Over the years, we’ve worked with L&D professionals from a wide range of research-led organisations who have come to us faced with a similar challenge:
The scientists they work with are more likely to be skeptical about leadership training than members of any other professional group they have worked with. And this, they tell us, is a problem because their scientists really do need the training. More than most other comparable groups, many seem to struggle with important skills relating to difficult conversations, providing pastoral care, and engaging and motivating their teams. (Some possible reasons for this are explored in another post.)
In order to ensure that the training we design and deliver for scientists is as impactful as possible, we needed to know if these common perceptions reflect reality.
So, in search of concrete evidence, we decided to conduct our own study.
In this, we were fortunate in being able to draw on anonymous psychometric data from hundreds of assessments completed by people from a wide range of organisations that we have worked with over the last few years. The data enabled us to directly compare scientists with other professionals across a wide range of psychological factors and to look for any statistically significant differences there might be.
Are scientists really a special case?
The data we used came from CliftonStrengths, an industry-leading and rigorously researched assessment developed by Gallup. Its purpose is to identify participants’ top-5 “strengths”.
A “strength” in this context is a way someone tends to handle information, process work, or interact with the world around them. CliftonStrengths measures 34 strengths in total, which can be focused on ways of thinking, executing tasks, building relationships or influencing others. (full list here.)
The top-5 strengths identified in an individual’s CliftonStrengths results represent their dominant ways of thinking, seeing and acting in the world – in other words, their “default settings”.
The table below shows the frequency with which each of the 34 strengths occurs in the top-5s of two groups. The scientist group (177 people) is shown in red, the non-scientists, who were mostly managers in professional organisations (262 in total), are in blue.
Above: Percentage of group who possess this strength within their top-5 strengths.
(statistical note: starred strengths: p<0.1 ; double starred strengths: p<0.05)
A quick glance at the chart tells us that there are indeed some big differences between the scientific and non-scientific groups in certain strengths located at the top and bottom of the vertical axis.
The names of the strengths provided by Gallup are not always intuitive. If you want to see full descriptions, you can do so on this webpage. Here though, we’ll just focus on the ones where the differences between scientific and non-scientific groups were the most significant.
First, the strengths that are much more frequent amongst the scientist group can be seen at the top of the chart. Learner, Input and Ideation show the biggest differences compared to non-scientists. All of these differences are highly statistically significant (p<0.01).
At the bottom of the chart are the strengths that appeared more often in the top-5s of non-scientists. Here Empathy stands out, with non-scientists twice as likely to have this in their top-5 than scientists. This difference is strongly significant from a statistical point of view (p=0.01).
So, what do these strengths mean, and what do they relate to in the real world?
Learner (more common amongst scientists)
Learners are curious people who want to learn, both in terms of information and practical skills. They are energised by learning more and are often drawn to roles in research, academia and science, and soon become drained in an environment where there isn’t the opportunity to learn.
Unlike the other strengths in the ‘Thinking’ category, Learner can bring an element of emotional intelligence, humility and warmth. These people are often good listeners and open to change.
Input (more common amongst scientists)
Whereas those with Learner strength are broadly energised by learning, those with Input in their top five are much more focused on the acquisition of intellectual forms of knowledge. They are inquisitive and enjoy finding out more about things, whether digging deeper into topics of interest, discovering new ways to solve a problem, or ensuring they are up to date on the latest research.
They may start the day keeping by checking the news, and will have a general curiosity to find out more about different things they encounter in life, e.g. learning more about somewhere they’re going on holiday or finding out about the actors in a TV series etc.
At work they are very often drawn to research and academic roles, so it is not surprising that Input is one of the most common strengths we find amongst the scientists, academic and research delegates we work with.
Ideation (more common amongst scientists)
People with strong talent for Ideation enjoy ideas, are energised by change and starting new things, and have a natural creativity and energy that comes from discussing ideas with others.
Ideators usually enjoy talking their ideas through rather than reflecting on them quietly, and tend to enjoy being around people who have original thoughts. This ability to be creative, to think up new ways of doing things and to problem-solve is crucial in research, academia and science.
Empathy (rarer amongst scientists)
Unlike the three strengths described above, scientists tend to be lower than other groups in terms of Empathy.
People with Empathy among their top five strengths have a deep sensitivity to the emotions and feelings of others, even people they do not know. They rely heavily on feelings to guide their actions and can be very sensitive to the environment in which they work and live. They are very good at sensing the mood of their team, colleagues, or people in a meeting. This enables them to respond appropriately, to be sensitive, and to avoid faux-pas or upsetting colleagues by saying or doing the wrong thing.
Key differences between scientists and non-scientists
So, we can summarise the findings of our study as follows:
- Scientists tend to exhibit higher levels of propensity/talent in areas relating to the accumulation and manipulation of knowledge, ideas and information.
- They tend to have lower levels of empathy and ability to understand other people’s emotional reactions to different situations.
When we first saw these results the first thing that struck us was how much they reflect our experiences in the training room.
Of course there are many exceptions, but on the whole scientists tend to be rigorous in their interrogation of the ideas we present, demanding of connections to wider research and evidence, and comfortable engaging with new models and more abstract concepts.
Where they tend to have challenges is around soft-skills and people-oriented aspects of management. Often, they have made great progress in the academic/technical aspects of their careers, usually as a single contributor, completing a PhD, post-Doc etc., but start to struggle when they become responsible for managing the performance of other people.
Why is this? Another blog post explores some of the potential reasons in detail, but in a nutshell, it seems to be a combination of:
- The kinds of personalities that are drawn to science
- The nature of scientific work, which often emphasizes and rewards individual accomplishment, particularly early on in scientific careers
- Academic and early career training that focuses on technical/scientific skills and often neglects the development of interpersonal and collaboration abilities
What this means for scientific leadership training
Whatever the reasons, the evidence presented here strongly supports the idea that scientists are indeed distinctive in ways that are relevant to how we approach their leadership training and development.
Their common strengths around learning, thinking and ideas, as well as their academic training, mean they have different expectations about what good training needs to looks like in order to be credible and to engage them in motivating ways.
Importantly, scientists require a greater depth of high quality evidence to back key ideas and access to information to explore training topics in greater depth beyond the training itself.
They are also more likely to need extra support around developing their emotional intelligence and people-skills than many other groups.
It is clear then, that the optimal approach for developing leadership capacity in scientific organisations needs to go beyond generic management programmes used in other sectors.
In future posts, we’ll explore some of the ways this can be achieved in practice.