of your •role and the accountabilities of your role that may be pertinent to them?Do your subordinates have a clear understanding of their •roles and all the accountabilities of their roles? Do they know how their accountabilities relate to your role and its accountabilities?Do you have a clear understanding of your supervisors’ roles •and accountabilities?Do you have a clear understanding of your peer stakeholders’ •roles and their accountabilities?How have you given your subordinates the autonomy needed •to fulfill their accountabilities?For each of the above questions, on what basis are you •providing your answers? (For example, by reading job descriptions and cross-referencing with your observations, by guessing, by speaking directly with individuals.)

III: Trust

How do you convey to your subordinates that their roles are •important to the organization?Do you have a process through which subordinates can •request your help or intervention for a particular problem? If you have a process, do your subordinates know about it?

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What factors may be contributing to the culmination of your •personally earned authority? How do you know that you have personally earned authority?What formal or informal activities have you set up for your •team to create trust that is grounded in the clarity of authority/accountability?


Do you have a decision-making process that allows you to •balance the timeliness of execution with the timeliness of gaining information needed to make decisions?How do you manage tension that may arise from conflicting •opinions or approaches from peer stakeholders or from supervisors aimed at achieving corporate objectives?How do you know when to intervene and when to remain •an observer in a situation where you may have authority? What about in a situation where you may not have authority vested by your role, but may have personally earned authority or influence?


How do you prioritize problem-solving as part of your role, •and on what basis are you prioritizing?What are the key short- and long-term objectives that are •directly attributed to your role, and how do these tie into the overall corporate objectives?What infrastructural gaps may currently exist at your •company for which your role may be directly or indirectly accountable? What do your subordinates need to do their jobs well – what equipment, training, technology, or knowledge? What procedures and policies are in place that guide subordinates’ conduct and actions?


What indicators have you identified that could alert you to a •need to modify existing infrastructure to train subordinates on how to best utilize the existing infrastructure?What indicators have you identified that could alert you to a •resistance to the existing infrastructure?

VI: Communication

What is the message that you may be communicating about •the importance of following the company’s procedural infrastructure (policies and procedures) relating to ethics and legal guidelines in employee conduct? In other words, based on subordinates’ behaviors, are these congruent with your expectations of your subordinates, and are these behaviors what you intended or did not intend? If these behaviors are not what you intended, how will you adjust your approach to get desired behaviors?What is your process for enforcing adherence to policies and •procedures?What indicators have you identified that could alert you to a •need to modify certain policies and procedures? What indicators have you identified that could alert you to a need to educate employees about the application of policies and procedures relevant to their daily conduct?


In your current role, what employee development activities •are you explicitly responsible for (as part of your job description)? What are your specific accountabilities for each activity? For example, if your role requires you to mentor and coach new subordinates, what are some of the milestones in your mentoring and coaching activity?

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What internal and external training or professional •development activities are you expected to participate in – or contribute to – as part of your role?What infrastructure exists to enable employee growth/ •cultivation – and what gaps have you identified? How will you address these gaps?In the case of Bob’s breakdown of managerial effectiveness •and the role that Pat’s behavior played in this situation, how would you manage the situation if you were Pat’s supervisor? What are indicators that the situation is improving? How would you ensure that the situation is not repeated in the future?

5


development

Abstract. The biopharmaceutical executive honors his commitment to consistently develop his subordinates and himself as a managerial leader. He recognizes that development is an important part of his managerial leadership and is an active partner in his subordinates’ growth within the organization. He believes that people can grow, and uses a combination of modalities to meet his subordinates’ developmental needs. The executive is consistent and predictable in his approach so subordinates know what to expect from him. He ensures the successful transition of new managers by facilitating the development of awareness they need in their managerial roles. The executive continually develops his own awareness as a managerial leader.

Keywords: current capability, future capability, performance, potential, stretch goals, education, professional development, mentoring, coaching, team building, assessments or psychometric tests, first-line manager, individual contributor, medical science liaisons, self-awareness, assumptions, blindspots

Introduction

The biopharmaceutical executive honors his commitment to consistently develop current role-based capabilities in himself and


his subordinates, and build future capabilities in himself and his subordinates. A biopharmaceutical executive’s current capability is predictive of his performance in the specific tasks that he has been hired to do in his current position. His future capability is indicative of his potential to develop the level of cognitive complexity that allows him to make the transition into managerial roles demanding that level of cognitive complexity. Many of the executives in this study are currently working at the capacity that Elliott Jaques described as ‘corporate strategic levels’ (Jaques and Clement, 1994). These are the levels of cognitive complexity that are required for presidents of strategic units, corporate executive vice presidents, and CEOs operating in a multinational market. Such executives are responsible for developing their subordinates’ (first-line managers’) capabilities as well as developing their own capabilities for the next-level role on their career paths.

Development, as defined in this study, means the executive:

recognizes that development and growth are important in his •managerial role;formulates growth plans with subordinates and follows through •on growth plans;continuously develops his own capabilities in managerial •leadership.

Biopharmaceutical executives are more willing to invest resources (time, energy, and money) in developing their employees’ capabilities when this activity is a stated requirement of their managerial role, and when specific accountabilities are linked to this requirement. However, executives are more likely to remain committed to developing their employees if they enjoy helping people grow and if they believe that developing people is integral to their managerial leadership.

We cannot assume that biopharmaceutical executives ‘know’ how to develop people. Executives in this study who received graduate and medical education had gained their ‘people development’ skills through their work experiences and by participating in professional development programs. Most scientists begin their careers in an

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individual contributor role within a research laboratory, where they receive their training under the financial sponsorship of a principal scientist (principal investigator or PI). As in a biopharmaceutical organization, there may be a ‘vision’ for the research laboratory that is set by the principal scientist, and with that vision a set of objectives that support it. The principal scientist assumes managerial duties: he may manage laboratory resources and monitor the progress of his individual contributors who might include post-doctoral scientists, graduate students, and research assistants or technicians.

On the other hand, unlike in biopharmaceutical organizations, personnel development in a research laboratory takes the form of ad hoc mentoring between the principal scientist and his individual contributors. While personnel development is expected of every biopharmaceutical executive with managerial responsibilities, many of these executives stated that graduate school and medical school did not prepare them for ‘managing and developing people.’ In fact, some of the approaches toward personnel development by biopharmaceutical executives who modeled their behaviors after their graduate or medical school professors are undesirable and counterproductive in a biopharmaceutical corporate environment (see Chapter 3, section on ‘Motivating and energizing employees: modeling desirable behaviors’).

Prerequisites in personnel development

Personnel development requires the biopharmaceutical executive not only to be familiar with the process used in developing capabilities (for example, assessments, coaching techniques, and mentoring skills), but also to be familiar with the different functional domains that exist within his organization and the competencies these functions require. If the executive has a subordinate whose career interests take him outside the scope of his own function, the executive should be knowledgeable about other functional domains within the organization and be able to provide guidance for the subordinate’s development.


If the biopharmaceutical executive wants to be effective in developing his people, he must act on his beliefs that:

people have the ability to grow within and beyond their current •roles;he is an important partner – not a bystander – in his people’s •development;he must continually assess the progress of his people’s development •to ensure that growth is occurring as intended.

Biopharmaceutical executives may believe in the above statements about growing people, but beliefs and words without actions are empty promises. One of the executives in this study worked with a CEO who made many statements about employee empowerment and the importance of developing the company’s employees, but:

The CEO meant none of his words, and in fact his approach to growing people was to target their weaknesses. The CEO would say to everybody that he needed to manage their weaknesses.

The result was that the chief executive appeared to constantly doubt his subordinates’ competence and capabilities. He kept looking for his subordinates’ weaknesses, left his employees no room to make mistakes, and therefore allowed no room for growth and career development within his organization.

Another executive in this study described working with a supervisor who made quite an impression on the first day of meeting his subordinates:

This person drew a chart on a whiteboard and said to us, ‘People reach their potential, and then they can’t go any farther.’ When I heard this, I knew the job was not going to go well.

The result was that employees who reported to the supervisor became frustrated with the prospects of their development with the company, and resented how the supervisor focused on their limitations. Whatever tools or assessments the employees received

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served to bolster their suspicions that these were being used to find their limitations and cap their growth.

If the biopharmaceutical executive believes that people have the ability to grow within their current role and, when ready, grow beyond their current role, he must act and become a participant and partner in his people’s growth. He does this by collaborating with his subordinates on their development plans, using available resources in their development, seizing growth opportunities for them within the organization, and facilitating transitions that may occur as part of his subordinates’ growth.

Biopharmaceutical executives interviewed in this study offered seven ways to develop people; most had used a combination of these approaches in personnel development as well as in their own development as managerial leaders:

funding education and professional programs; •arranging for peer-to-peer mentoring; •providing coaching for individuals; •creating infrastructure for training and professional •development;sponsoring team-building events; •administering competency or psychometric assessments; •using ‘stretch goals’ that push individuals out of their comfort •zones.

Funding education and professional programs

Several executives in this study specifically credited additional education and professional programs as beneficial to their own development as managerial leaders (see the section on ‘self- development’ in this chapter). Therefore they believe that their subordinates can also benefit from receiving additional education and participating in professional development workshops and programs. However, providing funds is only part of the equation, and does not guarantee that subordinates will (or can) apply the knowledge and lessons they learned in their roles. The executive may


want to provide opportunities for his subordinates to apply what they have learned, so that the company gains a return on investment from the employees’ education. If the biopharmaceutical executive provides funds for his subordinates’ development but does nothing more, he is essentially outsourcing his subordinates’ growth and development to someone else.

Arranging for peer-to-peer mentoring

Peer-level mentoring allows subordinates with complementary strengths to pair up and learn from each other, or allows a subordinate with more experience to mentor a subordinate with less experience in the same role. Peer-level mentoring can be effective when the prospective mentor has the necessary knowledge and aptitude for mentoring. This may require executives to know how to identify and select qualified mentors and, if needed, to provide individual coaching to prospective peer mentors. Again, once the mentoring pair are matched, the executive would not recede into the background. The executive would oversee the formulation of the mentoring plan and periodically follow up with both the mentor and the person receiving mentoring to assess the progress and effectiveness of the mentoring relationship.

Peer-to-peer mentoring that occurs at the managerial leadership level is generally not accompanied by the allocation of ‘joint authority’ over the same group of subordinates. However, one executive in this study had created a peer-level mentoring relationship between two of his managers, who were promoted to oversee the same group of subordinates. The executive’s rationale was to allow the managers to complement each other’s strengths and learn from each other, while jointly managing the same group of scientists and scientific staff. This approach was unusual, and success would require support from executive management, a company culture that is conducive to the authority-sharing between managers overseeing the same group, and acceptance from subordinates who would be reporting to two managers.

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Providing coaching to individuals

Coaching can be an explicit or implicit part of the biopharmaceutical executive’s managerial role. If the executive has subordinates who are also in managerial roles, he must ensure that his managers have coaching skills, so that they can develop their own subordinates. Coaching is a skill that executives can learn: several executives in this study reported that they learned how to coach their people by watching and emulating coaches and consultants in action (‘role-modeling’), by taking courses in coaching skills, and by receiving coaching themselves and becoming familiar with the process of coaching.

One executive in this study learned coaching skills to develop people by working with a coach for his own development. He found his coaching experience useful in becoming a better listener and improving his ability to have empathy for others. The executive found particularly useful the mechanisms of initiating a coaching dialog with employees, something he learned by watching how his coach worked with him:

You would begin a conversation with a polite warm-up; then you get into the core of the conversation from a broad angle. Then you can look at solutions and potential barriers that exist, and conclude with a summary of what you had discussed.

It was by receiving coaching that the executive also discovered what ‘coaching’ is and is not. The executive is highly solutions-oriented and analytical, and tends to ‘jump’ to offer a solution or prescribe a course of action to his subordinates when they come to him with problems. As the executive became familiar with the coaching process, he realized that as a coach, he should be patient and serve as a guide; he would help his subordinates think through the problems and arrive at the solutions themselves. By immediately offering answers or solutions to problems that subordinates present, the executive was not helping them become better thinkers and problem-solvers.


Another executive agreed with the importance of allowing subordinates experience the learning process for themselves instead of being told what to do or how to do it. In his former tenure as a first-line manager to a team of field-based sales representatives, he was extremely eager to show his representatives how he would interact with the physicians. When he spent time with his sales people, he ‘worked’ with them by actually doing some of the work himself, by taking over the interaction the sales person had with the physician. He then learned that being an effective coach required him to observe the sales person’s performance without interfering.

What had been most difficult was to continue observing if the sales person had made a mistake rather than jumping in and taking over the interaction. After the interaction had concluded, he would coach the sales person with open-ended questions that encouraged the sales person to analyze his own performance. By asking his people what they thought they did well and how they could improve their performance in the future, the executive was helping his sales people think critically about their performance. The sales people were able to learn to identify approaches that worked well for them and to avoid approaches that did not. This made ‘good performance’ reproducible and ‘repeat success’ more likely. The executive said that one of the most common mistakes new managers made was to immediately seize upon their people’s mistakes and begin pointing out their errors without helping them become more aware of their mistakes themselves. Without this self-awareness, people would only make the same mistakes in the future.

Creating infrastructure for employee development

Creating infrastructure for employee development is another way that executives can give their people access to learning. Unfortunately, training and professional development are often viewed as ‘cost centers’ and are quick to be eliminated during economically challenging times. However, having a professional development infrastructure and giving employees continual access to development opportunities can attract prospective employees to the organization.

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In addition to the perception that the company is investing in developing its human resources, employees can reinforce their skills and knowledge by continually participating in corporate professional development programs. Two of the executives in this study said that their companies’ leadership development program had been instrumental in their own development as managerial leaders. One had participated in his company’s leadership development program for five years, where concepts were continually reinforced and built upon. Both executives were enthusiastic about the quality of the programs and especially the reinforcement that came with continual education.

Sponsoring team-building events

Executives may use a group event, like a team-building exercise, as an opportunity for employee development. The executive may work with an external facilitator such as a consultant or a coach to create an exercise suited to the needs of his team. One of the executives in this study had worked with an executive coach when he first began employment as a biopharmaceutical executive. He worked with a coach who had experience with team-building and who also incorporated personal development (or ‘life coaching’) as part of the coaching approach. Since he had found his personal experience working with a coach beneficial, he decided to engage the coach for six months to work with him and his new team.

For this executive, his team was formed as a result of a difficult organizational restructuring. Business units were consolidated and many employees were laid off. At the time, the organization’s employees were in a state of constant anxiety and fear about the security of their jobs. Thus a critical outcome for the team-building event was to foster trust between the new team and the executive who was their managerial leader. As part of the team-building event, the executive established the rules of engagement of working together. Each team member then described their current roles and learned about each other’s roles and the importance of each team member’s contribution to the organization. The result was a team


that worked cohesively and productively amid a corporate environment that was uncertain.

Another executive had found a similar exercise useful in his employees’ development. He had also engaged an external consultant to create a team-building event for the group. A critical outcome for the team-building event was to allow the executive to identify his team member’s strengths and how each would contribute through the group. The core message of the team-building event was that a team was made up of individuals each of whom has a particular role and responsibility. When each team member is effective in his role, the team will function optimally and achieve its objectives. If team members do not understand their roles and try to do ‘a bit of everything,’ the team will not function optimally and cannot achieve its objectives. The executive’s goal as a follow-up to the team-building event was to make sure that each of his team members had the resources needed to do his job.

Activity selection for a team-building event should be congruent with the specific outcomes that the biopharmaceutical executive wishes to gain when he sponsors the event. One executive in the study described a ‘team-building’ event that occurred in a ‘go-cart’ venue. The carts were single-driver carts. People raced against each other on the track. As the day progressed, the executive observed that male members of the team were enjoying their races on the track while the female members of the team began separating from the group to congregate indoors in the restaurant:

The people gathered indoors were talking with each other and getting to know each other. The people outside were busy racing with each other on the tracks. Both groups looked like they were having fun, but it was still a separated group – and this was supposed to be a team-building event.

