How to Be a Better Lab Leader
$449
Leads to certification
General

How to Be a Better Lab Leader

Strong leadership provides a foundation to build a successful culture for the lab that enables staff to deliver the lab’s mission. The Creating an Environment of Success course shows lab managers how to use their leadership skills to ensure that the lab provides a supportive community to drive success. Within this supportive environment, the lab manager needs to provide for the basic needs of the individual staff members. The Employee Engagement course will help lab managers understand the benefits of engagement and how to accomplish it. Since a large portion of leadership is dealing with the people and the issues that can arise between people, the next three courses focus on different aspects of people interactions. The Understanding Personality Types course will demonstrate the range of different healthy personalities, how that diversity is beneficial to the lab, and how to recognize and address issues driven by different perspectives in the lab. The Positive Communication course will teach lab managers the benefits of using positive communication skills to better deliver their messages and build stronger relationships with staff. The Conflict Management and Resolution course will help lab managers identify the sources of conflict and how to address these situations with grace and confidence.

As an IACET Accredited Provider, Lab Manager Academy offers IACET CEUs for its learning events that comply with the ANSI/IACET Continuing Education and Training Standard.

Curriculum content

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    Enabling staff to thrive improves lab performance. Organizations can contribute to positive staff well-being. Engaged employees significantly outperform other staff in all important categories. Engagement is increased by meeting key staff needs: positive relationships at work, clear expectations, praise and recognition, coaching and feedback, use of strengths, and ongoing development. Learning Outcomes: Identify the benefits from a thriving staff and employee engagement, Recognize ways to improve organizational well-being, Recognize ways to implement emotional, and psychological safety in the lab, Identify the key staff needs for employee engagement.

    • Lesson Employee Engagement and Well-Being

  • Conflict resolution is a very important skill for lab managers to have because conflict resolution can be difficult and frustrating. Finding the facts and following a data-driven conflict resolution process are behaviors the lab manager can demonstrate to enable better conflict resolution. There is much to be gained with calm, kind, supportive, curious, healthy debate. Finding win/win outcomes can create cooperation out of enmity. Learning Outcomes: List the benefits of healthy conflict, Describe how healthy conflict can be a source of innovation and creativity, Demonstrate behaviors that will de-escalate conflict and lead to mutually beneficial solutions, Explain the benefits of following the facts to solve issues, rather than emotionally blaming people, Implement some characteristics of lab culture that will reduce unhealthy conflicts.

  • Good leaders are almost always good communicators. Communication is vital to effectively receive and share information. Good lab managers realize that listening is the most important communication skill. Developing effective active listening skills is a high priority to be effective as a lab manager. When sharing information, it is important to craft messages to maximize the receiver’s ability to understand, process, and act on the information. It is the responsibility of the transmitter to ensure that the message can be properly received. Positive communication can help build stronger relationships. Learning Outcomes: Utilize the seven C’s of communication, Describe the importance of active listening and some ways to improve this important skill, Recognize the importance of positive communication and be able to implement it around the lab, Explain the six components of positive communication.

  • People have natural preferences in personality styles. These differences in personality can lead to conflict in the lab. Understanding the basics of personality type can help lab managers address the root of many interpersonal conflicts. Bringing personality types into conflict resolution helps educate lab staff about diversity and differences between people. It helps to shift the focus of the conflict resolution to the facts of the situation and away from the individual personalities. Personality types describe preferences, not skill, and should never be used to limit people. Learning Outcomes: Identify the 16 different Myers Briggs Type Index, or MBTI, types, Explain the differences between the four MBTI pairs: E/I, N/S, T/F, and P/J, Use the MBTI temperaments to gain insight into how lab staff behave, Demonstrate the difference between preferences and skills, Identify how to apply personality type information to improve conflict resolution in the lab.

  • Many people think that an organization’s culture and work environment are fixed. However, lab managers can have significant impact on creating a more positive culture, and a work environment that can enable success, both for the lab and for the people. Developing an environment for success requires attention to the details that affect the staff, like listening, caring, and learning. Learning Outcomes: Recognize ways to develop a positive work culture for the lab focused on emotional safety, shared vulnerability, and purpose, Implement active listening as a key leadership tool, Clarify the value of developing independence and ownership in the lab staff, Utilize staff development to improve the lab, Explain the benefits of being customer focused to the lab.