13 Ways to Elevate Your Laboratory Leadership Skills in 2025

Developing leadership skills in 2025 is more critical than ever. Laboratories face rapidly evolving challenges, from workforce shortages to heightened demands for efficiency. As leaders, it’s vital to foster an environment that encourages innovation and adaptability. But cultivating a culture that empowers positive change isn’t easy. And to do so, you’ll need to build your own leadership skills first.   

Here are 13 tips that can help you elevate your own leadership skills, so you can create a thriving laboratory environment in 2025.  

1. Practice ‘failing better’ 

“Failing better” involves cultivating a laboratory environment where failure is simply another way to grow.     

“Don’t be afraid to fail,” says Gary Procop, MD, MS, MEd, CEO of American Board of Pathology; Professor of Pathology at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, and one of the three faculty presenting a deep-dive workshop on leadership at ASCP 2024. “Every failure is associated with a learning opportunity.” 

Lotte Mulder, PhD, Director of Leadership and Empowerment at ASCP, and co-faculty of the workshop, compares “failing” to the process of skill development—each mistake serves as a critical learning point, refining a person’s abilities and enhancing their understanding as they progress.  

“If we’re able to embrace failure as a learning opportunity, both individually and organizationally, that can really change the dynamic,” Dr. Mulder says.   

This mindset will also create a psychologically safe environment for your staff.  

“If you’re driving toward innovation, you want to try multitudes of solutions on for size and many of these will fail,” says Jennifer Baccon, MD, PhD, MHCM, Chair of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Akron Children’s Hospital; Chair and Professor of Pathology at Northeast Ohio Medical University; and third faculty of the leadership workshop. “Great leaders stick out their hand to help up the person who failed, so they can build a path to success.” 

2. Grow your interpersonal skills 

One of the most important things leaders can do in 2025 is develop their interpersonal skills.  

“Technical expertise is not the same as having excellent leadership skills,” Dr. Baccon says. “Getting people on board with your ideas necessitates great communication, engaged listening, and understanding other perspectives.”  

Focus on finding ways to grow your emotional intelligence.  

“Great leaders not only have awareness of their own emotions and the emotions of others, but can also effectively manage these emotions,” Dr. Mulder says.   

3. Promote open, safe communication 

Create a laboratory environment that welcomes open communication. 

“If your team feels safe to come to you with potential mistakes or challenges, the better you are able to create solutions,” Dr. Mulder says. “Engage in regular conversations with them and actively seek feedback. With my direct reports, I encourage them to communicate with me and with my supervisors about my performance as a leader. This way, I gain 360 feedback a couple times a year and can make adjustments as needed.”  

4. Keep communication clear and concise 

Even as you seek to maintain open communication, try not to be too “chatty,” Dr. Baccon advises.  

“In the laboratory, it’s essential to be able to distill down the key points you want to communicate and share those without too much accompanying technical detail,” she says. “Our message often gets lost when communicating with external and internal stakeholders if you put in more detail than necessary.” 

5. Learn how to say no 

If you learn how to say “no” as a leader, then your “yes” will be more meaningful.  

“If I say yes to every request, I end up stretched too thin and unable to give my best to anything,” Dr. Mulder explains. “By setting boundaries and saying no to things that don’t align with my professional or the organization’s goals, my yes becomes more intentional and holds greater significance. So by saying ‘no’ on occasion, my ‘yes’ actually carries meaning.” 

6. Maintain healthy boundaries 

Maintaining healthy boundaries in your laboratory is one of the most important things you can do as a leader. But it’s a delicate balancing act. 

“I work to be cordial and respectful to everyone,” Dr. Procop says. “However, it’s important to be careful about developing personal relationships with direct reports, as there will be times when tough decisions have to be made, which may include disciplinary action.”  

While doing this, you’ll still need a camaraderie that lets you work together well.  

“It’s important to get to know the people you work with,” Dr. Baccon says. “Knowing a bit about someone’s family, pets, or hobbies is great for relationship building. But remember that relationships at work have a different purpose than friendships.”

7. Set clear expectations and timelines 

Projects will go more smoothly if you set clear expectations from the beginning.  

“Many teams in the laboratory will get together for a meeting and everyone will be clear on the action items, but less clear on who the point person is for each action item and when it’s due,” Dr. Baccon says. “If you embed these elements in every huddle and meeting, you’ll reduce confusion and raise accountability.” 

8. Don’t rush to an ‘obvious’ answer too fast 

When solving a problem in your laboratory, take your time and don’t just jump to the first answer that comes to mind.  

“Even if a solution is obvious, a dissection of all the events that led up to the event often yields additional opportunities apart from the more obvious issue,” Dr. Procop says.  

By not rushing, you leave the door open for diversity in your problem solving.  

“When it comes to problem-solving, I always focus on gathering a wide range of perspectives from a wide range of people,” Dr. Mulder says. “By considering different ideas and solutions and ensuring everyone feels valued, we create stronger outcomes.” 

9. Be an active listener 

Active listening is the key to more effective communication. Don’t just think about what you’re going to say next while listening to someone.  

“A great approach is to actively listen and then pause to gather your thoughts before responding,” Dr. Procop says. 

Once your conversation is concluding, confirm that you’re both on the same page.  

“It’s something we do all the time in the laboratory when we have healthcare providers ‘read back’ the results by telephone,” he says. “Concluding a discussion with ‘What I heard you say was…’ or ‘What I believe we decided upon was…’ is a great way to make sure everyone’s on the same page.” 

10. Ask for more responsibilities 

Sometimes the best way to grow your leadership skills is simply by practicing more. If you have the time, ask for more responsibilities. 

“But approach this thoughtfully,” Dr. Procop says. “Be introspective and honest with yourself about your current capacity to take on more work.” 

11. Create positive spaces for neurodiversity 

Seek to build an environment that is welcoming to neurodiverse staff.  

“How can we create individual solutions for a large group of people?” Dr. Mulder says. “Do your staff have preferred ways of communicating? Are there triggers if I speak in a certain tone? Does it stress someone if I leave a voicemail, and they prefer text? Leadership needs to be individualized so each person can thrive.” 

12. Utilize new technologies like AI 

As a leader, it’s always a good idea to stay abreast of new technologies and how they can impact your laboratory. And sometimes, you can harness them to improve your own leadership skills.  

“Artificial intelligence large language models (LLMs) are extremely useful in generating ideas for approaches to problems,” Dr. Procop says. “You could ask the LLM, ‘How would leadership guru X deal with this type of problem?’ This could be done repeatedly with the names of renowned leadership authors to gain various perspectives on potential solutions.”

13. Study up on leadership skills 

No one has all the answers, so seek out resources and people who can help.   

“Take leadership courses and seminars,” Dr. Procop says. “Read broadly from the numerous books on leadership. Ask respected colleagues for the names of leadership texts they’ve found useful.”  

And take time to learn from the people you admire.  

“Look at leaders that you respect in the laboratory and invite them for a coffee,” Dr. Baccon says. “Ask them about the traits that make them a great leader.”