Another executive described a team-building event that involved ‘paint-balling,’ a game where individuals team up and shoot at each other with paint-filled pellets. While the activity warranted some ‘game strategy’ planning between the individual teams, it seemed to pitch one group against the other rather than bringing the groups together:

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Many of the team-building activities that I have seen veered heavily to activities that men would enjoy more than women. Many of these events fostered very little conversation or actual teamwork among members of the team. It made me wonder about these executives’ thought processes when they chose the events.

Administering competency or psychometric assessments

Developmental assessments can save biopharmaceutical executives valuable time when constructing a behavioral profile of their subordinates. This profile can be a foundation for a meaningful dialog when formulating subordinates’ developmental plans with the company.

Periodic reassessment can also provide executives and subordinates with a metric for their growth. Two executives in this study found psychometric assessments (such as personality type tests and behavioral dominance tests) extremely helpful when developing their employees. In one case, a subordinate’s psychometric test results had allowed the executive to find the root cause of that subordinate’s ‘growing pains’ in his transition from individual contributor to manager. The test had potentially spared that employee from being demoted or fired when he appeared to struggle significantly in his new role as a manager (see Chapter 3, section on ‘Debriefing the case illustrations’).

Biopharmaceutical executives have an array of evaluation and assessment tools to use. These tools are useful as part of the executives’ approach in developing employees and themselves as managerial leaders. However, these tools are like a ‘double-edged sword’ to executives if not appropriately used. First, executives may become too reliant on these assessment tools and use them to the exclusion of regular engagement with employees. An executive may deliver an assessment as part of the interviewing process or as part of the new-hire orientation, and then rarely engage the same employee in substantive conversation about his development. In this case, the assessment tool distracted the executive from using it to create a meaningful dialog with his subordinates, and instead it became a dead-end in which results were filed away and forgotten.


Executives may also face resistance or suspicion from subordinates about the use of these assessment tools. Subordinates may fear that these tools will be used to exclude them from certain positions or limit their growth within the company. Some may fear that the results will ‘brand’ or ‘typecast’ them, or that their behaviors will be interpreted along the lines of their ‘brand’ or ‘type.’ If the executive is seen to believe in the limitation of his employees, then subordinates’ fears may be justified. As a response, people may answer questions the way they think they ‘should’ answer or are expected to answer, rather than giving an honest response. Of course, assessments can reduce the likelihood of ‘expected answers’ by using internal controls that may test the same domain via different ways and thus identify inconsistencies. Some assessments reduce the likelihood of fabricated or premeditated responses by imposing an element of stress into the test condition (for example, by reducing the time available to give a response), but these do not prevent subordinates from trying to ‘beat’ the test. What is more productive is for the executive to have his employees’ trust that he has their best interests in mind, and that he is using these assessments as one among a collection of growth tools for their development with the company.

Using stretch goals to develop people

The ‘stretch’-approach can develop people within their current roles and prepare them for future roles. Biopharmaceutical executives that use this approach can create ‘stretch goals’ for subordinates, and assign tasks that make full use of their subordinates’ expertise within their current role, or tasks that fall outside the scope of their current role. Biopharmaceutical organizations are rich with special project teams and cross-functional activities that provide employees with opportunities to grow within their roles and explore other functional domains with their organization.

Those organizations with limited resources require their employees to ‘wear many hats’ by assuming multi-functional responsibilities that are specialized at larger organizations with an established infrastructure. For example, a scientist who works in early drug

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development may also find himself in charge of regulatory submissions in a start-up biopharmaceutical organization. In companies with more resources, regulatory submissions and related tasks would be assigned to the role of a regulatory affairs professional. This requires the scientist to acquire the knowledge and the skills that he needs to meet the demands of this cross-functional role; this also becomes part of his professional development with the company. In organizations with resource and infrastructural limitations, ‘stretch goals’ are a means to grow employees while providing an early foundation for laying the company infrastructure.

Those organizations with an established infrastructure and significant resources can provide their employees with opportunities in project groups or special projects that expose employees to colleagues who work outside their functional domains. These opportunities allow employees to grow in their current role and gain a broader perspective of how different functions within their organization work together and where their individual contribution fits. These opportunities can also ‘stretch’ their employees’ growth by exposing them to internal stakeholders with whom they normally may not interact. Employees will gain additional perspectives to the same problem that they may not have considered before. They can also learn about the diversity of functions that can occur within a large organization, which can become potential career options for the future.

How an executive uses the ‘stretch’ approach in development

An executive in this study who uses ‘stretch goals’ as a method of growing his employees described the factors that made his approach effective:

The executive explains his rationale for the process to the •subordinate.The executive uses the process in a predictable and consistent •manner.


The executive identifies which subordinates would be receptive •to this approach, and which subordinates would not. The subordinates are willing participants in the process. •

The executive explains his rationale for the process

The executive may explain to his subordinates that his philosophy for developing employees is to ‘stretch’ people with challenges that may appear quite difficult or more than what they believe they can handle. He may want to give examples of challenges that he has used in the past for his subordinates, how they responded to the challenges, and the outcome of the process. It is especially important to describe how subordinates have dealt with feelings of doubt or handled the difficulties in the challenge, including resources they have available to them for support or guidance when needed.

If the executive had personally grown through this approach, he can further build trust with his subordinates by sharing his experiences working with stretch goals. This way, subordinates will not feel as if they were ‘thrown into the deep-end of the water and left to learn how to swim on their own.’ They will also know when to ask for help or guidance. This step helps subordinates be receptive to stretch goals. Finally, the executive may want to describe the benefits that subordinates may gain from successfully completing a challenging task, such as increased self-confidence and a deep sense of satisfaction or accomplishment.

The executive uses the process in a predictable and consistent manner

One of the ways that the executive in this study uses the process is during job interviews. The executive would ask prospective candidates ‘where they would see themselves in five years’ time.’ The executive likes to ask the question during the interview process because it allows him to identify the appropriate paths and stretch goals he can create for his subordinates, so that he can help them reach their

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goals. Once hired, the executive continually evaluates his subordinates’ growth targets, by following up with them after six months, one year, two years, and three years with the company.

The executive identifies the optimal subordinate population for the process

The executive originally assumed that all of his subordinates would be receptive to this approach to their development. However, soon into his tenure with a new company, the executive discovered that his ‘stretch goals’ approach does not work for everyone:

My style of management is not very effective for people who want to sit where they are; what I’m trying to do with one subordinate is to get him to a place where he hasn’t been before. For this subordinate, my style of management works because he is ambitious and highly educated, but it does not work well for employees who do not want to do anything else. This is a weakness of mine.

The executive has learned to identify those who will respond well to this approach and those who will not, so he can use the approach with those who will respond instead of forcing the same approach on all subordinates.

People may be ‘stretched’ within their current role as well; this approach is not limited just to growing subordinates beyond their scope of work. Thus the executive may look at ways to ‘stretch’ those subordinates who prefer to stay in their current roles, by demanding more from their performance in their current role rather than focusing only on new roles or opportunities.

The subordinates are willing participants in the process

For any development approach to work, the subordinates must be willing participants. They become willing participants when they can


trust that their executives have their best interests in mind. Subordinates must also believe that the ‘stretch’ approach will be used to build upon their current capabilities and expand their competencies for a future role within the company, and not used to detect their limitations and shortcomings or, worse, to set them up to fail.

This is where ‘consistency in approach’ matters. If the executive is inconsistent in how he uses this approach and with whom he uses it, subordinates may wonder about his motives and selection process.

Consistency of process in development

Below is an example of a step-wise approach for biopharmaceutical executives to initiate a conversation with subordinates about their development plans:

Step 1: Explain the rationale or the premise of the activity. • ‘We are here to follow up on your growth plan, which we discussed three weeks ago. You have identified some goals in the plan and, as part of the process, you have taken an assessment.’Step 2: Explain the data or content driving the activity (for •example, results of the assessment, interim outcomes of a task identified as part of the growth plan). ‘Your results are: [description of the result].’Step 3: Explain the context of the data or content. • ‘Here is what your results mean, and how the results fit into where you are in the organization.’Step 4: Revisit growth target(s). • ‘Here is where you said/we agreed you want to be.’Step 5: Identify actionable items that are time-bound (complete •within [x time]) or have time objectives (in preparation for your career destination by [x time]). ‘Here is the specific information we now have to get you to where you want to be by [time].’Step 6: Invite discussion and questions. • ‘What questions do you have?’ or ‘Have I missed anything?’Step 7: Set up appointment to track next milestone/progress. •‘Here is when we will meet again to review progress and goals.’

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Whatever the chosen mechanism, the biopharmaceutical executive must use a rational process to develop his subordinates. The process should provide a framework for the subordinates so they know what to expect from their executive, how the process will work, and what metrics will let them know that they are making progress.

Individual contributor to first-line manager: key development challenges

The talent pool of biopharmaceutical organizations has a significant population of subject-matter experts (scientists and clinicians) who may first be hired as individual contributors to the company. If these individual contributors become successful, a path of growth that is offered is frequently toward management, where they become responsible for the outcomes of their subordinates and must assign tasks as managers. One of the key professional development challenges that biopharmaceutical executives face in the life science industry is facilitating the transition from individual contributor with no leadership role responsibilities to a managerial position with such responsibilities. Becoming a first-line manager is the starting point of a path in leadership roles as a biopharmaceutical executive. As a result, the transition of an individual contributor to a first-line manager is a critical checkpoint in the professional development of a biopharmaceutical executive.

First-line managers play an important role as conduits between their organization and inputs ‘from the field’ – opinions and feedback from external stakeholders that can have an effect on a biopharmaceutical organization’s decision-making and competitive advantage. First-line managers are managing individual contributors who have a direct effect on results that collectively drive company performance. Thus this managerial role is the entry point for a biopharmaceutical executive to gain experience assigning tasks to others and learning to manage resources and the output of his subordinates rather than producing results as an individual contributor. It is in one’s tour of duty as a first-line manager that the biopharmaceutical executive acquires skills for motivating and energizing a team (see Chapter 3, the section on ‘Motivating and energizing employees’).


The path to management has been used as part of the rewards that recognize outstanding individual contributors in biopharmaceutical organizations. However, this path is paved with the assumption that outstanding performance by an individual contributor can translate into outstanding performance by that contributor having made the transition to a managerial role. In some cultures (particularly in the US), there can be pressure for employees in biopharmaceutical companies to ‘appear to desire upward mobility’ through a management path so that they do not give the impression that they are unmotivated or resigned to mediocrity by staying in their current position. As a result, some individual contributors feel pressured to seek management positions in their developmental pathway when they have little or no desire to manage people.

For individual contributors who are truly interested in managerial roles and whose aptitude for managing people matches their ambition for management, their transition into managerial roles may require the guidance of executives who are familiar with these types of transitions and who can facilitate the transitioning process so that the new managers may be successful. Their executives must be alert to signs of transitioning stress as they acclimate to their managerial roles, and receive individual guidance via coaching or mentoring when they need it.

Biopharmaceutical executives who are managers-once-removed (the manager’s manager) play a critical part in helping these new managers navigate in a more complex role, by directly providing guidance and/or providing their managers with training programs for the new role. These can prepare new managers with the skills they need to make decisions in the face of imperfect or incomplete facts, and learn how to coach their subordinates instead of ‘trying to do their subordinates’ job.’ There are four types of awareness that biopharmaceutical executives must help their new managers develop.

‘Knowing that you don’t know’

The first type of awareness that new managers need to develop is ‘knowing that they do not know,’ which therefore makes them more receptive to finding out ‘what’ they do not know. One of the

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executives in this study remembered his initial transition from an individual contributor to sales manager, and how the company’s training program made a difference in his transition. He attended a training program for new managers, where he learned about the expectations of him in a managerial role and also how little he understood about being a manager:

When I made the transition from sales person to district manager, I really did not understand my role, especially when I began supervising a district that contained several territories that I had worked in. Immediately I thought of how much I had learned over the years, and I became eager to go back to the doctors I used to visit so that I could ‘sell them’! That was my thought process as a first-time sales manager. Then I went through the company’s leadership development program for new sales managers. The first day, the program director asked us how often we should intervene on a sales call when we were with our sales representatives in front of the doctor. Everyone was throwing out numbers … someone said 75 percent of the time. I said 50 percent of the time. Finally, the director clasped together his index-finger and thumb, and said, ‘Zero! Do not jump into the sales call!’

The training program reinforced the executive’s awareness that his new managerial role should focus on coaching and developing his subordinates’ competencies (in his case, selling skills). He should no longer assume an individual contributor role and ‘do the selling’ for his subordinates. His interference in sales calls would not only risk annoying the doctors, but would not help his sales representatives improve upon their selling skills. The executive admitted that this shift in mindset was one of the most important transitions for him as a new manager. He needed tremendous discipline to abstain from ‘doing the selling’ when he worked with his sales people.

The executive also found useful other communication tips he learned from the training, such as ‘catching people doing something right’ and immediately recognizing subordinates. Another coaching tip that the executive learned was about maintaining perspective when giving feedback to subordinates. As an example, if a


subordinate had delivered a good performance overall but made a small error, the executive would overlook the ‘one little thing that was not a very big deal’ and focus on the overall good performance. This way, he could encourage his subordinate without offsetting the positive energy and feedback by bringing up the minor mistake.

‘What worked there, won’t work here’

A second type of awareness that a biopharmaceutical executive must help his new manager develop relates to the new manager’s modeled behaviors. The executive needs to observe whether the manager may have learned to interact with others in a way that may have been acceptable in his former role as an individual contributor, but may not be acceptable in his new role as a manager. A common example of ‘what worked there, won’t work here’ may come from an environment where spirited debate may be the norm between co-workers, or between supervisors and subordinates. If a new manager came from this environment and assumed that ‘what worked there, may work here,’ he may engage his peers and subordinates in the same way. Those who did not come from that environment or who are not familiar with the new manager may view him as volatile and confrontational.

Managers who were trained in an environment where eccentricities or difficult personalities were ignored or viewed as part of the culture (for example, in some academic research institutions or medical schools) may have modeled similar behaviors. These behaviors may not be readily apparent in an individual contributor setting, but may emerge once that individual contributor becomes a manager. If an individual contributor had been subjected to intimidation or condescending behaviors by his supervisor or graduate/medical school professor as a way to ‘making him stronger,’ he may use the same approach to ‘develop’ his own subordinates. However, ‘what worked there, won’t work here,’ and these tactics create a fearful and counterproductive work environment. One of the executives in this study described working for a supervisor who

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had worked as a physician in a hospital before joining the company:

The general feedback about this person was that he was very confrontational. He would make you feel like he is always testing you, suspicious of you, and didn’t think highly of you. He would put you down because he didn’t believe what you were doing in the organization was valuable.

This does not mean that those who were trained in academic institutions or worked in hospitals would automatically be schooled in ‘poor interpersonal skills.’ One of the executives in this study said:

Scientists and physicians may have emulated bad behaviors by watching other scientists and doctors behaving badly, but I think back to my days in graduate school, when we had a very tough professor. This professor was notorious for challenging you and making you uncomfortable in class. But there was a difference in the way that he was hard on you – it was always based in scientific discourse; it was never a personal attack.

Negatively modeled behaviors can be common in the biophar-maceutical managerial levels, where many executive positions are staffed by subject-matter experts who came into the organization from other types of environments. If biopharmaceutical executives do not address this lack in awareness in a new manager, the consequences can be costly to the organization if the manager’s approach culminates in human resource issues (such as complaints from or resignations by subordinates).

