The thing is, these three areas, how you function as a person, how you lead your team day to day, how your team runs as a system, have to work together. You can't really fix one in isolation.
There's a specific kind of frustration that comes from doing the right things and still feeling stuck. You've done the inner work. You've built some structure. You're trying to be a good mentor. And yet.
Here's one I keep hearing: "My systems look fine on paper, but in practice everything still feels last-minute." Does that sound familiar?
All three matter. And a gap in one tends to show up loudly in the others. That's usually why something keeps not working even when you're genuinely trying.
And then there's the system. Your team's structures, workflows, habits, unwritten rules. The stuff that either holds things together when you're overwhelmed or quietly falls apart.
You're not doing it wrong. You're doing a job that's genuinely complex and almost universally under-supported. That's worth sitting with. We wrote more about this here: glia-leadership.com/?p=4658
There's you in the room with other humans, each of whom has their own history, fears, and motivations. Feedback, conflict, delegation, culture. All of it lands differently depending on the day and the person.
The part that makes this job so hard is that it's actually three jobs at once. There's you, the person, with a nervous system and triggers and a leadership identity still forming.
Nobody trained you to lead a team. You got funding, inherited responsibility for other humans, and were expected to figure it out. Most of us did. But "figured it out" and "leading well" aren't always the same thing.
Be honest: when did you last have a week leading your research team that felt genuinely workable, not just survived?
That is the idea behind the Research Leadership Retreat we host each year.
A small group of research leaders working on real leadership challenges they are facing right now.
This year we will be in Tuscany in April - want to learn more?:
But occasionally the most useful thing you can do is step back and look at the bigger patterns.
Where you are carrying too much.
Where your boundaries collapse under pressure.
Which team dynamics keep repeating.
Leadership ends up happening in the middle of everything else.
You solve problems as they appear.
You adjust plans as priorities shift.
You support people when challenges arise.
And the cycle just keeps moving.
One thing I notice when working with researchers who lead teams is how rarely they get the chance to step back and think about their own leadership.
Most people move from one deadline to the next.
Grants, hiring decisions, mentoring conversations, institutional expectations.
Researchers who lead teams rarely get time to step back and reflect on their own leadership. Most of the time it is grants, hiring, mentoring, and deadlines all at once.
So I am curious. When was the last time you had real space to think about how your research team actually runs?
That is the idea behind the Research Leadership Retreat we host each year.
A small group of research leaders working on real leadership challenges they are facing right now.
This year we will be in Tuscany in April - want to learn more?:
But occasionally the most useful thing you can do is step back and look at the bigger patterns.
Where you are carrying too much.
Where your boundaries collapse under pressure.
Which team dynamics keep repeating.
Leadership ends up happening in the middle of everything else.
You solve problems as they appear.
You adjust plans as priorities shift.
You support people when challenges arise.
And the cycle just keeps moving.
One thing I notice when working with researchers who lead teams is how rarely they get the chance to step back and think about their own leadership.
Most people move from one deadline to the next.
Grants, hiring decisions, mentoring conversations, institutional expectations.
Researchers who lead teams rarely get time to step back and reflect on their own leadership. Most of the time it is grants, hiring, mentoring, and deadlines all at once.
So I am curious. When was the last time you had real space to think about how your research team actually runs?
A lot of strain came from the structure of the system, not the work itself. Once a team shares clear ways to prioritize & adapt when things change, the leader does not have to carry all that coordination alone. Look at how we work on that:
None of that shows up on a CV, but it occupies a surprising amount of a leader’s attention.
For a long time I assumed that was simply the cost of running a research program.
Eventually I realized something else was going on.
Keeping track of what everyone was working on.
Noticing when something was drifting off track.
Adjusting priorities when something unexpected happened.
Making sure important work did not quietly stall.
We start the next Agile Research Engine cohort today, and it always reminds me of something I realized while leading my own research team.
The hardest part was not the research itself.
It was the constant coordination happening behind the scenes.
One thing that surprised me when I started leading a research team was how much attention went into coordination behind the scenes.
Tracking projects, adjusting priorities, noticing when something drifted.
What part of leading a research team takes more of your attention than you expected?
A lot of strain came from the structure of the system, not the work itself. Once a team shares clear ways to prioritize & adapt when things change, the leader does not have to carry all that coordination alone. Look at how we work on that:
None of that shows up on a CV, but it occupies a surprising amount of a leader’s attention.
For a long time I assumed that was simply the cost of running a research program.
Eventually I realized something else was going on.
Keeping track of what everyone was working on.
Noticing when something was drifting off track.
Adjusting priorities when something unexpected happened.
Making sure important work did not quietly stall.
We start the next Agile Research Engine cohort today, and it always reminds me of something I realized while leading my own research team.
The hardest part was not the research itself.
It was the constant coordination happening behind the scenes.
One thing that surprised me when I started leading a research team was how much attention went into coordination behind the scenes.
Tracking projects, adjusting priorities, noticing when something drifted.
What part of leading a research team takes more of your attention than you expected?
