Sandra Davis connects with Jim Laughlin on a video call.
TECH DEMANDS EXCEPTIONAL LEADERSHIP
This truth extends beyond biotech - we hear these statements frequently. The pandemic, social unrest, and other global challenges we’ve seen in 2020 necessitate two additional traits – resilience and adaptability. These crises have highlighted those who can rise to leadership and those who struggle. Maximizing explosive growth opportunities in the tech industry requires new ways of leading, which are discovered and developed most effectively today at lower levels of the organization. Emerging tech leaders must exercise these skills with greater speed and flexibility, learn and relearn their disciplines as they increasingly combine science and technology, and effectively collaborate across a widening number of disciplinary fields and industry ecosystems. Furthermore, these leaders must help their teams develop and apply these skills, as well. No wonder four out of ten tech leaders are failing—the highest leadership failure rate of any field! Clearly, these businesses need to put greater effort into accurately identifying and developing tomorrow’s leaders.
Amid the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the tech industry is on the cusp of changing our lives in radical ways. Rapid advances in areas like therapeutics, genomics, agriculture, healthcare, nutrition, biofuels, and more provide novel solutions to complex problems and increase sustainability across all aspects of human life. It requires higher-level human capabilities to operate in this complex space as we accelerate toward breakthroughs enabled by sophisticated new technologies. As Deanna Petersen, Chief Business Officer of AVROBIO, shared, “Biotech is an industry that … requires people who are willing to take risks, conquer new science, and have endurance for the many years it takes to develop a new medicine. In addition, professionals who thrive in biotech have the know-how, confidence, and guts to tackle business goals that are covered in uncertainty and complexity. These are ‘hardcore’ leadership traits, and they are highly valued in biotech companies at all levels of job responsibilities.”
Identifying Future-Fit Leaders | 29
Powered by FlippingBook