‘What worked for one, will work for all’

A third awareness that biopharmaceutical executives must help their new managers develop is the ability to tailor their approach when


developing people. People have differing tolerance for growth and discomfort – what may be the right pace for challenging one subordinate’s growth may be too fast a pace for another.

A manager may favor a particular approach, having found it useful for his own development, and apply it when developing others. Even the manager’s own experiences with development must be considered as one of many potential methods of developing employees that may have worked for him but not always for others. The executive who favored the ‘stretch’ approach earlier in this chapter realized exactly this: what worked for him may work for others like him, but did not work for subordinates who may be very different from him. This may be where management training can be useful, as new managers are able to learn about how people may be motivated differently. They may also learn to use different tools for and approaches to developing employees.

‘How far one can “stretch” may be too far a “stretch” for another’

A fourth awareness that biopharmaceutical executives must help their new managers develop is how to recognize ‘early signs of stress’ in their subordinates so that they are not stretched too far, too fast and risk burning out. Some typical signals of stress may include missed deadlines, reduced quality of work, increased absences, or visible signs of stress from subordinates. Ideally, subordinates would tell their managers if they had found a stretch goal too aggressive, but subordinates are not always willing to admit this to their supervisors. Instead, they would likely push through the challenge and hope to achieve the desired result. Subordinates may perform well and feel rewarded by delivering on a challenge that had first appeared to overwhelm them.

Nevertheless, new managers need to balance periods of ‘stretching’ a subordinate with periods of ‘rest’ so that the subordinate will not be continually over-tasked. This minimizes the risks of burning out the subordinate’s enthusiasm for meeting future challenges. The ability of a new manager to strike this balance will require an honest dialog with his subordinate in which they are asked to speak up if a

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change of pace is needed. The new manager must also increase his awareness for cues from subordinates that will indicate to him that he needs to modify his approach.

Capabilities today, capabilities tomorrow

Subordinates can develop their capabilities in their current role, which has a direct effect on their ability to perform tasks that contribute to their organization. These capabilities in turn provide a foundation upon which subordinates can grow with the organization, by preparing for future roles within the company. Addressing both types of capabilities are important to subordinates’ growth plans. For some subordinates, growing with the company does not necessarily mean a desire to advance to a new role; thus the biopharmaceutical executive should find ways to develop those subordinates so they can continue to grow with the company within their role. What the executive wants to avoid is the assumption that ‘growth’ must mean advancement beyond a subordinates’ current role or that ‘growth’ must mean setting subordinates on a management path.

The executive begins by examining the nature of the tasks associated with subordinates’ roles, and how the concept of ‘growth’ or ‘development’ may apply to these roles. For example, in roles with primarily routine and repetitive tasks, the concept of ‘growth’ may mean an increase in ‘performance efficiency’ over an established baseline of effectiveness (‘satisfactory performance’) rather than an increase in or expansion of ‘functional capacity.’ Or, it may indeed mean an increase in ‘functional capacity,’ if the subordinate is receptive to acquiring new skills that allow him to improve performance efficiency through a new way of working. Subordinates who are satisfied with their functional demands or roles may be ‘developed’ by targeting operational activities that can improve overall performance efficiency, for example by improving response time, mitigating human errors, and cutting down wasted time due to lack of organization.


On the other hand, subordinates who seek growth beyond their functional demands or who view development as a way to advance to a different role within the same function (for example, an individual contributor moving to a managerial role within the same function, or a manager moving to a manager-once-removed position within the same function) will embrace challenges aimed at taking them out of their comfort zone. The biopharmaceutical executive may assign these subordinates tasks that require them to solve problems in a way that they have not routinely done before, where subordinates will experience some initial discomfort with the tasks. Participation in special project teams or taking on assignments that require subordinates to gain new knowledge and learn new skills may prepare subordinates for this type of growth.

The biopharmaceutical executive can tailor his approach to developing subordinates’ capabilities by evaluating the driving factors in subordinates’ growth goals. What are subordinates’ performance-based growth (current capabilities) targets and potential-based growth (future capabilities) targets? What are the long-term professional aspirations of individual subordinates? The executive can be a valuable guide to his subordinates by helping them ‘self-discover’ and identify individual drivers of career satisfaction. Once the executive understands how his subordinates find significance in their work and derive a sense of meaning in their biopharmaceutical career, the executive can work with subordinates to formulate development plans that maintain and elevate the drivers of career satisfaction for individual subordinates. Only then does the executive have an in-depth view of his subordinates’ developmental paths, so that he is able to seize opportunities best suited to his subordinates’ growth within the organization.

Spotlight on field medical science: a case of developing employees in a novel role

The history of the field medical science liaison (MSL) role has largely remained an oral narrative. Part of the history of the medical science liaison function was personally communicated to the author via two

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of Upjohn’s former employees: one joined the Upjohn Company in 1968 and became a member of the company’s first oncology MSL team in 1974; another worked for Upjohn from 1990 to 1993 as a metabolic sales specialist. According to the oral narrative, the medical science liaison concept was created by Larry Hoff, a senior sales executive with the Upjohn Company in 1967, in response to an unmet company need. The only publicly available and documented proof of the creation of this novel role is a patent filing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) by the Upjohn Company.

According to the 1978 trademark filing, ‘MSL’ was associated with ‘educational services – namely, initiation of drug studies in laboratory and clinical settings and development of workshops, symposia and seminars for physicians, medical societies, specialty organizations, academicians, in concert, concerned with drug-related medical topics’ (USPTO Registration Number 1132404). In the same filing description, the ‘MSL’ term was first used in commerce in 1967, which dates this novel field-based function to 1967. The ‘MSL’ trademark remains active, but this acronym has become a generic description for medical science liaisons in the pharmaceutical industry.

Before the creation of the MSL role, general practitioners knew about the Upjohn Company, but physicians and clinicians in the academic setting did not. These academic physicians – those considered thought leaders or ‘key opinion leaders’ (KOLs) in today’s industry jargon – rarely interacted with sales representatives during that time of the industry’s history. Yet these thought leaders were widely respected in their practice disciplines and research areas, and therefore influential over their physician colleagues who respected the opinions of these therapeutic thought leaders. As a result, these thought leaders directly and indirectly shaped the prescribing behaviors of practising physicians.

The consequences of this lack of interaction between academic clinicians and biopharmaceutical industry stakeholders became obvious to the Upjohn Company when a medical journal published a study on the effects of hypoglycemic agents on vascular complications in patients with adult-onset diabetes. The academic


physicians who contributed to the publication examined existing and emerging therapies for diabetes at that time, and concluded that an investigational compound manufactured by the Upjohn Company posed a cardiovascular risk. Stakeholders from the Upjohn Company believed that the study was flawed, but the company had no existing dialog with academic thought leaders in general. This unmet need was identified for establishing high-level scientific exchange between the company and academic physicians.

In response, the Upjohn Company’s executive created the medical science liaison concept. Medical science liaisons would be responsible for interacting with academically based physicians who, until this point in time, rarely dealt with industry personnel. The MSL concept worked so well for the Upjohn Company that other pharmaceutical companies adopted the practice and began creating their own field medical programs. Up until this time, sales representatives with a strong science background or keen technical aptitude were promoted to medical science liaison positions. In the late-1980s, hiring practice began to shift to staff MSL positions with professionals who had come from academic and clinical backgrounds. The majority of these professionals held doctorate degrees in science and medicine, and had significant research and clinical experience.

Today, the field-based medical science liaison role is becoming recognized by many US-based biopharmaceutical companies as an important function in their ability to engage influential stakeholders in the therapeutic areas invested in by those companies. As biopharmaceutical organizations become increasingly global, the MSL role is being established in companies’ subsidiaries in Canada, Europe, Asia, South America, and the Middle East. In European countries, the job titles ‘medical advisor’ or ‘scientific advisor’ may be used to describe medical science liaison roles.

Within the US, the MSL function presents a unique challenge to biopharmaceutical executives who oversee the development of these field-based individual contributors. Historically, taking on a medical science liaison role represented a significant career achievement by field-based sales representatives. For a sales representative, a promotion to the MSL position was a recognition of his scientific competence and outstanding performance with the company. The

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MSL would be focused on developing relationships with physicians steeped in scientific dialog, not sales objectives.

At that time, field-based sales representatives who became MSLs saw this as the profession to aspire to, and once they ‘had arrived,’ would work as MSLs until they retired from the company. Many MSLs today who came through this heritage continue to work as MSLs, even though hiring practices have begun to change to hiring candidates with advanced degrees in science and medicine. Most of these veteran medical science liaisons do not hold doctorate degrees like their counterparts from the ‘new generation of MSLs,’ and are increasingly finding it difficult to stay in this career. The ‘new generation of MSLs’ is staffed increasingly with professionals from academic institutions and from the clinical setting. Prospective job candidates hold PhD, MD, and PharmD (doctor of pharmacy) degrees and have significant training in science and medicine. These individuals often have formal research experience in a scientific discipline or clinical experience in a therapeutic area. The MSL profession is often their first entry into the biopharmaceutical industry if they do not want to work in research or in sales functions.

The ‘new generation’ of field-based medical science liaisons is highly motivated to advance their careers. Many view the MSL profession as a starting point. Within the US, the MSL position may be ranked at the same level as the first-line manager, based on compensation: for example, the MSL professional would be given the same choices of company car that are available to a field-based sales manager, rather than the choice of car available to field-based sales representatives. Companies have also created different designations for their MSLs, some with the word ‘manager’ in the job title, for example: ‘Medical Science Manager,’ ‘Regional Scientific Manager,’ or ‘Clinical Science Manager.’ In some cases, when the MSL is promoted to the next level, he may get the word ‘director’ in lieu of ‘manager’ in his new job title. In other words, these field-based medical science professionals are individual contributors with no authority to assign tasks, but are compensated at the level of a managerial role and given a job title traditionally associated with managerial functions.


Fueled by a perception that their positions are on a par with a management-level position, and by the observation of MSL colleagues who had advanced rapidly to become field-based managers, many MSLs began to expect to gain opportunities where they have formal authority to assign tasks – in other words, to become managers with subordinates, not just managers ‘in name only.’ Those MSLs who viewed their position as a ‘starting point’ in their biopharmaceutical industry career are highly motivated to ‘grow’ along this career path.

As most MSLs are based in their respective ‘home territories’ and not located near their companies’ corporate headquarters, a field-based management position would be an ideal next-step in advancement without relocating to corporate headquarters. During the late 1990s when the MSL presence in the biopharmaceutical industry gained prominence and organizations began to install or establish MSL programs, many MSLs became field-based managers with the authority to assign tasks, and began managing MSLs as a field-based manager. Some of these MSLs had become managers quickly, within one or two years of their tenure as MSLs.

The different factors described above have created a significant challenge faced by biopharmaceutical executives who manage field-based MSL programs. They have to develop a group who have traditionally competed as individual contributors in their previous professions and who are quick to feel that they are ready for the next step in their career path. However, unlike field sales positions, field medical science positions are few, and opportunities for management are rarer still. Many MSLs became dissatisfied with the slow pace of their professional advancement, and began leaving their companies in the hope of joining organizations that offered field-based management opportunities.

For executives who manage MSL teams, replacing talent at this level can be very expensive. In addition to the expenses related to attrition and hiring, companies also have business continuity expenses once the loss of personnel has interrupted the relationships with key opinion leaderships associated with that MSL. Even if the company temporarily bridged this discontinuity by hiring another MSL or having the MSL manager ‘fill in’ the gap, this has proved to

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be no easy task because of how MSL teams are deployed. Medical science liaisons can cover large territories, especially if the company has a small MSL team; extended travel becomes a source of ‘job burn-out’ and career dissatisfaction for MSL professionals.

As a response, executives have used various developmental tactics to retain their high-performing MSLs and maintain their level of job satisfaction in the organization. Executives have provided tuition funding for MSLs who have expressed an interest in business and management to earn MBA degrees. They have paid for MSLs to attend professional development programs and participate in certification courses relevant to their fields of study. They have provided MSLs with opportunities to work in special project teams or to undertake a short-term ‘in-house’ cross-functional rotation at the company headquarters. They have encouraged peer-level mentoring for MSLs who are interested in teaching and mentoring, where senior-level MSLs mentor new MSLs or junior-level MSLs. They have created levels within the MSL position such as ‘Medical Science Liaison II’ or ‘Senior Medical Science Liaison’ to designate seniority and mastery of role-based competencies.

These development tactics have been effective for MSLs who want to stay in the profession for the long term. These MSLs welcome opportunities to grow within their current capacities as field-based MSLs, and welcome the means to be continually challenged and intellectually stimulated within the MSL role. However, these tactics have been less effective for MSLs who view their positions as stepping stones, and whose sense of accomplishment in their careers is primarily driven by their promotion to the ‘next level.’ Frequently, these ‘next-level’ positions and managerial roles may already be filled at the company or are not available at the field level.

The plight of biopharmaceutical executives in developing medical science liaisons illustrates several lessons about employee development. First in any development-related discussion between the executive and his subordinate is the subordinate’s self-view and view of where his current role fits in the larger picture of his career path. Does the subordinate view his position as an entry point or ‘stepping stone’ to a future role? Or is this current role one where the subordinate wants to work for a significant part of his


professional life? For an employee using the role as an entry point to a future role, the plan would be to have activities that focused on developing both current and future capabilities. For a subordinate who is interested in staying in his role for an extended period of time, the development plan would focus on current capacities and avenues that continually challenge him in his current role so he can grow within his role.

The effect of subordinates’ physical locale is another factor when accessing advancement and growth opportunities. For field-based employees with no desire to move to a different role, the executive would need to work with individual subordinates to create a plan that can challenge them in their field-based roles and keep them motivated and challenged. If subordinates can and want to relocate to advance their careers, the executive would need to work with subordinates to create a plan that can expose subordinates to a range of growth opportunities available in the organization. If a subordinate has a desire and the ability to move to a different role, but is unable to relocate, the executive may create opportunities for the subordinate to begin to explore the possibilities for advancement outside his current field-based role, but this is only a short-term solution. What the executive must do is to have an honest dialog with a subordinate whose professional ambitions may be in conflict with his personal obligations or current reality (an example may be the subordinate’s family which does not wish to relocate). These work–life conflicts become a source of frustration for the subordinate, and if left unchecked may affect the subordinate’s productivity and motivation in his role.

Thirdly, employee expectation and perception can be influenced by the way an organization ‘labels’ its roles. A job title that suggests managerial authority may create the expectation that an employee holding that job title could indeed gain managerial authority in the future. When a company gives a person a job title that includes the word ‘manager’ or ‘director’ but gives that role no real authority to assign tasks, the company is fostering expectations about a role that its executives cannot fulfill. This incongruence then becomes a source of frustration and confusion not only for employees in that role, but also for the rest of the organization that is unfamiliar with

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the role. There are better ways to recognize the importance of a functional role than to give its constituents job titles that sound important. It is one of the reasons why field-based medical science professionals should continue to be called by their historical job title (‘medical science liaison’) or a comparable job title that better reflects the role of an individual contributor, rather than a job title that suggests managerial authority when there is none in practice.

Finally, this highlights the influence of social and cultural pressures that may face today’s biopharmaceutical professionals. In the United States, the desire to advance or ‘climb the corporate ladder’ may be correlated with a perception that the person is highly motivated and probably a high performer. Discussion about professional development is heavily focused on future potential and where an employee ‘wants to go’ because of this assumption. This creates a problem for employees who may be equally motivated to perform, but who enjoy their current role and do not wish to leave it. These employees become concerned about how their level of motivation is perceived. They worry about others interpreting their desire to stay in a role as them not being ‘go-getters’ and therefore tarred with the brush of mediocrity. Some may respond to these pressures by taking their development path where they believe they ‘should’ take it and enter into management roles.

