5 levels of statistical leadership

Transcript

00:01
You are listening to the Effective Statistician Podcast, the weekly podcast with Alexander Schacht, Benjamin Piske and Sam Gardner, designed to help you reach your potential, lead great science and serve patients without becoming overwhelmed by work. Today we are talking about the five levels of statistical leadership. So stay tuned for these insights on how you can develop over time.

00:29
You have heard me talking about leadership here quite a lot. And if you’re listening to this podcast for some time, you know that I’m not necessarily talking about supervising other people. So the more administrative leadership type. I’m more talking about cross-functional influencing. How to work with your peers. How to, you know, you can

00:59
lead others that don’t necessarily report to you. stay tuned for this really really interesting discussion with Sam. I’m producing this podcast in association with PSI, a community dedicated to leading and promoting the user statistics within the healthcare industry for the benefit of patients. Join PSI today to further develop your statistical capabilities with access to the Video on Demand content library.

01:27
free registration to all PSI webinars and much, much more. Visit the PSI website at psieweb.org to learn more about PSI activities and become a PSI member today. Welcome to another episode of the Effective Statistician. Today I’m talking with Sam. Hi Sam, how are you doing? I am doing great today. Spring has arrived.

01:56
I think I said that the last uh podcast too, but yeah, it’s so nice to have nice weather and it’s great to be talking with you today. Yeah. Today we are talking about leadership over the past months. have thought a lot about kind of what are these different kind of stages of leadership or levels of leadership that you can get to. Of course leadership is, you know, multi-dimensional.

02:24
depends on lots of different skills. It depends on communication. It uh depends on building relationship, building trust, being a good team player, uh negotiating conflict, and lots of other aspects. So of course, it’s difficult to kind of press all these different dimensions into uh categories. But I think

02:52
If you kind of progress through your career, um you’ll probably see kind of people that more or less fit into these different categories because usually you develop not just one skill of all these leadership skills, but you develop multiple at the same time. And maybe you’re a little bit better, for example, in presentation skills or less in kind of

03:22
negotiation skills, all the other way around, or maybe you’re a very good listener, but you’re not very good in terms of building your network. There’s lots of kind of different nuances, but to simplify it a little bit, at least, uh explain a lot of variation, we thought about kind of five different steps. So let’s start with the first one. The first one I called ImplementLog.

03:52
And for each of these levels, I have a short kind of question or short kind of sentence that kind of maybe describes what, how people approach things. And I remember being an implementer and my kind of way of doing things. I do what you tell me. Can you relate to being in that stage?

04:19
For sure. mean, sometimes I find myself even right now in that role where really what I have is just a job to do, right? A particular task to do and I get it done and I do what I’m asked to do. that sometimes that works well, but usually when you’re, you know, it could be when you’re early on in your career or maybe even later on, but where you just sort of really just like doing the, the analytical work, uh, probably maybe like doing it by yourself.

04:50
And, um, and I noticed you kind of had in there and your list of things where you get along with other statisticians, maybe not.

05:00
Maybe you just want to work by yourself, right? And, and, and there’s nothing about that. That’s wrong. You know, you can have a very successful career just doing work like that. But I think a lot of people will get to a point where they start to see things that they want to do that are more than that, or they want to make things change. And if you don’t rise above that level, you’re probably not going to be that effective at, at being influential.

05:30
and having the ability to improve the way work is done and make things better. Yeah. When I think back at, you know, me and that level, I had, you know, a couple of good relationships, but primarily to other statisticians and programmers, you know, the people that speak and think in the same way and that are like-minded and was a kind of very

06:00
easy environment. Yeah. you know, sometimes we were even, you know, joking about how stupid non-standard decisions sometimes are and, you know, what kind of crazy questions they have, but we also wouldn’t really understand where they’re coming from. And, um, that was just, you know, the way it was. I think I stayed there for

06:24
quite some time. Yeah, I still remember when I started in the industry, you know, there was things like where uh someone would just, you know, call me, oh, I need a sample size. And I would say, okay, what are the conditions there? And, know, just type in into the NQA or whatsoever. And here’s the sample size. Drop down. And you know, it’s, again, it’s sometimes it’s someone just wants

06:52
press the statistician button, give me an answer. And somebody in that, that, at that level, that’s maybe the right person to just say, okay, here’s an answer to a quick, to the problem you have. I, I’ll be honest with you. don’t know if I, maybe I have been in that role in the past, but I don’t feel like I have, maybe it’s just my nature. I tend to always want to know what’s going on broader. And, uh, I tend to like to know how things work.

