Hosted by the McNulty Leadership Program, Executive Coaching and Feedback
This fall, we will be featuring blog posts written by PhD students who participated in Career Services’ Career Exploration Fellowship (CEF), a program that helps doctoral candidates explore their career interests through networking opportunities with advanced degree professionals. Click here to learn more about CEF.
Describe your experience working with your host.
Working with my host, Sam Stahl, was a true pleasure. From the outset, Sam was very supportive of me and my proposed project to develop a workbook for leadership development for trainees in science. Though my background as a graduate scientist was not the typical profile of an applicant to McNulty’s Executive Coaching program, Sam generously tailored her approach to make sure the fellowship was supporting my goals and regularly asked for my feedback along the way, a sign that she was truly invested in my development. In our meetings, she was quick to offer individual guidance, technical resources from Wharton’s leadership development programming, and even contacts from her network to support my understanding of leadership and leadership development. I’m very grateful to Sam and her colleagues for giving me the opportunity to explore all the resources that McNulty’s world-class leadership development has to offer, and I hope to continue working with them as I finish writing my leadership workbook.
What did you learn from this opportunity (about yourself, potential career fields, the job search, etc.)?
Early in the fellowship, I gained insight about fundamental definitions of leadership, including Wharton’s frameworks for leadership competencies like emotional intelligence, teamwork, and communication. I also learned about leadership assessments, pivotal instruments for uniquely profiling a future leader’s skills and attributes to provide a baseline measurement and reveal new opportunities for continued personal growth. I was able to map my own leadership tendencies (skewed towards logic, cooperation, and shared understanding) and dive deeper into the variety of influence tools and styles used by successful leaders. I also spoke with several leadership coaches about their personal journeys to leadership education, their advice to leaders in training, and their best strategies for developing oneself into a leader (whether self-directed or with the help of a coach). This combination of theory, assessment, and personal coaching was a hugely insightful experience to take forward into my next step in scientific training.
How did your CEF experience benefit your future career plans?
Working with Sam and her colleagues at McNulty has reinforced my belief in the need for leadership development in graduate science education. Leadership is essential to every field (even highly technical fields like science and engineering), and figuring out how to best identify and develop future leaders is a common issue many organizations face. Like in business (where leadership development is commonplace), succeeding in biotech and pharma will require a strong ability to work within and communicate across teams. My experience with McNulty will give me a strong foundation to identify, develop, and later communicate my leadership competencies to others, and I hope to continue developing myself into a leader that will allow future scientists to think differently. In the future, I will be paying attention to how biotech and pharmaceutical organizations value and develop their leaders-in-training, and I hope to have the opportunity to practice the valuable leadership techniques I have learned throughout my career. Lastly, I hope to use my leadership workbook as a creative training tool, a conversation starter for my future bosses and potential direct-reports, and a synthesis of my worldview about leadership in science to continue to refine over time.
What was the most valuable part of your CEF experience?
Outside of the fantastic support offered my host, the additional programming offered by the wonderful folks at Penn Career Services was incredibly valuable as well. I found the experts at Career Services to not only be incredibly knowledgeable about topics both general and highly field-specific, but to also be fantastic communicators and very willing to point you towards the perfect resource from the variety of options in their catalog. I found their recommendation of the Vault Guides around Biotech and Pharma to be very helpful for better understanding the field, and their advice on LinkedIn, cover letters, and resumes surely improved my application materials. I was even able to set up an informational interview and make quite a few connections from the career panel!
Top reason PhD students should apply to CEF?
Everyone I met throughout this experience (at McNulty, other host institutions, Penn’s Career Services, or fellow CEF Fellows) was incredibly kind and supportive of my career development. As a graduate student on the medical side of campus, it is all too easy to focus solely on lab work and neglect the network of incredible peers and professionals within Penn’s ecosystem. I am so grateful to have met such a variety of current and future leaders across Penn’s campus. If you are often in the lab and looking to branch out, the CEF fellowship is a fantastic opportunity to learn something new, prepare for job applications and interviews, meet some incredibly smart and hard-working peers, and practice talking about yourself and your work. You may end up making useful connections along the way!