Thus it is up to today’s biopharmaceutical executives to create a work culture that values different modes of employee contribution, and supports different drivers of employees’ job satisfaction, whether or not these drivers keep them in their roles or take them into new roles or new functions in the organization. Then they may gain the best performance from their employees and co-create with them a development plan that best suits each individual employee’s growth. When it comes to developing people, ‘one size’ truly does not fit all.

The biopharmaceutical executive’s own leadership development

The executive’s own leadership development is recognized as an important activity for the executives in this study. Executives have


used the modes of development described in this chapter in their own leadership development, including getting a formal education in management (MBA), attending professional development programs and seminars in leadership, working with coaches and consultants, participating in extracurricular activities that give leadership visibility or recognition, self-guided study in leadership topics, overseeing high-level projects, and learning through teaching and mentoring.

One of the MD-trained executives in this study had found that his formal business education was critical in his appreciation of business principles and made him more effective in his role as a biophar-maceutical executive. He described how his MBA education demystified the ‘stretch’ approach that his former mentor and company CEO used on him, as well as teaching him how businesses worked:

Medical school teaches you nothing about managing people – it teaches you how to be a doctor. When I came to the United States, I worked for a CEO who had a marketing background. I did not understand what he was doing to me until I took one of the management courses through the MBA program I enrolled in at the time, and then I realized he was using a ‘stretch goal’ approach with me. For a physician, an MBA education is very important, because no one teaches you about business.

When the biopharmaceutical executive shows interest in his own leadership development, his interest is viewed by subordinates and peers as a sign of his commitment to managerial leadership. If the executive shows no interest or dismisses his own development as a managerial leader, this is seen as a warning sign by subordinates. One executive in this study remembered a supervisor who did not exhibit the level of managerial leadership he expected from a person occupying that position in the organization. When the executive returned from a leadership development course offered by the company, he met with the supervisor and described with enthusiasm the benefit he gained from participating in the course. The executive tactfully suggested that the supervisor may find useful some of the leadership courses that are offered by the company and readily available to the supervisor:

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I talked about how the course changed my life and how much I had learned. His response was that he was ‘not ready for that yet.’ I was shocked at what I heard! When exactly would he be ready for it?

The executive believed that the supervisor did not want change and had no desire to learn. Even though the supervisor had a track record of receiving poor feedback results from ‘360-degree’ multi-source reviews, the supervisor had been with the company for a very long time and appeared to be ‘biding his time until retirement.’ The supervisor’s apathy toward development had been seen by subordinates as a warning sign of their executive’s incompetence.

One of the executives in this study made the transition into the biopharmaceutical industry from academia, and started his industry career by working in a field outside his subject-matter expertise. As a result, he was never ‘the expert.’ This required him to learn how to recognize competency gaps and hire the experts who could fill those gaps, whether this meant hiring a subject-matter expert in drug formulation or someone with experience in drug manufacturing processes. This provided the executive with a foundational skill in ‘spotting talent’ that became useful when he was hired to create a discovery division with a new company. The executive identified the capability gaps he needed to fill, and built the division in a way that allowed the organization to ‘scale up’ and grow.

Extracurricular activities can provide additional venues for biopharmaceutical executives to demonstrate their leadership competencies outside their companies and help them gain visibility as leaders in the industry. Depending on their companies’ philosophy and policies about extracurricular activities, biopharmaceutical executives may speak at industry conferences, publish in trade magazines and peer-reviewed journals, take leadership roles in professional associations and societies, and gain recognition for their causes through social media and social networking channels. A research executive in this study spoke at numerous industry conferences to create awareness of his passion for enforcing industry standards in clinical development processes; these standards aimed to improve the efficiency of clinical development and ease of access


to clinical data. Another executive in this study published a pharmaceutical career book. Still another executive in this study co-authored a peer-reviewed article on the evolution of the field-based medical science profession. In many cases, the biopharmaceutical executive’s participation in extracurricular activities produced intangible value for their organization, by sharing their expertise and experience, and in turn increased goodwill for the company.

Growing people is an activity requiring delicate balance, and this may be better appreciated when the executives themselves have experienced challenges in their professional or personal lives. Having experienced the cycles of feeling uncomfortable and gaining new confidence gives biopharmaceutical executives credibility with their subordinates who must also experience these growth cycles. Executives can draw upon their personal experience and be patient and understanding partners in guiding their subordinates’ growth.

Knowing that one does not know: blindspots

Awareness of blindspots and an ability to manage them are important for the biopharmaceutical executive’s growth and managerial leadership. Depending on the executive’s level of self-awareness and past experiences, he may predict where potential blindspots may occur. The executive then needs to have in place an ‘early warning’ system that could alert him to the presence of the blindspot as well as prepare him to best respond to the situation. When it comes to developing subordinates, a major blindspot that executives have relates to their perception of their subordinates’ ability to ‘handle the truth’ or accept the reality of the situation. In other words, executives may avoid telling subordinates the truth about the organization’s advancement opportunities because they have assumed that subordinates would not be able to accept it, when in fact subordinates usually already know the circumstances within their organization.

When competitive intelligence expert Ben Gilad wrote Business Blindspots (1996), he stated that business blindspots were the cause of business failures, and pointed out three egregious blindspots that were common in organizations: unchallenged assumptions, corporate

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myths, and corporate taboos. While Gilad does not explicitly state in his book that human blindspots are at the root of most business blindspots, he did address the need for executives to become more self-aware: ‘Unless managers have the ability (cognitive, emotional, and organizational) to perceive and question their implicit competitive assumptions, they are not going to perceive the value of learning from experience.’

Below is a case that illustrates one aspect of business blindspots.

A case of managerial failure due to corporate myths

One of the executives in this study had worked in an organization that historically had staffed its medical director positions only with board-certified medical doctors (MDs). The executive, who has a PharmD degree, was reporting to a supervisor who has an MD degree. The supervisor had to take extended leave due to illness, and the clinical program he was overseeing was already lagging. Another executive with an MD degree was asked to ‘substitute’ for the absent supervisor, but declined due to his own workload and recommended that the PharmD executive temporarily assume responsibility for the clinical program.

This was already a corporate taboo – a non-MD assuming the role historically assigned to MD personnel, but the PharmD executive agreed. During his supervisor’s year-long absence, the PharmD executive worked both his own role managing 15 subordinates and filling in for his supervisor as a temporary medical director overseeing the clinical program. Because this was an informal assignment, the PharmD executive did not have the actual authority to assign tasks to people involved in the clinical program. He had to use influence and interpersonal skills with those involved in the clinical program so the group could work cohesively and meet study milestones. As a result, the PharmD executive was able to turn around a clinical program that was originally three months behind schedule and have the research study completed six weeks ahead of schedule.


When the PharmD executive’s supervisor returned from sick leave, they met so that the executive could update his supervisor on the status of the clinical program. During the meeting, the executive expressed to his supervisor that he was interested in advancing to a medical director position. The recent success of overseeing the clinical program, combined with many years of involvement with the organization’s various clinical development projects, had given the PharmD executive confidence that he was able to perform the role of a medical director. Furthermore, the PharmD executive had been recognized as a high-performing manager in a recent company-wide survey, scoring a 96th percentile rating in positive feedback from subordinates and peers. At one time, he had even received a leadership recognition award from his supervisor.

The supervisor now faced a dilemma. His subordinate with a PharmD degree had been successful in this clinical project in a role that had historically been reserved for MD executives at the company. This success violated the corporate myth that MD candidates were uniquely qualified for managing clinical programs. In the biopharmaceutical industry, other companies had hired non-MD candidates to manage clinical programs, which provided additional evidence that this practice was a corporate myth in this organization.

We do not know whether the supervisor believed that the corporate myth he faced was ‘too big to fail’ or whether the supervisor assumed that his subordinate was unable to ‘handle the truth’ about the company’s hiring practices to these positions. Perhaps the supervisor wanted to spare his subordinate from the disappointment of knowing that the subordinate’s career goal could not be achieved based on organizational history. However, we do know that the approach the supervisor chose was to question his subordinate’s achievements and competence.

First, the supervisor suggested that the company-wide survey for which his subordinate had received a high score was not a valid assessment of leadership. Then the supervisor said that the

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Debriefing the case illustration

The supervisor may have been faced with a corporate myth and a corporate taboo that was beyond his power to alter, but these were not the drivers of this breakdown in the relationship with his subordinate. The supervisor may have lacked the diplomacy skills to have a difficult and honest conversation about the reality of the organization’s corporate culture, but he may also have encountered his own blindspot that subordinates cannot accept a difficult truth. As previously stated, many biopharmaceutical executives assume that their subordinates are incapable of dealing with the truth about their companies, and this blindspot leads executives to withhold information when subordinates often already know the truth.

This was certainly the case with the PharmD executive. He knew that the ‘MD-only’ hiring policy was not going to change, but he wanted to try. He was looking for an honest dialog with his

leadership recognition award that he gave to the subordinate was nothing more than a popularity contest and should have held no weight in the subordinate’s developmental evaluation. Finally, the supervisor said that his subordinate’s recent success with meeting clinical program milestones was no indication that the subordinate could do the job of a medical director or had leadership skills for the role. The supervisor’s response had left his subordinate speechless:

He could have told me that he appreciated what I had accomplished and the leadership that I had provided to the organization, but the reality was that I was not going to become a medical director because I do not have an MD degree, and that he would do everything he could to help me find something for me in this organization. I would have understood his dilemma; after all, I’ve been with this company for eight years. Instead, he made it all a very negative experience.


supervisor about his career ambitions and to gain some feedback or advice on how he could continue growing with the company. The executive would accept from his supervisor a gesture that showed his supervisor’s willingness to work with him in finding development alternatives. However, instead of an honest dialog or genuine concern and a display of effort to find alternatives, the supervisor undermined his own managerial leadership by negating his subordinate’s achievements and questioning his competence.

One of the ways that biopharmaceutical executives can uncover their own blindspots and learn how to challenge their own assumptions is by working with an objective outsider or a mentor. Executive coaches can be especially helpful for executives to identify their blindspots and assumptions. Working with coaches can become a critical need if the executive’s behaviors and blindspots are causing managerial problems down the reporting hierarchy (see Chapter 3).

Conclusion

The biopharmaceutical industry is a knowledge-intensive environment. For a biopharmaceutical company, intellectual assets are critical to its competitive advantage and long-term survival. Developing intellectual capital by developing employees drives the creation of intellectual assets in a biopharmaceutical organization. However, the process by which capability development occurs is still mainly through managerial roles that are occupied by executives at each level of the biopharmaceutical organization.

Executives who choose management roles become intimately involved in the operations of their organization and accomplish objectives that they otherwise cannot attain as individual contributors. Developing people can be personally satisfying to executives: one executive in this study described how much he enjoyed watching ‘people’s eyes light up’ when he mentors them. Executives who benefited from mentoring and coaching during their professional careers may want to develop others as part of reciprocation or ‘giving back.’ Developing people can be a part of the biopharmaceutical executive’s professional legacy in his industry, where he can help shape the future of his company and ultimately

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leave an impression in his industry. One of the executives in this study was part of his company’s overseas research program initiative where he helped establish a multi-disciplinary research program in Ireland. The program became part of an early effort to develop the country’s life science industry.

Regardless of a biopharmaceutical executive’s managerial level, he must continually challenge his assumptions and cultivate his self-awareness. Executives in this study have used different approaches in developing their managerial leadership, and have drawn leadership lessons from both their personal and professional lives. They are consistent in their commitment to develop themselves and to develop their people. Many executives view this commitment to develop people as one of the most rewarding aspects of their managerial leadership.

Chapter summary

The biopharmaceutical executive honors his commitment to develop people by recognizing that development and growth are important tasks in his managerial leadership, by formulating growth plans with his subordinates and following through on those plans, and by continuously developing his own capabilities in his managerial role. We cannot assume that biopharmaceutical executives naturally ‘know’ how to develop people; executives in this study had gained their ‘people development’ skills through a variety of ways including professional and personal experiences.

If the biopharmaceutical executive wants to be effective in developing people, he must believe that people have the ability to grow and that he has a role as a partner in their growth. The executive must then consistently assess the progress of his people’s development to ensure that growth is occurring as intended. Executives in this study offer seven ways to develop people and often use a combination of these approaches: funding education and professional programs, arranging for peer-to-peer mentoring, providing coaching to individuals, creating infrastructure for training and professional development, sponsoring team-building events, administering competency or psychometric assessments, and using ‘stretch goals’ that push individuals out of their comfort zones.


Whatever the chosen mechanism, the biopharmaceutical executive must be consistent in his developmental approach, and explain the rationale of his approach to subordinates so they know what to expect. He may want to explain the purpose of a developmental activity and the data or content (such as an assessment test) that is related to the activity, to identify growth targets and action items from those targets, to invite discussion from subordinates, and to follow up with a subsequent meeting to track progress.

Biopharmaceutical executives who are managers-once-removed (the managers’ managers) play a critical part in helping these new managers navigate in a more complex role, by directly providing guidance and/or providing their managers with training programs for the new role. Four types of awareness that biopharmaceutical executives must help their new managers develop are an awareness of their own knowledge or competency gaps in their new role, an awareness of whether there may be modeled behaviors from their past experiences that may be counterproductive in their new managerial role, an awareness of the assumption that the development approaches that worked for them may work for all their subordinates, and an awareness of individual subordinates’ tolerance for risk when using ‘stretch’ goals to grow them.

Field-based employees pose an interesting challenge to biopharmaceutical executives, and the development of medical science liaisons (MSLs) in particular provide executives with key lessons in developing field-based employees and managing virtual teams. First, the executive needs to know how his subordinates view their roles in the bigger picture of their career paths. Next, the executive should determine whether growth or advancement may require the subordinates to relocate. Third, the executive may assess whether subordinates’ job titles may be ‘inflated’ or inaccurate, for example by giving subordinates ‘manager’ job titles but not giving them actual managerial authority (to assign tasks to others and manage people’s performance). Finally, the executive may need to evaluate the influence of peer pressure or social conditioning in the subordinates’ choice of career paths.

Biopharmaceutical executives can develop their own leadership competence through a variety modes, including formal education, professional development programs, ‘on-the-job’ learning, coaching

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and mentoring, self-directed study in leadership behaviors, extracurricular activities, and ‘special projects’ that give the executive recognition and visibility as a leader both within and outside his organization. The key to the biopharmaceutical executive’s continual development is to manage his blindspots, so that they do not interfere with the executive’s managerial leadership. The executive needs to have in place an ‘early warning’ system that could alert him to the presence of blindspots and have the skills to best respond to the situation.




In your current role, what employee development activities •are you explicitly responsible for (as part of your job description)? What are your specific accountabilities for each activity? For example, if your role requires you to mentor and coach new subordinates, what are the milestones of your mentoring and coaching activity?What types of feedback are you expected to solicit as part of •your performance evaluation? How would you use this feedback to assess and adjust your behaviors and performance?What internal and external training or professional •development activities are you expected to participate in – or contribute to?If your current role requires you to work from your •professional career development plan, what key milestones have you established to make sure that your progress is on track?



What types of feedback are your subordinates expected to solicit •as part of their performance? How would you use this feedback to assess and adjust their behaviors and performance?What developmental areas have you identified at the level of •individual subordinates (whether they are individual contributors or managers) that have an effect on their ability to work autonomously?What developmental areas have you identified at the level of •individual subordinates (whether they are individual contributors or managers) that have an effect on their ability to work cohesively and as a team unit?Based on your above responses, what are your next actions? •

III: Trust

How much do your subordinates trust you in their career •development? How do you know? Give examples of specific feedback or quotes from subordinates that indicate the level of trust you have stated.What activities have you participated in, either as a sponsor •or as a participant, which had the most success in building trust among members of your team? What activities had the most success in building trust between your team members and you?How will you know when a trust-building activity is not •generating the outcome that you desired (for example, the activity is creating competition instead of cooperation between team members)?


