In Chapter 10 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What Leadership Skills are Becoming More Relevant to You as Your Career Progresses?" Bloom notes why management skill development is central to her current growth. As she gains management experience, she gets more comfortable making difficult decisions and helping high potential employees flourish.
Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center. Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine. She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: What leadership skills are becoming more relevant to you as your career progresses?
Stacie Grossman Bloom: The leadership skills that are becoming more relevant to me as my career progresses are definitely those associated with management. Managing a larger and more diverse team of individuals. I would say there’s a lot of different personalities, there are a lot of very difficult conversations, I think for me a few years ago, having those difficult conversations was unbelievably taxing, it was so stressful. I’m at the point now—I don’t love to have a difficult conversation with an employee, nobody does. But I’m certainly at the point now where I feel a lot more comfortable. I know what needs to be done.
And that’s part of management, putting people on a professional development career path is something that’s become more important as I’m supervising higher levels of individuals, really talented people who I’m hoping they’ll stay with me for 2 or 3 years but I know that they’re not gonna stay with me forever, these are the people who are gonna have my job and more, very soon. Mentoring those people is really, really important to me. Making sure that they understand that they’re on a path where they’re gonna be able to accomplish great things. And I really take that mentorship very, very personally and very seriously.