07:20
more detail. I just tend to dig deeper and I think I get out of that implementer role pretty quickly because I just need to do more. Yeah, I sometimes and I think if you see junior people that also do a lot of programming, that can you can very easily, you know, stay in this role. Yeah, just do this table. Full stop. You know, lot of statisticians can be quiet.

07:49
They have a personality that’s very introspective and sometimes very private. And they can also be perceived as being this, level of leadership. Well, maybe they’re not because they don’t speak out and, and, uh, don’t speak up. And so people just kind of view them as, they’re just doing their statistician job. So, yeah, yeah. The next kind of level is what I call the analyzer. Yeah.

08:18
So that’s this more kind of, and I need to say, I really struggled to find a good name here. It’s more where, tell me what you want to analyze and I will suggest the analysis and implement them. So it’s not the first step is give me a P value and use the same method, you know, that we commonly use. Yeah. And then you just do your Fischer’s exact test or your

08:46
a g-square test and that’s job done. At that stage, you would probably more understand, OK, why do we have here these covariates? And you already understand, OK, these are the covariates. These are the endpoints that you want to look into. um You probably have already a little bit better understanding of what these different data sets actually mean. So that’s not kind of random.

09:16
variable names for you, but you you understand that this influences that and that further influences this and here’s actually a treatment variable and that is something you can change whereas you know things like gender you might not change at least so easily and you can discuss also the pros and cons of different ways to analyze it. So for example with adjustment or without adjustment for covariates and you

09:45
Yeah, through that you build first some better relationship actually outside of the statistics team. So you widen your network a little bit. Right. This level leadership has a very technical focus still. Yeah. But you’re at the point where you’re starting to build a better network, have better relationships and people are starting to trust you a little bit more. I think this is probably the level where when people start to exhibit

10:12
these types of behaviors, others start to think, oh, maybe this person has some potential to move further on in their career and grow as a leader. If you don’t ever get over that hurdle of being that implementer, which is more behind the scenes or very quiet and being that person that people are coming to and you’re giving them alternatives and technical alternatives, you may not move much beyond that. I think there’s actually quite a

10:40
big fraction of people that can stay in that area for a very, very long time. So basically stay largely on the technical side. You are really interested in understanding the data and uh digging with the data and making sure that all your analysis are high quality, but it’s not so much that you actually really step out of that.

11:10
Right? You see that in other parts of business too, not just statistics where people are very good at particular types of things. Uh, I’ve seen that with scientists and laboratory technicians, very good at doing a particular type of scientific procedure, right? And they can do it over and over and over again. And they could even tell you about it and how you might do it a little bit better, but that’s what they do, you know, and that that’s their role and that’s the job they do. And oftentimes they like that. Uh, you can think of that like administrative.

11:40
uh help and project managers, uh people who do more, not so much project managers, but administrative tasks that just have to be done. And, and they can be very good at doing all of those things. Information technology, Is it, IT is probably a place where you have a lot of these implementers and analyzers. And the next step is what I call consultant. And that is actually, um

12:09
already quite a big step forward. Because if you come from an analyzer to a consultant, you actually want to much more deeply understand the problem that the team wants to solve. So it’s not so much actually about anymore about what type of analysis you need to do, but more kind of what type of study do you need to actually to do.

12:39
Do you need to study at all? Yeah. You get away from kind of just analyzing the data that you have to also selecting what type of data should we analyze? Or should we analyze it at all? Or is it even possible or feasible or does it make any sense? Yeah. So you have a much more deeper understanding of what’s good, what’s happening there.

13:07
At that point, my thinking is people also have a very, very good understanding of statistics. So say ah maybe even be experts in their field. So it could be world class statisticians that publish in a high ranked journals on an ongoing basis. They understand the problems of the business. ah However, there is very often kind of

13:36
You hear from these people like, oh, there’s no politics. Yeah. And they stay out of the politics. They want to focus on the facts and the logical arguments. And whenever things become for them irrational, the people side, so to say, comes involved, they rather stay out of it. Right.