What developmental activities or professional/personal •experience have you identified that may improve your ability to make decisions or take actions amid uncertainty?

Development 145

What developmental activities or professional/personal •experiences have helped you remain effective in the face of tension, confrontation, or a highly emotive situation?What developmental gaps have you identified at the level of •your subordinates that relate to their ability to remain effective amid uncertainty? How will you address these gaps?What developmental gaps have you identified at the level of •your subordinates that relate to their ability to remain effective in the face of tension, confrontation, or a highly emotive situation? How will you address these gaps?


What developmental activities or professional/personal •experiences have you identified that may improve your ability to balance short-term focus with long-term thinking?What developmental activities or professional/personal •experience have you identified that may improve your subordinates’ ability to balance short-term focus with long-term thinking?What developmental milestones or growth metrics can you •establish for the above to ensure that progress is occurring? How will you know when you may need to modify or adjust your approach?How do you identify potential blindspots in your leadership •role, i.e. ‘not knowing that you do not know,’ or how will you uncover where your potential blindspots may hide?

VI: Communication

Do you have a consistent way of communicating your intent, •process, and expectations relating to leadership development for your subordinates?


What method or platform of communication have you •identified to work best (in a group, one-on-one, in a role-play or simulation) when building trust, creating team cohesion, or improving effectiveness amid uncertainty/tension?What developmental gaps have you identified, both within •your team and within yourself, which relate to competence in expressing clearly, to scale, and with the intended result (whether this is verbal, non-verbal, or written)?What developmental activities can you sponsor and •participate in that can improve the current capabilities in this area?


What developmental areas have you identified within your •team that may have a direct effect on current actual capability (effect on performance)?What developmental areas have you identified within your •team that may be important in building future capability (effect on potential)?What developmental areas have you identified within your •own leadership competencies that may have a direct effect on your current actual capability (your performance)?What developmental areas have you identified within your •own leadership competencies that may be important in building your future capability (your potential)?Do you have a method of initiating dialog with subordinates – •formally or informally – that allows you to be consistent in the conversations you have about their development? (Look at the section on the consistency of process in development in this chapter as an example.)What assessment tools do you have that can provide •additional information that you can use to create an effective development plan?Based on your above responses, what actions will you take •next?

6

Self-concept as ‘leader’

Abstract. Biopharmaceutical executives may come to realize themselves as having leadership qualities through their managerial roles in their organizations or through their personal roles in life. The leadership self-concept may have an internal locus where the executive’s personal identity, mission, or values and ideals guide the executive in using his managerial role to fulfill these leadership aspirations. Executives with an external locus of leadership self-concept may not have identified themselves as leaders until they join a biopharmaceutical organization where they begin to develop their leadership self-awareness through managerial roles. Leadership self-concept, commitments, and competencies collectively create experiences of leadership for the biopharmaceutical executive in his organization.

Keywords: self-concept, awareness, self-identity, ideals, internal locus, external locus, managing up, managing laterally, blindspots, organization structures

Introduction

How or when does a biopharmaceutical executive become aware that he ‘is a leader’ or ‘has leadership qualities’? Even though the origin of the executives’ self-identification or ‘self-concept’ as a leader was not specifically sought in this study, the emergence of this as a major categorical theme suggests the importance of this self-awareness in executives’ leadership development. Leadership


self-concept gives the biopharmaceutical executive the idea of behaviors and beliefs that ‘make him a leader’ and guide his choices and decisions. Leadership self-concept therefore helps executives gain insight into their beliefs about leadership and the drivers of their managerial style.

Origin of leadership self-concept

The types (subcategories) of executives’ self-concept as leader in this study were ‘internal locus of leadership self-concept’ and ‘external locus of leadership self-concept.’ Biopharmaceutical executives with an internal locus of leadership self-concept formed their leadership identities from their own constructed ideals of ‘what leadership should look like.’ Biopharmaceutical executives with an external locus of leadership self-concept formed their leadership identities from the managerial roles they held in their organizations.

For example, one executive saw himself as a ‘change agent.’ For this executive, ‘being a leader’ means championing the changes that can make the company more competitive and even advance the way the biopharmaceutical industry operates. No matter what managerial role this executive may hold, his self-concept as a leader is based completely on his self-identification as a ‘change agent.’ This executive has an internal locus of leadership self-concept.

Another executive with an internal locus of leadership self-concept is adept at growing himself and growing his subordinates in their managerial roles. This executive has a strong sense of himself as a leader, states that he ‘loves to lead,’ and has set his five-year growth plan to become the chief executive officer of a biopharmaceutical company. He said that the CEO position would allow him to operate a company the way that he envisions a biopharmaceutical should be operated. This executive exhibits many of the leadership competencies within each of the three commitments.

One executive in this study with an external locus of leadership self-concept looks at the behaviors that are most important for a manager at a particular level, and acts according to what he perceives as most important. The executive has become a biopharmaceutical

Self-concept as ‘leader’ 149

company CEO since his participation in this study. Like his peers with an internal locus of leadership self-concept, this executive exhibited many of the leadership competencies within each of the three commitments described in the previous chapters. However, his leadership self-concept was guided primarily by the managerial roles he held within the organization.

Another executive with an external locus of leadership self-concept views himself as ‘the grease’ that allows his subordinates to get work done. This executive tends to err on the side of ‘giving people more information than they need versus not giving them enough information’; this is to avoid mistakes or the anxiety that stems from ignorance. Much of this executive’s emphasis is on meeting the needs of his organization and his people. When the executive describes his leadership experiences, his descriptions emphasize the needs of subordinates and the organization and the resources or environment necessary to meet the needs of a specific objective. This is in contrast with an executive who may view his position in the industry as part of a personal identity that guides his managerial style.

Leadership self-concept in executives’ managerial awareness

The purpose of understanding this theme is to give executives another way of becoming self-aware as managerial leaders. Furthermore, this theme can give executives information about potential blind spots that they may have in their managerial roles.

For example, biopharmaceutical executives who have an external locus of leadership self-concept may base most of their leadership experiences on how they are perceived within their organization. Since these executives’ self-concept as a leader can be too reliant on other people’s opinions, they may want to pay attention to the following:

‘ • Managing down.’ If the executive has subordinates who are managers, then he has to pay attention to his managers’ subordinates, who are then subordinates-once-removed (SoR)


and the executive becomes the manager-once-removed (MoR) as defined in Elliott Jaques’ management terms (Jaques and Clement, 1994). Depending on the culture and work environment, the MoR–SoR relationship can be important to the sustained productivity of functional teams and to the stability of functional teams during tumultuous times at the organization.‘ • Managing laterally and managing up.’ When the bio-pharmaceutical executive is heavily focused on his team or is spending most of his time ‘with his people,’ he may overlook his supervisors (chief executive officers) and internal stakeholders (peer-level executives). Spending time with his chief executives and internal stakeholders will ensure that the executive has continued support for his work with his team.

On the other hand, biopharmaceutical executives with an internal locus of self-concept as a leader may base the majority of their leadership experience on their ‘self-identity’ or personal mission. Since these executives’ self-concept as a leader may not always be compatible with others’ self-identity or mission, they may want to pay attention to the following:

‘ • Managing up.’ When the biopharmaceutical executive is narrowly focused on his self-identity or personal mission, he may be viewed as unyielding, difficult, or a person who disregards the chain of command when lobbying for support for his mission. His uncompromising values may cause tension, and his strong opinions about ‘how things should be done’ may be viewed as intimidating to others who may hold different opinions. The executive needs to gain support from his supervisors in a way that is consistent with their expectations rather than through surprise or stepping over the chain of command.‘ • Managing laterally.’ When the biopharmaceutical executive has a strong and visible stance on how the way the company should operate, he may risk overlooking the effects of his direct statements on other peer-level executives. For example, if an executive states ‘market research is useless’ (as one has done, described in an earlier chapter of this book), he may offend


marketing executives whose deliverables rely on market research. The executive does not need to compromise his values or feign his beliefs to effectively manage his peer-level relationships. He need only acknowledge the limitations of the assumptions and still recognize the value of his peers’ contributions to the organization.‘ • Managing down.’ When the biopharmaceutical executive works with subordinates, he must ensure that they know how to approach him with different and dissenting opinions. Since subordinates may recognize that their manager has deep-rooted beliefs about ‘what is right,’ they may not want to risk disagreeing with their manager in case their disagreement is seen as a personal attack on the executive’s values or mission. Biopharmaceutical executives can remain effective with their subordinates by proactively soliciting different opinions in a discussion and view such discussions as a learning opportunity. Subordinates can quickly tell when their executives have a genuine desire to hear different points of view by their executives’ responses to lively debate.

The purpose of understanding the biopharmaceutical executive’s ‘self-concept as a leader’ is not to suggest that one locus of leadership self-concept would create ‘a better leader’ than the other. On the contrary, this study’s data already showed that executives from either phenotype could effectively serve their managerial roles in their organization and advance in their careers. By developing this self-awareness and managing associated blindspots, the executive can be an effective managerial leader regardless of how or when they came to view themselves as a leader.

Role of structure in managerial leadership

Let’s consider the current organizational structures that produce scientists and physicians – the academic institutions, research laboratories, and healthcare facilities. These organizational structures are the training ground for those who would make the transition


into the biopharmaceutical industry and hold managerial positions. Those who have worked successfully within one type of organizational structure, for example a teaching hospital, have developed competencies that supported their success in that organizational structure.

Success within one type of organizational structure does not guarantee success within another, for example when a medical executive at a teaching hospital is hired to an executive function in a start-up biopharmaceutical organization. Similar considerations may be made for organizational structures that produce other types of professionals who can take leadership positions in biopharmaceutical organizations, such as sales and marketing professionals and legal professionals. Those executives who thrive in one type of organization structure and who have the authority to create organization structures in a biopharmaceutical company may impose metrics and expectations that may not be sustainable in the long term given the complex demands of the biopharmaceutical business.

One executive in this study who sees himself as a ‘change agent’ and has an internal locus of leadership self-concept realized that he can thrive best when in a start-up environment where he has expanded managerial authority and where decision-making is more flexible. However, the executive also misses having many of the co-workers and subordinates that are characteristic of a large organization with many employees. When the executive worked in a large organization, he found that his ability to serve as a change agent was often thwarted by having to go through several management layers, and yet these layers at the same time provided reinforcement of his leadership identity by giving him access to internal colleagues and subordinates who recognized his leadership qualities. The executive is therefore bridging the gap of reinforcement that he needs by becoming more active in external leadership activities.

Executives whose leadership self-concept comes primarily from their managerial roles or a larger self-identity may find the type of organizational structure they work in plays a major role in their effectiveness as managerial leaders. This means an executive who struggles in one type of organization structure may do extremely well in another type. Therefore the assessment of one’s managerial


effectiveness and managerial leadership is not a simple ‘yes or no’ question, just as the development of a biopharmaceutical executive as a managerial leader is not a matter of getting the executive to ‘acquire’ or ‘develop’ competencies. Instead, biopharmaceutical executive leadership is the result of interaction between the components of one’s competencies, commitments, leadership self-concept, and the type of organization that the executive finds himself in.

Conclusion

This theme does not suggest ‘absolutes’; it identifies the source of the most dominant beliefs about leadership in the biopharmaceutical executive. This theme can help the biopharmaceutical executive anticipate potential blindspots in his beliefs about leadership. It may also reveal the relationship between the biopharmaceutical executive’s managerial role and the development of the executive’s managerial leadership: can some biopharmaceutical executives’ development as managerial leaders be primarily determined by their role? Can one managerial role allow a biopharmaceutical executive to blossom into a managerial leader, whereas a different role may render the same executive a problematic supervisor? Do some biopharmaceutical executives appear as ‘misfits’ because there is indeed a ‘mis-fit’ between the executive and the role, where they are not hired to a role that is optimal for their leadership development?

7

Conclusion: a new model of biopharmaceutical executive

leadership

When Clare W. Graves conducted his study of human nature, he did a supplemental study that looked at how groups solve problems if the members of the group assigned to solve the problem were also responsible for organizing themselves for the tasks involved (Cowan and Todorovic, 2005). Group sizes varied from 7 to 15. Researchers looked at how the group members organized themselves and handled the assignment of tasks, how they interacted, and the outcomes of the group’s behavior (whether they solved the problem). Graves found four types of group-based problem-solving based on the type of ‘leadership’ that emerged from the group. These were ‘leadership assumed by authoritarian,’ ‘leadership avoided – taken only when group assigned,’ ‘leadership assumed after fight for power,’ and ‘leadership agreed on after lively discussion of possible approaches.’ This last type of leadership Graves called the ‘revolving type of organizational leader change based on knowledge,’ and occurs when its members ‘express self but not at expense of others’ (versus the fight for power type where members ‘express self for what self desires without shame or guilt’).

Graves found this last group intriguing because of the lively discussion that occurred at the start of the assignment, where members each expressed themselves and wanted to be heard, and debated the merit of the ideas presented in the absence of personal


attacks. The leader then ‘emerged’ as a result of the group’s identification that he was ‘best equipped’ for solving that problem. Yet this emergent leader remained inclusive in terms of presenting ideas and the team working through them. If the leader’s ideas failed, he may or may not have continued to lead. Graves saw this as knowledge prevailing in the choice for leader, and that leadership could change but failure does not become fatal for the person’s membership in the group. Graves called this a ‘revolving leadership’ organization (Cowan and Todorovic, 2005: 117, Exhibit III).

Many of the executives interviewed in this study either exhibited these behaviors or saw this type of dynamic as indicative of true leadership in action. Of course, in their case, they were appointed to their leadership positions, but their effectiveness rested on the fact that not only were they the most capable for their position – so that if they participated in the natural or self-evolving process of Graves’ study, they would still have emerged as the leader – but that their behaviors exemplified ‘express self but not at expense of others.’

While Graves studied the role of human nature in an individual’s understanding of himself and his world, Elliott Jaques studied the role of human nature as it pertains to corporations. A key tenet in Jaques’ (2006) model of ‘requisite leadership’ is the role of human nature and how ‘human nature at work’ (Jaques called this ‘human capability’) is a determinant of the level of management for which the individual is prepared to perform. The success of a corporate employee in his job depends on the level of cognitive complexity that the job demands, and whether the employee is working at that level.Jaques adds a timespan parameter to this level, where individuals at a certain cognitive level can mature toward the next cognitive level, and this maturation in fact is not attributed to gender, race, ethnicity, intelligence quotient (IQ), or educational/social/occupational/economic opportunities. ‘Requisite leadership’ is therefore based on ‘what is required by the nature of things.’

This book supports the idea that ‘leadership’ is a phenomenon created through interdependent and distinct variables in the situation, the person, and the person’s ability to appropriately respond to the situation. ‘Leadership’ is not the result of a ‘list of traits’ and getting

Conclusion 157

a certain score in a psychometric test is no guarantee of leadership behavior, although biopharmaceutical executives may find that lists and tests can be useful tools in their own leadership development. Without a practical framework of commitments, competencies, or conditions for biopharmaceutical executives to express their commitments and competencies, the exploration of ‘leadership’ becomes an abstract and elusive ideal not unlike a Castalian pursuit of Herman Hesse’s Glass Bead Game and renders the study of leadership an abstract and elite exercise.

Peter Drucker (1986) said that the purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer. The biopharmaceutical business operates in an environment where the ‘customers’ are healthcare providers who serve as intermediaries to the patients who use biopharmaceutical products. This has given medical professionals and payers for biopharmaceutical products tremendous power in influencing the biopharmaceutical industry and the competitive positions of companies within a therapeutic market. Even if direct-to-consumer advertising could narrow the gap between biopharmaceutical companies and patients, the industry runs the risk of appearing as a ‘disease-monger’ whose aim is to create diseases or exaggerate the prevalence of a disease in order to sell products to treat them. This would add to the existing concerns regarding conflicts of interest among medical professionals who prescribe biopharmaceutical products but who also earn revenue through consulting and research activities with those biopharmaceutical products.

