If you give away power, you are the stronger one in the room.
Annalisa Jenkins
Who is Annalisa?
Dr. Annalisa Jenkins has often found herself having to adapt to her environment. A cardiologist by training she was the first female physician to ever serve on the front lines during conflict in the British Navy, and the first woman to lead a top 15 pharma R&D organization. She most recently joined the business advisory board for ARTIS Ventures portfolio company Excision BioTherapeutics, a company using CRISPR gene editing to cure HIV, an area Annalisa says has always been in her heart.
Here are the three biggest career lessons she’s learned along the way:
To influence, learn how to adapt
Learn how to be effective and deliver outcomes in any environment. You won’t always feel like a natural fit in every situation, which I learned during my time in the British Navy as the primary physician for 700 men.
But you must adapt and learn how to influence, how to work out the politics, and how to channel your energy to get a desired outcome. I’ve often found if you give away power, you are the stronger one in the room.
You can’t grow without feedback
Feedback is a gift. Too often I’ve seen managers who were too scared of giving it, yet one of the most important roles as a manager is to engage in professional development, and you can’t grow without feedback.
I once had a manager tell me I was scary to people — that certainly wasn’t what was intended, but I was grateful because I could deeply dig into my own style. Leaders can be a great force in a room or drain the energy, and you have to be aware of your impact on others.
Effective leaders have big ears and a small mouth
Focus on the art of listening, the art of questioning. Ask people things like, “Help me to understand how you’ve come to this,” and let them reach a decision or point of view rather than giving them the answer. Doing this doesn’t mean you take your eye off what needs to get done — it’s a form of leadership that empowers people to be successful.
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