14:05
It can be a little aloof. Well, you know, I, not going to get too deep with anybody that I work with. I’m not going to get too close to them. I’m not going to get too involved. What’s going on outside the small sphere that I’m, I’m working in, you know, and again, this level probably still has a very technical focus. As you said, you know, it’s very much on the, on the, technology, the, the math, the programming, um, the science that’s underlying it. You just kind of know that, but you’re not really concerned about the fact that, Oh,

14:36
the person who really makes the decisions not in the room right now. Right. And everyone’s afraid of that person because of politics, you know? And so when you suggest something that everyone knows that that other person’s not going to go for, you don’t understand why won’t they just take my idea? Why don’t they just follow my suggestion? Yeah. Cause it’s right. Because it’s right. Enough to be right. And also what I sometimes hear from these kinds of people, well,

15:05
I told them what to do, but they didn’t follow my advice. Yeah. Yeah. And then they kind of wash their hands. go, well, whatever you, you should have listened to me, but you didn’t. So suffer the consequences. And that’s not really very kind to your fellow coworkers or the people that you support, but some people can have that attitude and get stuck in that because of that, they get stuck at this level, right? They can’t get to the next level of leadership. Yeah. It’s because they see themselves as a consultant.

15:35
as a person that sits basically outside of the team, where the decisions are made. So you’re just kind of advising, you’re consulted for your statistical expertise, but you’re not part of the teams that actually makes the decision. Right. And you know, there’s nothing wrong with that. Because that’s what I do for a living now is as a consultant, right. uh

16:01
And so there are sometimes where that is the role, the leadership role I take in, take on in the projects that I’m at in part, because I know I, I’m not going to be able to invest the amount of time and uh effort that it takes to, get a bigger network. So I tend to rely a lot on just a few points of contact and let them be the intermediary, you know, between me and the other parts of the business to give me information, just because, you know, I may only be doing.

16:31
a project that’s a month long with them or something like that. And so again, I think we have to be careful not to act as if, if you’re not at the top level of leadership, there’s something wrong with you. be honest, you know, I, when I think about this type of people that are, you know, worldwide experts, I absolutely sought out consultants, you know, the regulators ask them about their opinions.

17:00
many different companies may ask them about their opinion. I’m pretty sure they have very, very high salary checks. So it’s a great career. So don’t get me wrong on that. It’s just that from a leadership level, you’re still on this consultant level. And um that’s also one of the aspects that especially from this level,

17:31
three onwards, yeah, might get completely different. Yes. You could be, you know, a very, very great and influential leader, but you may not be the best statistician. Yeah. In terms of that you have in a specific area, very, very deep uh understanding and you have published lots of different

17:59
different papers and, you know, just as a certain methods that you are known for or certain areas that you are known for. That might not even be the case. We’re really speaking about leadership here, not about statistical things. However, I think, you know, there is, you need to be pretty good statistician to get to these higher levels as well. Right. You know, competence is at the foundation of leadership. If you don’t know,

18:28
the area, if you haven’t demonstrated that you can do the work, that you aren’t going to get higher levels of influence because people won’t believe you or they won’t trust you. Yep. So there’s, know, if you’re a crappy statistician, leadership won’t solve the problem.

18:53
You know, though, I have to say, I can’t think I’ve ever really met anybody who I would say is a bad statistician or a crappy statistician, you know, like that doesn’t know how to do the work. Lots of times what gets perceived as bad is not so much the, the actual work itself, but the attitude that people bring to the work as well. Okay. Let’s go to the next level. That is the leader, the statistical leader.

19:21
As a statistic leader, you deeply understand the problem of the other side and you can convince what we should do. So it’s not what they should do. It’s what we should do. You are part of the team. You see yourself as part of the team. Others see you as part of the team. And you have the same kind of deep understanding like the consultant. Yeah.

19:50
But you’re not only good at understanding, let’s say, the logical things, you’re also good at understanding much more kind of the nuances of the business. Like you said, of says, you know, this certain person may have a certain agenda, a certain preference for things, you know, who do you need to talk to about to sell something, to talk about costs, and who do you need to talk to?