Marketing and innovation are two functions that sustain biopharmaceutical organizations, where innovation is critical for the long-term viability of the business. As therapeutic innovation is overshadowed by lengthy and costly developmental timeframes, marketing has become a major focus for companies wishing to continue operating. Emphasis on marketing and frequent demands for returns on investment then create pressures on biopharmaceutical executives, who in turn become impatient with the function that appears to deliver results too slow to address quarterly fiscal projections: research and development. Biopharmaceutical executives’ impatience creates pressure on the knowledge workers who are responsible for delivering innovation, but unlike routine manufacturing work, efficiency in


knowledge work does not respond in direct proportion to pressure for efficiency and, in fact, may often result in the opposite effect, where innovation wanes further. This requires biophar-maceutical executives to be trusted stewards of their role and to manage their companies in a way that is sustainable for the business and its employees, as well as earning their place as a partner in healthcare.

Elliott Jaques believed that searching for ‘leadership’ or ‘leaders’ is a futile exercise, because it overlooks the conditions that create the need for leadership behaviors, such as the basic requirements of the managerial role and the structure of that role within the organization. Jaques’ rigorous scientific study of leadership led him to the idea of the ‘requisite organization,’ and with it, ‘requisite leadership’ (Jaques, 2006). Instead of trying to pinpoint personality traits that would supposedly endow a person with ‘leadership abilities,’ Jaques instead questioned the validity of ‘leadership’ in isolation, and found disturbing the ‘debasement’ of managers.

The debasement of managers continues to occur in today’s ‘leadership development’ pop-culture, which tries to separate management and leadership into separate camps as if a company has a group of managers and a group of leaders who are not one and same. Leadership development pop-culture may claim that both groups are important, in case its customers happen to fall under the ‘manager, not leader’ camp, but perpetuates its condescension of ‘managers’ by suggesting that while managers are useful cogs in the organizational machinery leaders are the fuel that gives the organization life and inspiration. Peter Drucker in The Practice of Management (1986) begins by stating that ‘The manager is the dynamic, life-giving element in every business,’ which is followed by the manager’s leadership that transforms resources into production. Drucker does not reduce managers to simple-minded individuals who somehow fall short of the elevated status of ‘leader.’

The study conducted for this book also found singular ideas on ‘leadership’ problematic, and similar to Jaques’ study of leadership (Jaques and Clement, 1994), identified leadership experiences as dependent on variables beyond the executives themselves. In fact, many of the executives interviewed in this book have worked for chief executives who, by popular ‘personality’ standards, appeared

Conclusion 159

to be angry, withdrawn, uncommunicative, antagonistic, and awkward – words that we would never find in a ‘list of leadership personality traits.’ Yet the chief executive officers who easily fall at the far end of the ‘charisma’ spectrum somehow rose to the upper echelons of organizations and were capable of developing productive working relationships with their subordinates. Of course, one may suggest that these CEOs’ successes rested on the ‘leadership aptitudes’ of their subordinate executives who had found a way to ‘draw out the best’ from their chief executives, but this again becomes another attempt to isolate ‘leadership’ into a personality or individual embodiment rather than a phenomenon of interdependent variables that includes the executives themselves.

In the biopharmaceutical industry, the leadership debate goes one step farther, to include subject-matter expertise as part of the equation, and asks who would make a ‘better’ leader – a scientist or a businessman? This question has become relevant since biopharmaceutical organizations are increasingly ‘led’ by CEOs from a business background; these CEOs are now responsible for managing organizations whose viability directly depends on ‘the fruits of innovative labor’ – novel therapeutic products. The reality is that chief executives can severely injure the present viability and future competitiveness of their companies – whether they come from a business background or a scientific background – and to ask which group would make a better CEO would be to assume that a scientific CEO could not build business capacity or a business CEO could not build scientific capacity to best manage their companies. This simplistic reduction of biopharmaceutical leadership in turn distracts us from focusing on the most important question, which is: ‘How do we equip our biopharmaceutical executives at all levels of the organization to become effective managerial leaders?’ What is at stake is not only those who work in biopharmaceutical organizations, but the millions of patients whose lives depend on the products that these organizations produce.

Biopharmaceutical companies operate in a healthcare ecosystem where all the factors of that environment produce unique demands on biopharmaceutical executives. These factors include but are not limited to:


current therapeutic areas represented by diseases; •treatment standards and treatment options for those diseases; •patient demands; •fiscal and operational demands of physicians’ clinical practice; •fiscal and business pressures on biopharmaceutical companies; •regulation of prescription drug development and •commercialization;socioeconomic and cultural drivers of the perception of •biopharmaceutical companies;political powers holding office; •governance of medical professionals and how they should •interact with biopharmaceutical companies;globalization of the biopharmaceutical industry; and •technological advances where patients and physicians are •accessing more healthcare and drug information online.

Being personable, approachable, charismatic, or having effervescent personalities can help an executive, but these traits do not ‘make’ that executive ‘a leader’ in his organization. Future studies of the leadership phenomenon in biopharmaceutical corporations may uncover additional variables that contribute to the ‘leadership experience’ in a biopharmaceutical organization. The organizational structure is one such variable to examine in the development of managerial leadership by biopharmaceutical executives. Regardless of what new variables may emerge or what new competencies may be found to contribute to the biopharmaceutical leadership experience, this still supports rather than refutes the hypothesis that leadership is a phenomenon. ‘Biopharmaceutical leadership’ is therefore a product of the ‘right situation, right time, right person, right behaviors, and right environment/structures.’ In other words, when the right person exhibits the right behaviors in response to the demands of that situation within a particular socioeconomic/cultural environment, ‘leadership’ is a palpable experience for the executives and their subordinates. The executive who makes the right assessment and takes the right action for the right situation at the right time becomes ‘the right person’ for the job and is accepted by his organization as a ‘managerial leader.’

Appendix 1 Executive demographics

Gender Rank* Tenure* Company size**

No. of past companies*

Education*

Male MoR 9 16 4 MD PhD MBAMale MoR 30 50 2 PhDMale M 19 60 4 MBAMale MoR 13 400 0 PhDMale M 12 500 5 MDMale MoR 17 4 000 1 PhD Female MoR 12 9 000 2 PhD DSc Male M 17 11 000 4 PharmD Male MoR 21 28 000 0 PhD Male M 21 100 000 1 PhD Male MoR 20 100 000 0 PhD Female MoR 23 117 000 1 MD

* Rank, Tenure, No. of past companies, and Education are based on executives’ disclosure at the time of the interview and cross-checked with publicly available professional information (official press releases and/or LinkedIn.com profile).

** Company size is represented as estimates (rounded up or rounded down) of 2009 data from Hoovers.com.

Appendix 2 Aggregate descriptions of subjective experiences of

leadership

The ability of the leader to energize a team and set clear 1. directions and objectives – often learned through acting as first-line manager, which makes this an important part of the development track.The ability to convey the value of an idea both to the customers 2. (physicians, patients, other external stakeholders) as well as to the internal stakeholders of the company – usually managers tend to be good at one aspect but not the other.Spending a lot of time with their people and building trust so 3. that managers are able to evaluate and appreciate ideas that come forth from the trenches, since people here are first to detect industry trends and business changes.A strong personal identification as a change agent; a force of 4. change on a mission in industry. Clashes with forces adhering to the status quo were interpreted by the executive to be the result of his demonstration of leadership and were therefore met by resistance.Expression of personal values – standing up for what is right 5. even if unpopular or risky. This executive’s belief that ‘doing the right thing’ would be rewarded was eventually proved to be correct.


Congruence between what one preaches and practices. As an 6. example, executives who preach the importance of innovation need to remove road-blocks to innovation, instead of creating them.Having a baseline competence of industry experience and 7. knowledge – competence in the role itself and not relying primarily on ‘soft skills’ including charisma to compensate for lack in competence in role (because executive had personal experience with such an colleague who severely set back the company even though the person was very likable; his communication skills and charisma masked his incompetence). Credibility and personally gained authority should come in part from one’s subject-matter expertise and competence in role.Being able to customize communication and scale according to 8. audience needs – this came about through the executive’s former journalism training – this would include communication specificity and clarity. This aspect is particularly crucial considering the regulatory filing and submission process. Vague or poor communication can make or break the company by delaying the filing process. An ability to ‘be inspirational’ (get others to move in the direction you want them to move willingly and with enthusiasm), ability to communicate vision and be ‘diplomatic.’Dealing with imperfect facts or an incomplete picture – again, 9. journalism training prepared the executive for this. Being able to navigate tension and remain effective when tension arises between commercial and clinical departments; accepting this type of tension as the nature of the business rather than perceiving it as personal attacks or deliberate antagonism.A subject-matter expert who is driven by innovation and the 10. primary desire to contribute to healthcare and to patients, and who therefore benefits the company.Innate quality or skills (‘nature’ or born with the qualities of 11. leadership) that are then reinforced through formative personal and professional experiences (‘nurture’ or acquiring leadership skills).

Appendix 2 165

Leadership is based on one’s truth-seeking nature as a scientist, 12. first and foremost; this identity as a subject-matter expert becomes a major component of an executive’s leadership identity.A facilitative role whereby the executive enables growth of his 13. people along the management track; listening skills is a requirement of this role as leader.Being a good listener; listening carefully to people so that you 14. can detect cues needed to manage them effectively.An ability to give people autonomy and trust them; a deep level 15. of trust between the leader and team that is built on the executive’s openness and sharing of information so that the team can be most productive and feel ‘settled’ even during turbulent times; paying great attention to people – both subordinates and superiors.Developing an appropriate level of self-confidence and acquiring 16. good coping skills when confronted by those who are unable to manage their own behaviors; remaining professional, calm, and displaying consistency in temperament under pressure; a calming presence to others; exemplary behaviors.Paying close attention to your people by spending time with 17. them and by motivating them for the long term, especially given the nature of the biopharmaceutical business; recognizing that people must deliver products that are relevant in the distant future.A facilitative, ‘grease the wheels’ process where the executive 18. creates the environment for optimal performance for people to work in, and then letting people do their jobs.Leadership skills can be learned and can be grounded in simple 19. and consistent actions, such as greeting people in the office every day.A high degree of self-awareness of what one knows and doesn’t 20. know, so that the executive can act accordingly to hire talent and fill competency gaps.A willingness to grow into the leadership position and be out 21. of the comfort zone.


A willingness to tell the truth to people and hold tough 22. conversations with them.An inclusive approach where people are given an opportunity 23. to interact with the executive, valuing the expertise and knowledge that people contribute.Working effectively in an environment with increasing 24. complexity, when information is lacking and decisions need to be made, or, when there is too much information that is dumped on the executive daily, being able to identify and pick out relevant information and ignore the rest.Stretching and growing people are key leadership activities, 25. knowing where people want to go so you can take them there, challenging people with difficult tasks to make achievement more rewarding.Strong sense of self-awareness that the executive IS a leader, 26. that he LIKES to lead, and that he MUST work in a leadership position with others; clearly defining his leadership roles (setting the course of action) and for his team members (carrying out the tasks); recognizing that he has hired very bright people and therefore invites their opinions and views this as a learning opportunity.Being able to clearly define the expectations (or expected roles) 27. of his people, and being able to tailor communication at the appropriate level of detail for them. In this case, he has four distinct expectations as a manager and can communicate these clearly to his people: being able to help people repeat the desired performance and learn for themselves how to avoid poor performance; giving them the autonomy to learn from their experience rather than intervening in their tasks.Coaching people through the problem so that they learn to 28. become better thinkers and can solve their own problems rather than spoonfeeding them the answer or using it as an opportunity to show off how much you know.Balancing time working with people in the field with time being 29. visible to internal stakeholders; spending time at corporate headquarters especially during initial period of transition into management.

Appendix 2 167

Continually developing one’s own leadership skills, being 30. interested in the topic of leadership, reading books and attending workshops and seminars.Being collaborative – asking people’s opinions and learning 31. from their experiences as a way to build good working relationships and trust.‘Street smarts’ learned from growing up in a tough neighborhood 32. have given one executive skills when dealing with people, especially those with more experience and tenure than him but are now reporting to him.Training the next generation of scientists and preparing 33. researchers to acclimate to work in the biopharmaceutical industry; encouraging them to be collaborative and talk to each other.Continually developing oneself by being receptive to the 34. available leadership development programs and courses and using 360-degree multi-source feedback to identify own learning gaps.Self-confidence as a leader, rather than harboring false confidence 35. and coming across as arrogant; trusting yourself so that you can trust others, rather than being suspicious of everyone’s motives or demanding absolute control (micromanaging).Balancing visionary thinking with building infrastructure that 36. allows daily tasks to be done in a productive and safe manner; cited an executive he worked for who was visionary but ignored the creation of policies that would direct the subordinates’ activities in a post-lawsuit environment.

Appendix 3 Sample interviewee descriptions

for ‘presence’

‘I’ve been through six major integrations, and through each of those I’ve had to form new units of people or build new teams after combining organizations – and this requires 24/7 attention to people.’

‘Another reason why executives withhold information is that they do not have a trusted group of individuals with whom they talk, and that is why a leader must absolutely – ABSOLUTELY – focus on their people so that they can build this environment of trust.’

‘I worked for a CEO who was a visionary but he wasn’t a communicator on a daily basis. He didn’t tap people in the corridor; he didn’t walk into offices to ask about your weekend.’

‘One of the good examples that always comes up is that the leader of the organization comes in in the morning and one of the first things they do is go in and say hi to everybody.’

‘Listening well is probably one of the most important attributes of a leader; assuming things and hearing what you want to hear as opposed to really listening and hearing.’


‘In cases when an idea that has come up from the ground has been squashed versus one that made its way to the top and implemented – I think many of those – why it worked, why it didn’t work – were the direct result of leaders investing their time, energy, attention, and knowledge and resources to support that idea and individual.’

‘More than the tools, it’s having someone who is there and who is looking out for your interests; this is where a lot of people fail and get frustrated because they don’t really understand what’s going on and no one is around to lead them through it.’

‘In my meetings with the executive team and the CEO, I would elect to pass down that communication two to three layers below me through notes, and then I would follow up with conversations to capture about five layers at once through that communication.’

‘I think that in companies where relationships matter more, where perception counts more than true performance, when a company talks about how you do things over what you actually do and how productive you are, those are the companies that will be in bigger difficulties because of the fact that they are relying upon relationships.’

‘I had a gut feeling that he wasn’t going to be a good leader when I first saw him present for a session at the company meeting. This was part of a larger developmental meeting for the company, and the session was supposed to be inspirational. This was where he should tell us what a great pipeline the company has, and that we are still working for a good company. Instead, he got up and gave a dry presentation. He was just not inspiring or dynamic. He focused too much on the details and on the data.’

‘I need to synthesize a copious amount of information into a simple, understandable story that my CEO understands, or that the regulators can understand, or that our investors can understand, or that people in the sales department can understand. This is an under-appreciated skill for many pharmaceutical executives.’

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‘This means understanding the business – and the business pressures on the CEO – and then communicating the results they want to see from your organization.’

‘For one of my first projects, I walked into my boss’s office, showed him the data, and told him that the project wasn’t going to work. My boss became very upset and said that he hated when people walked into his office with problems without proposing a solution.’

Appendix 4

Sample interviewee descriptions for ‘stewardship’

‘We used to spend months talking about how difficult it is to be a modern-day executive with so much information coming in from so many different sources, you have to read huge amounts of material every day – the medical journals, business journals, financial – but we don’t live in a perfect world (it’s an imperfect chaotic world), you can’t tie everything up in a nice little box with a ribbon … You have to cherry-pick information and take the best information you can; just my inbox this morning – there was so much information.’

