As a leader, it helps to know how to dance between the intimate minutia of projects and the big picture vision that links them. In welcoming new students to our small team, part of the direct lab supervision still falls to me, by design. And it’s helping me manage mistakes in leadership that I’ve made in the past.

During my first junior academic fellowship (the first in which I set up my own team), I was too quick to remove myself from the coalface and busy myself with the administrative work behind the team: grant writing, reaching out to collaborators, and such.

But by keeping one foot on the front line, it keeps you fully connected with all parts of what you spend most time trying to see from a 30,000-foot view. It gives those in your care the confidence to see that your words on safety and good practice actually mean something. It gives everyone confidence that you can still practice what you so ‘eloquently’ preach. you’re not merely bestowing orders down from on high.

Going ‘from soup to nuts’ is an American turn of phrase. I love it. It essentially encapsulates the idea of see the full picture, the big ideas and the small-scale details.

How might you take the soup to nuts approach to maximizing the impact of your leadership?

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