‘I may not agree with everything my people are saying but chances are there is a middle ground between the two of us that is the right path to take. Sometimes you have to say no, this is how we’re going to do it, because you know something they don’t. I value people around me and pick people who are bright and intelligent and if I don’t ask them for their opinion then I’m a fool.’

‘I set the sail of the boat to go in a direction – the team was the one who decided on how we would write [the regulatory document], the theme of it, the message of it. I just led that process. I could have done it myself but it would have been a far inferior document.’


‘This person had very good soft skills and was close to the CEO’s ear; he was put in his position as president of the company and the company’s clinical trial was basically declared non-GCP because this guy didn’t even have the basic experience of a clinical monitor. People can rise to executive ranks without having a basic level of knowledge and experience that you gain by being in the business for ten years or so. So you can get an executive at a biotech company without having enough experience to lead!’

‘I just want to solve a problem and move on; time goes on and you realize that you couldn’t solve a lot of these problems; some were set aside until more information came in, or you no longer needed to solve them right away because you moved onto other priorities. You just have to get comfortable with it – it’s like ... You know what, sometimes you just have to take a “B+” and that’s just how it is. Sometimes you even have to take a “C”, but you have to move on.’

‘I always believed in the concept of courageous following. I have often worried about people who never argued with me, who took what I had to say and just accepted it as it was. Now I may argue with them, but it is in the spirit of making sure we look at both sides of the situation and then take the progress forward.’

‘People work with me but not for me. Yes, they’re reporting through me, but I’m not signing their paycheck, I’m not Mr [name of company] and not even our CEO signs the paychecks! That comes from another part of the organization. So you have to understand you’re a part of a big organization and your role is as important as anybody else’s; it doesn’t matter where you are in the reporting structure. That’s how you lead an organization; you help people understand that their job is as important as anybody else’s. Good managers know this is the case. If one person in your group has lousy data, or fabricates it, and doesn’t do the experiments well, the house of cards falls down.’

‘What I try to give my direct reports is give them enough authority so they don’t have to call and ask for permission; I used to tell my former boss that I am not going to ask for permission, I’m going to ask for forgiveness. I got some managers who would interact with

Appendix 4 175

me and are autonomous. Then I have some who need constant affirmation and I have to keep telling them how smart they are. Then I have some managers who don’t take initiative at all, and these are the ones whose departments shrink from 30 people to two. You have to use your expertise to do something valuable.’

‘There are the powers that one has as a result of a position you are appointed to, and then there is the power one has by the way that one behaves; it is an informal power and it can be equally as influencing. It makes you feel great to have that informal power … that influence you have to get people to agree that things could be better or that things could be different, and that people like me understand and that I am there to help them and guide them.’

‘Managers must understand the objectives and set very clear direction for the team. If you have the wrong objectives or the wrong direction – it all falls apart; if the objectives are clearly unattainable or unrealistic – it falls apart.’

‘Clear direction needs to come from the top and hopefully the company (in many cases) is going in the right direction. If the company isn’t veering in the right direction then it doesn’t really matter about aligning the team with objectives. It’s incumbent upon the managers to have some input to senior management with regard to that direction and even with respect to the practicality. There’s no way you can energize a team if the manager himself is not clear about the direction, or if the manager believes that the direction is off-base.’

‘When I got to the company, I realized that there were a lot of things that should have been done years ago but were not yet done; one was infrastructure: the group had been working for two years without any operating procedures. The company was operating under a consent decree! The executive was visionary and strategic but overlooked these gaps internally.’

‘This is what I’ve always said to my guys … I’m just grease. You guys do the work. My job is to make sure you have the resources, the tools, the capabilities to get the job done.’

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‘When I got there I saw immediately what the problem was … there was absolutely no structure, there was no direction, there was no coaching … When I first met my sales team I spent a half an hour talking about field coaching reports before someone raised his hand to ask, ‘What’s a field coaching report?’ I knew then that I was going to have some challenges. The department went from having absolutely zero direction, no manager spending time with them, no coaching, and no expectations – to having me. It was a huge adjustment for them.’

‘When I first applied for a job with a contract research organization, they sat me down and gave me a writing test; I had to write a case report, and I thought that was a great thing to do! Biopharmaceutical companies today assume that you have all the training you need, and they assume wrong. Today companies can pay huge settlements because their employees work in ways that didn’t even reflect company policy – and they wrote things that got the company in trouble. Companies will ignore it at their peril.’

‘You need to know what problems your people have and help them solve them. I always found myself as a roadblock remover. My job is to make sure that the people who are the heart and soul of the company – people who get the jobs done – they can do their jobs without roadblocks. Unfortunately, companies set up roadblocks because it was convenient and because the legal people come in to demand this SOP and that SOP ... the people at the bottom are so completely burdened with so much junk yet the lawyers can walk around smiling, thinking that they did something. So I think if you are going to be a great leader you have to understand your people, you’ve got to understand the business, and you’ve got to understand the problems your people have and you’ve got to help them figure out a way to make it better.’

Appendix 5 Sample interviewee descriptions

for ‘development’

‘If I don’t know where that person wants to be, then I can’t take them there. If people are happy and they grow, then they will perform well for you. I think the more educated and ambitious they are the better it works – my style of management is not very effective for people who just want to sit where they are – so that is a weakness of mine.’

‘So I would have a scientist who is very good in clinical science and I had her work on filing a new drug application (NDA), so now she has to work a bit of regulatory as well for us to be successful. She didn’t think she could do it, but with a lot of coaching and encouragement – I personally coached her – she managed to do that.’

‘Medical school teaches you nothing about managing people – it teaches you how to be a doctor. When I came to the United States, I worked for a CEO who had a marketing background. I did not understand what he was doing to me until I took one of the management courses through the MBA program I enrolled in at the time, and then I realized he was using a ‘stretch goal’ approach with me. For a physician, an MBA education is very important, because no one teaches you about business.’

‘I had a boss in Boston and first day I knew the job wasn’t going to go well was when he drew a chart on his white board and he said to me: “People reach their potential then they can’t go any farther.”’


‘I think building the talent pipeline is critical as well. To gain this competency it requires the manager to spend his time with each member of his team to identify areas of development so at the end of the day the ideas that you want to capture from that individual are not just for today’s job but for tomorrow’s job as well. Building the talent pipeline is especially important for people with management responsibility.’

‘The reality of anybody at any leadership level has to do with self-inventory in terms of their leadership skills. To anticipate and expect that people are firing on all cylinders on all attributes of leadership is a little bit naive.’

‘I feel that a scientist can make a great leader provided they have some assessments done beforehand for their competencies – you’ll know who has a hard-line scientific bent versus those towards more general thinking.’

‘Through very careful management and making sure people are self-aware of their strengths and abilities and weaknesses; when they are put through the right training and given the right kind of feedback and the right kind of experiences – scientists can do extremely well in a management role.’

‘We will put them through assessment tools to make sure we understand what kind of a leader they can be and what their preferences are; for example, are they an extraverted individual? Do they prefer to be in the office all the time? Do they see the big picture in terms of company focus or do they really want to focus in only one area? What are their natural leading personalities? One of the major steps for manager development is really to ensure that they become self-aware.’

‘You need to go through some challenges in your career and life, and you need to know that you can overcome them; through that along with other factors, you gradually build your confidence up. One important parameter or advice I try to give to people is the notion

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‘My worst bad leader story was a CEO who said all the words about empowerment but meant none of them and the worst thing he would say was, ‘I need to manage your weaknesses’, and I had a visceral reaction to that – he said it to everybody – because it never allowed anyone room for growth.’

‘I’ve worked with three very different CEOs – none of the three ever compensated their style for others. So my experience is that you have to get yourself to a level of confidence in the pharma industry to survive, where you are confident in your ability to get past things and to work with others. You don’t find around you others who are very compromising or helpful in their style being modified to work with others.’

‘I sincerely believe in personal leadership, that’s why I don’t think you can inspire others unless you can lead yourself; no one will believe you if you don’t believe in yourself and that you are doing the right job.’

‘It’s getting people to know what they don’t know. The people who know that they don’t know will attract and bring in people to do stuff and not try to do it all themselves. It’s about being comfortable in being asked questions that you don’t know the answer to. It’s not easy. It all comes down to the old “self-awareness”: what am I not good at, and am I willing to try to fix that or learn it?’

‘I don’t like ruling with fear and intimidation because with scientists, that won’t work. I have to challenge them everyday. I would tell them ‘you are a smart person, so why did you screw up? If I have to do your thinking for you, why do I need you? I can just hire a bunch of technicians to do this job.’

‘I’ve worked with a lot of young scientists in both verbal and written skills – and half of them are competent but the other half need a lot of help with that. You have to find a mentor.’

References and further reading

Cowan, Christopher C. and Todorovic, Natasha (eds) (2005) The Never Ending Quest: Dr. Clare W. Graves Explores Human Nature. Santa Barbara, CA: ECLET Publishing.

Creswell, John W. (1998) Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Drucker, Peter F. (1967) The Effective Executive. New York: HarperCollins.

Drucker, Peter F. (1986) The Practice of Management. New York: HarperCollins.

Gilad, Benjamin (1996) Business Blindspots: Replacing Myths, Beliefs and Assumptions with Market Realities. Calne, Wiltshire, England: Infonortics Ltd.

Gilad, Benjamin (2004) Early Warning: Using Competitive Intelligence to Anticipate Market Shifts, Control Risk, and Create Powerful Strategies. New York: AMACOM.

Hesse, Hermann (1943) The Glass Bead Game. New York: Picador.Humes, James C. (2002) Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln.

New York: Prima. Jaques, Elliott (2006) Requisite Organization: A Total System for Effective

Managerial Organization and Managerial Leadership for the 21st Century. Baltimore, MD: Cason Hall.

Jaques, Elliott and Clement, Stephen D. (1994) Executive Leadership: A Practical Guide to Managing Complexity. Arlington, VA: Blackwell.


Steiner, Rudolf (1964) The Philosophy of Freedom: The Basis of a Modern World Conception, trans. Michael Wilson. Forest Row, E. Sussex, England: Rudolf Steiner Press.

Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1998) Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Toogood, Granville T. (1996) The Articulate Executive: Learn to Look, Act, and Sound Like a Leader. New York: McGraw-Hill.

accountability, 18, 62, 69, 72, 76,

79–81, 94, 96–100, 104, 143actions, 4, 8, 15, 24, 30–1, 37, 49,

59, 81, 90, 99, 106, 144, 146, 165

antagonism, 25–6, 49, 60, 164anxiety, 47, 60, 111, 149assessments, 105–6, 118, 138, 152,

160tools, 30, 113–14, 146, 180

assumptions, 19, 57, 79, 120, 125, 133, 136–7, 140–2, 151

attention, 19, 44, 54, 58, 75, 83, 93, 169–70see also pay attention

audience, 4, 12, 17, 28, 50, 61, 97expectation, 28, 51needs, 8, 10, 29, 35, 164

authority, 59, 69–70, 72, 79–80, 93, 95, 99, 108, 130, 137, 152, 164, 174

autonomy, 12, 17, 20–4, 29, 32, 66, 69–70, 72, 98, 165–6

availability, 36–7, 47, 63, 67–8

barriers, 92, 109behavior, 8, 15, 18, 22, 26–7, 32,

42–3, 46, 59, 70, 90, 92, 98,

100–1, 105, 114, 122–3, 127, 143–4, 148, 156, 165see also leadership behaviorethical, 91illegal, 82unethical, 82, 91

biopharmaceutical:business, 21, 77, 86, 91–2, 152,

157, 165see also businesscompany, 3, 5, 29, 38, 46, 48,

71, 77, 88–9, 120, 128, 140, 148, 152, 157, 159–60, 177

see also companyemployees, 29, 40–1, 63–4, 81executives, 1–5, 11–15, 17–19,

21, 23–5, 27–8, 30, 32, 35–44, 46, 54, 60–1, 63–4, 68–70, 76–7, 80–1, 84–6, 90–7, 103–4, 106–9, 111–14, 118–20, 122–6, 128, 130–1, 133–6, 139–43, 147–51, 153, 155, 157, 159–60

see also executiveindustry, 2, 4, 15, 19, 27–8, 32,

40, 47, 50–1, 54, 83, 89, 91, 93, 95–7, 127, 129–30, 135, 138, 140, 148, 152, 157, 159–60, 167

Index


see also industry leadership, 1, 4, 159–60see also leadershiporganization, 2–3, 15, 19–20,

55, 63, 70, 77, 86, 91, 93, 96, 105, 114–15, 119–20, 128, 140, 147, 152, 157, 159–60

blindspots, 30, 37, 136, 139awareness, 136potential, 136, 145, 149, 153

business, 15, 25–7, 29, 36, 51, 54, 59, 71, 79, 86, 95–7, 130–1, 134, 136, 157–9, 163–4, 172, 174, 177, 179blindspots, 136–7see also blindspotsexecutive, 3, 14, 51see also executivepressures, 78, 160, 172

capability, 55, 63, 105–6, 125, 141, 175current, 30, 103–4, 106–7, 111,

114–15, 117–18, 126, 132, 146

development, 140future, 30, 104, 114, 118,

125–6, 131–2, 146gaps, 135

capacity:current, 13, 68, 117, 131future, 13, 68, 125

career:achievement, 128ambitions, 140development, 106, 144dissatisfaction, 131goal, 138image, 53

interest, 105options, 115path, 104, 130–1, 142satisfaction, 126

challenges, 41, 45, 50, 92, 116, 119, 124

change agent, 7, 9, 21, 27, 55, 59–60, 148, 152, 163

chief executive, 3, 18–19, 38, 45, 48, 54, 58, 61, 65, 71–2, 76–8, 80–2, 93, 97, 106, 150, 158–9

chief executive officer (CEO), 45, 53–5, 57–8, 77–8, 104, 106, 134, 148–50, 159, 169–70, 172, 174, 179, 182

clinical development, 54, 78, 86, 88, 135, 138

clinical program, 79, 94, 137–9clinical research organization

(CRO), 40clinicians, 46, 51, 119, 127coaching, 22, 26, 39, 100, 103,

105, 107–9, 111, 120–1, 140–3, 166, 177, 179see also mentoring

codes of conduct, 86–7, 89–91, 99ethical, 86, 97legal, 86policy, 87

cognitive complexity, 58, 104, 156cohesion, 12, 21–2, 44, 66, 98,

144, 146cohesive, 12, 17, 43–4, 70, 79,

112, 137, 144collaborative, 24–5, 32, 92, 167commitment, 1, 6f, 12, 14–15, 35,

41, 43–4, 63–5, 69, 97, 103, 134, 141, 143, 147–9, 153, 157definition of, 11, 13

Index 187

development, 11, 13see also development presence,

11, 13see also presencestewardship, 11, 13see also stewardship

communication, 12, 20, 23, 28–9, 31, 35, 38–9, 54, 56, 60–3, 74, 84–5, 89, 92, 97, 100, 121, 145, 170awareness, 50–3clarity, 8, 10, 29, 164e-mail, 36, 38–9, 63, 65–6, 68non-verbal, 35–6, 54, 64, 66–8,

146oral, 68, poor, 8, 10, 29, 164skills, 18, 21, 28, 50–3, 61, 164specificity, 8, 10, 29, 164teleconferencing, 36, 38, 44, 63vague, 8, 10, 29, 164verbal, 28, 53–4, 64, 66–7, 146,

182videoconferencing, 36voicemail, 36, 38, 66written, 28–9, 53–4, 64–6, 68,

146, 182company:

benefits, 21, 164conduct, 91culture, 108focus, 72, 180founder, 18, 72objectives, 80policies, 65, 87–91, 135, 177see also policiesreputation, 82, 89–90stakeholders, 7, 9, 29see also stakeholders

competence, 1, 6, 7, 10–15, 18–32, 42, 55, 65, 72, 74, 85, 97–8, 105–7, 113, 118, 121, 128, 138, 140, 143, 146–7, 152–3, 157, 160, 164, 180autonomy, 12see also autonomycohesion, 12see also cohesioncommunication, 12, 28see also communicationcultivation, 12definition of, 11–12execution, 12gap, 39, 68, 135, 142, 165growth, 12see also growthqualification, 12, 59role, 20–1, 65, 97, 143steadiness, 12see also steadinesstrust, 12see also trustuncertainty, 12see also uncertainty

competency – see competencecomplexity, 26–8, 60, 91, 96, 166confidence, 19, 23–4, 32, 42, 74,

136, 182see also self-confidence

confidentiality, 81, 84–5, 97conversation, 26, 38–9, 66, 68, 84,

109, 113, 118, 139, 146, 166, 170

corporate:affiliations, 4aims, 69crisis, 24culture, 62, 76, 139


environment, 105, 112gains, 90headquarters, 21, 37, 130, 166meetings, 27, 65myth, 137–9objectives, 30, 48, 80, 82, 93,

99politics, 60, 62, 64stakeholders, 19strategy, 3, 69, 104

cultivation, 30–1, 68, 100, 146cultural factors:

awareness, 64, 68background, 50, 66differences, 67environment, 160norms, 62, 64pressures, 120, 133

customers:external stakeholders, 7, 9, 29,

163patients, 7, 9, 29, 163physicians, 7, 9, 29, 163

decision-making, 70, 72, 74–5, 79, 93–7, 99, 119, 144, 152

degree:medical doctor (MD), 137–9medicine, 5, 128–9PharmD, 5, 137–8PhD, 137science, 5, 128–9

development, 6, 9, 15, 17, 20, 30–1, 103, 106, 109, 113, 117, 119, 124–6, 134–5, 143, 179–80activity, 142–3, 145–6approach, 117, 142challenges, 119–24definition of, 104employee, 104, 110–12, 124, 131

gaps, 145–6opportunities, 110–11path, 126, 133people, 104–7, 114, 124, 140–1personnel, 105, 107, 111plan, 107, 113, 118, 126, 132,

143, 146professional, 54, 107, 110, 115,

119, 133, 141directions, 69, 80–1, 163, 175Drucker, Peter, 157–8

effectiveness, 37, 51, 88, 125, 146, 156

employee:capability, 63, 104conduct, 89, 101development, 75, 104, 110–12,

124, 131expectations, 65, 132growth, 101, 133ideals, 43

empowerment, 80, 106, 182energize, 6, 8, 18, 20, 31, 35, 40–1,

44, 46–7, 63–4, 163, 175engagement, 36, 38, 40, 62–3,

67–8, 80, 88–9, 92, 113enthusiasm, 41, 64, 124, 134, 164ethics, 69, 93, 100execution, balanced, 12, 27–8, 67,

99, 145executive:

ability, 72, 76, 80approach, 50, 103, 113, 115,

126, 142authority, 22, 69, 97awareness, 11, 15, 35, 103,

120–4, 142balance, 19, 21, 28, 68, 84,

96–7, 99, 124, 136

Index 189

behavior, 4, 22, 45, 49, 75, 140belief, 92, 106, 148, 151, 163blindspots, 136–7, 143, 151demography, 161experience, 20, 54, 116, 136openness, 23–5, 165roles, 1–2, 18, 47, 153skills, 17–18, 167

executive interviewee, 4–10executive rank, 1, 3, 93, 174executive vice president (EVP), 3, 104expectation, 11, 15, 20, 23, 28–9,

31, 38, 51, 83, 85, 100, 145, 150, 152, 166, 177

experience, 19–20, 25, 29, 31–2, 51, 79, 137, 166, 174, 180

facts:imperfect, 8, 10, 12, 17, 25–6,

120, 164incomplete, 2, 17, 25, 120

feedback, 31, 37, 39–40, 46, 68, 75, 119, 121–3, 135, 138, 140, 143–4, 167, 180

first-line manager, 4, 6, 9, 20, 22, 31, 44, 104, 110, 119, 129, 163

funding, 107–8, 141

getting work done, 3, 15, 149Gilad, Ben, 14, 136–7good clinical practice (GCP), 18good leader, 50, 92, 170good leadership, 3–5good listener, 39–40, 165Graves, Clare W., 155–6grounded theory, 3–4growth, 12, 30–1, 44, 68, 100,

103, 106–7, 113, 124–6, 142, 146, 165, 182employee, 115

opportunities, 107, 114–15, 132plans, 104, 118, 125, 141, 148self, 30, 148subordinates, 68, 114, 117, 124,

136, 148see also subordinates

healthcare, 2, 19, 21, 40–1, 43, 64, 82, 96, 158–9, 164clinicians, 19market, 89provider, 157scientists, 19

Hesse, Herman, 157Hoff, Larry, 127human resource, 86, 93, 111

issues, 19, 123

ideals, 14–15, 64, 148, 157ideas, 7, 9, 14–15, 35, 47–9, 66,

68, 91, 156, 163, 170incompetence, 21, 83, 135, 164individual contributor, 5, 21–2, 37,

70, 72–5, 81, 88, 105, 113, 119–22, 126, 128–30, 133, 140, 144

industry, 1–2, 19, 40, 46–8, 135, 141, 149, 163see also organizationexperience, 5, 20, 164knowledge, 20, 164mission, 7, 9, 19, 21, 27trends, 25, 163

information disclosure, 81, 84–5, 97infrastructure, 28, 69, 81, 85–9,

91, 97, 100–1, 107, 110, 114–15, 141, 167, 175gaps, 87, 99procedural, 87, 89, 91, 100

innovation, 7, 9, 21, 25, 48, 77, 91, 93, 157–9, 164


inspiration, 66, 68, 158, 164, 170, 182

integrity, 9, 13, 24, 69, 94–5, 97intelligence quotient (IQ), 156intent, 38, 56–8, 61, 145interpersonal skills, 14, 18, 30, 46,

123, 137interview, 1, 4–6, 18, 116

Jaques, Elliott, 3, 15, 26, 42, 58, 104, 150, 156, 158

job satisfaction, 72, 131, 133job security, 84, 91, 111journalism training, 8, 10, 26, 29,

164

key opinion leaders (KOLs), 127knowledge, 19, 30, 83, 107–8,

115, 126, 155–6, 166, 170, 174

leader, 4, 6, 8, 14–15, 20, 23–4, 31–2, 62, 127–8, 135, 143, 147–8, 156, 158–60, 163, 165–7, 169–70, 177, 180

leadership, 1–2, 14, 17–18, 21, 27, 32, 59, 134, 138–9, 148, 153, 155–9, 163, 165, 167, 180behavior, 1, 3–4, 6, 11–13, 15,

20, 30, 68, 143, 157–8see also behaviorcompetence, 17–18, 27, 32, 135,

142, 146–9see also competencedevelopment, 30, 45, 111, 121,

133–4, 145, 147, 153, 157–8, 167

see also developmentexperience, 1, 3–6, 8, 10–11,

14–15, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26,

28–9, 31, 147, 149–50, 158, 160, 163

identity, 13, 21, 148, 152, 165position, 20, 23–4, 31, 152,

156, 165–6presence, 65–8see also presencerole, 18–20, 23–4, 28, 30, 32,

83, 135, 145, 166self-concept, 147–9, 152–3skills, 30–1, 52, 139, 164–5,

167, 180traits, 1–2see also traits

learning opportunity, 20, 23–4, 35, 48, 151, 166

limitations, 106–7, 114–15, 118listening, 39, 52, 169

skills, 40, 63, 68, 165

management, 13, 105, 120, 131, 152, 156, 158, 165–6role, 4, 133, 180

manager-once-removed (MoR), 3–5, 15, 56, 58–9, 63, 74, 76, 120, 126, 142, 150

managerial:authority, 70–2, 76–7, 79–81,

83, 93–4, 96–7, 132–3, 142, 152

effectiveness, 75, 101, 153leaders, 11–12, 15, 17, 51,

56–8, 63, 69, 71, 79, 103, 107, 111, 113, 134, 149, 151–3, 159–60

leadership, 14–15, 41–2, 51, 64, 69–70, 96, 103–4, 108, 134, 136, 140–1, 143, 151, 153, 160

Index 191

see also leadershiprole, 11, 13–15, 17, 22, 37, 50,

53, 60, 62, 70, 72–6, 91, 96, 104, 109, 119–21, 126, 129, 131, 140–2, 147–9, 151–3, 158

style, 46, 64, 73, 75, 117, 148–9, 179

managerial accountability hierarchy (MAH), 3

managers, 2, 5, 7, 9, 15, 20, 22–3, 25–6, 29–31, 37, 39, 48, 55–6, 63–4, 70, 73–5, 80–3, 85, 108–9, 113, 119–21, 123–6, 129–30, 132, 137–8, 142, 144, 148–9, 151, 158, 163

managing-down, 149, 151managing laterally, 150managing-up, 54, 60, 150market research, 78–9, 150–1medical science liaison, 43,

126–31, 133, 142mentoring, 100, 103, 105, 107–8,

120, 131, 134, 140–1, 143see also coaching

mentors, 59, 100, 108, 134, 140, 143, 182

micromanaging, 23–4, 32, 67, 73, 75, 167

mistakes, 37, 51, 76, 106, 110, 122, 149

motivation, 19, 21, 35, 38, 40–3, 45, 47, 64, 68, 81–2, 105, 119, 124, 132–3, 165

new drug application (NDA), 179

objective, 69–70, 80–6, 89–91, 96–7, 105, 140, 163, 175

opportunities, 12, 43, 108, 115, 117, 126, 130–1, 136, 156

organization:see also industrydemands, 2, 12, 17long-term needs, 12, 17stakeholders, 13, 36, 63structure, 151–2, 158, 160turmoil, 36, 79, 85

patients, 19, 59, 79, 96, 127, 157, 159, 163–4

pay attention, 21, 23, 25, 36, 40, 44, 50, 52, 61, 63–5, 67–8, 72, 149–50, 165

peers, 65, 67, 83–5, 91, 93–5, 134, 138, 149, 151colleague, 53, 59, 61executive, 2, 56, 150

people, 19, 21, 23–6, 29, 31–2, 36–9, 45, 47–8, 65–6, 68, 73, 163attention, 21, 23, 25, 93, 169knowledge, 25opinions, 25, 52, 149

perception, 62, 67, 72, 82, 98, 111, 130, 133, 136, 160, 170

performance, 18, 20, 23, 29–30, 32, 68, 70, 74, 92, 104, 110, 117, 119–20, 125–6, 128, 136, 142–4, 170

personal:attack, 123, 151, 156, 164authority, 8, 10, 21, 42, 59experiences, 20, 30–1, 136, 141,

144–5, 164ideals, 13, 41, 59, 82, 147identities, 4, 9, 21, 27, 85, 147,

149, 163


values, 7, 9, 13, 27, 43, 83, 147, 163

perspective, 58, 82, 115, 121physician, 59, 95, 110, 123, 127–9,

134, 151, 160, 163, 179policies, 81, 99, 167

enforcement, 89–90, 97, 100violations, 90–1

presence, 11, 13, 15, 18, 27, 32, 36–9, 40, 47, 63, 66–8, 169contextual, 35–6, 60–1stabilizing, 42, 47, 64

principle investigator (PI), 105 professional, 26, 32, 96, 128, 129,

152, 165experiences, 30–1, 51, 141,

144–5lives, 63, 136, 141

progress, 85, 97, 119, 142–3psychometric assessments, 75, 103,

107, 113, 141, 157public relations (PR), 61

qualitative research, 3, 15

receptive, 36, 116–17, 121, 125regulatory filing, 8, 10, 29, 53, 86,

164relationships, 2–3, 24–5, 45, 73,

108, 129, 139, 150, 153, 159, 167, 170

requirements, 11, 15, 19, 31requisite leadership, 156, 158research and development (R&D),

55, 57, 77–9, 157researchers, 86, 155, 167resource deployment, 72, 85, 96return on investment (ROI), 77role model, 22, 45, 59

sales:executives, 37, 127managers, 37, 121, 129representatives, 110, 121,

127–8, 139scientific background, 2, 19, 42,

51, 128, 159scientists, 37–8, 42–3, 46, 51, 55,

71, 77, 95, 104, 108, 114–15, 119, 123, 151, 159, 165, 167, 179–80, 182

self:awareness, 12, 14–15, 20, 23–4,

30–1, 110, 136–7, 141, 147, 149, 151, 165–6, 180, 182

concept, 1, 6, 14, 148confidence, 23–4, 26, 32, 45,

74, 116, 165, 167see also confidenceidentity, 59, 147–8, 150

self-concept as leader, 1, 6, 12, 15, 147–8, 150–1definition of, 11, 13external locus, 11, 13, 15,

147–9internal locus, 11, 13, 15,

147–9, 150, 152senior vice president (SVP), 3soft-skills, 7, 10, 20, 164, 174stability, 79, 91–2stakeholders:

external, 7, 9, 13, 28–9, 36, 54, 63, 119, 163

internal, 7, 9, 13, 21, 28–9, 37, 61, 65, 67, 74, 115, 150, 163, 166

standard operating procedures (SOP), 89, 177

steadiness, 12, 25–6, 67, 99, 144

Index 193

steward, 69–70, 72, 76, 93, 96stewardship, 11, 13, 15, 69–72, 76,

93, 97, 173stretch-goal, 107, 114–17, 124,

134, 141–2, 179subject matter expertise, 8, 10, 19,

21, 42, 52, 95, 135, 159, 164subject matter experts (SME), 2,

19, 21, 50–1, 93, 123, 135, 164clinicians, 3, 119physicians, 3, 95scientists, 3, 95, 119, 165

subordinates:ability, 70, 85, 89, 97, 136, 145achievements, 138, 140behavior, 22, 92–3, 100capabilities, 68, 104, 106, 126competence, 106, 121, 138development, 105, 108roles, 18, 22, 76, 79, 86, 125

subordinates-once-removed (SoR), 3, 63–4, 149

supervisors, 4, 23–5, 37, 46, 49, 54, 65, 67, 74, 80, 82–3, 94–5, 97–9, 101, 106, 122, 124, 134–40, 150, 153

tasks, 3, 12, 17–24, 29–30, 32, 37, 43, 47, 68, 70, 72, 76, 81, 85–6, 93, 104, 114, 125–6, 141, 155, 166assignment, 72, 81, 96, 119,

130, 132, 155team-building events, 65–6, 79,

107, 111–13, 141

team objectives, 41, 43, 79, 112, 175

tension, 8, 10, 12, 25–6, 67, 99, 145–6, 150, 164

therapeutic area, 96, 128–9, 160therapeutic product, 41, 64, 71,

78, 159training, 39, 86, 101, 105, 110,

120–1, 124, 141–3traits, 14, 18, 20, 156, 160transition, 37, 72, 74–5, 103–4,

107, 113, 119–21, 135, 151, 166trust, 7, 9, 12, 17, 21, 23–5, 32,

63, 66, 70, 84–5, 98–9, 111, 114, 116, 118, 144, 146, 163, 165, 167, 169

uncertainty, 10, 12, 25–6, 67, 77, 79, 99, 144–6

United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), 127

Upjohn Company, 127–8

vice president (VP), 3, 15, 57visibility, 21, 36–7, 59, 63, 65, 67,

166visionary, 28, 38, 56, 167, 169, 175

weakness, 106, 117, 180, 182work environment, 35, 37, 40, 53,

64, 69, 80–1, 85, 91, 122, 149–50, 166productive, 64, 92, 97unproductive, 92–3

work–life balance, 40

practical leadership for biopharmaceutical executives

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