20:19
uh, then mentioned innovation at least five times to convince them. Yeah. Yeah. This is where the business acumen really starts to kick in and you need to know what is the big picture and what are the things that are driving people’s decisions and behaviors. And oftentimes those are not scientific or statistical issues that are driving behavior. can think of an example once where it was a technical problem. We had to solve the problem and it was a quality problem with some

20:49
material and I did a lot of technical work on it. How a hundred and hundred hours worth of work of data analysis and modeling. I thought I had an answer to the problem. The problem that my answer had was, is that that was not the answer anybody wanted to hear because it meant that there was going to be a delay in a schedule.

21:12
And someone else was not going to meet their goals and their timeline. And it was going to have a financial impact for the manufacturing plant. And all of those other things were swimming around that problem. And I was just, I was stuck in that consultant level. I was stuck at that. I got the technical answer. Here’s the technical answer. You need to dig, you know, follow it. And I wasn’t seeing the bigger picture. And actually it was very difficult for career wise because I got perceived as being someone who is.

21:42
part of the problem, not part of the solution. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is kind of the difference between being a consultant and being a leader. have, you know, you’re not looking for the perfect technical solution. You’re perfect looking for the perfect implementable solution. And so sometimes, you know, people say, um, politics is about the

22:11
making the achievable implemented, yeah, the possible implemented, and not about kind of preaching the, you know, optimal that isn’t implemented. yeah. Right. uh A solution that’s not implemented is not a solution. Yeah. Also, I think these type of leaders have a much bigger network outside of their function. Yeah.

22:38
So they are known by people in, let’s say, in the medical field and the business field and probably also in different other areas. Maybe they have even a mentor that is not within statistics and say really usually understands that they need to invest in their leadership skills. So they have.

23:06
there’s a key ingredient here too, which is time. It takes time. And that’s often a frustration was for me. And I think it’s often a frustration for other people, other statisticians, because they want to be at this level. They really want to have that kind of influence, but honestly, they haven’t been there long enough. They haven’t made those relationships and have enough people looking to them as being that trusted, competent,

23:36
an influential person that can actually come up with good solutions and help things change for the better. Yeah. And actually for a very, very long time, I thought this is the end of the statistical ladder. Yeah. In terms of leadership, I thought, okay, if you’re leader, if you have reached that, that’s perfect. Yeah. You can’t get any higher. And to be honest, I think if you have reached that, then

24:04
you’re pretty outstanding already. think then, you know, that type of statistical leader is pretty rare already. Yeah. There’s one further aspect beyond that. And that is probably a very rare species. And that is for me, the statistical entrepreneur. And I don’t see it so much as you own your own business.

24:34
But you see yourself as someone that maybe, you know, creates an organization, yeah, creates a structure within that helps other leaders to grow as well. Yeah. And you not only deeply understand the business, but you even foresee the changes that will happen. Yeah. And you can see kind of also where are other opportunities, where

25:03
statisticians can have an impact. And you and that’s the intraplenarial piece in it. Yeah. So you don’t just kind of stay in your lane and kind of, okay, when there’s a new study coming in, we work on it. Yeah. But you think beyond that you think about, okay, what can we actually do to, for example, help with the recruitment? Yeah. Or, hmm, say, is, you know, if, we, you know,

25:31
promotes this study in terms of enrollment and we use digital media and things like that. There’s a lot of data there. Can we as statisticians help in that regard? So you think much more kind of beyond your original area, but you see kind of where you can apply your statistical thinking to solve problems that’s maybe not in your job description.

25:59
but you still add value to the company. Yeah. And oftentimes at this level, this is where people also going into more of the administrative leadership, right? They’re the boss or they’re the supervisor, um the director, know, whatever title you want to give them. And what I see about this role is this is also the person who’s really not so much doing the work, but they are enabling other people to do the work effectively.

26:28
And they’re, building other people up. They’re building other statisticians up. They’re actually showing them off. saying, look at the, look at this great stuff that, uh, Bob is doing and look at this great stuff that Susan’s doing. And, and they’re, they’re, they’re actually helping those people to grow as leaders and, move up that level. And also when there is a solution that’s maybe difficult or challenging to implement, they know how to help everyone else get that solution.

26:57
going and, and keep things moving. And, and if you ever have a boss that’s like this, this is great. You know, because one thing this person is going to protect you from all of the other politics and stuff that’s going on because they’re handling that they know it, they’re going to let you know what you need to know. And they’re going to help you learn, but they can really be sort of a shield for you, a buffer to prevent you from being focused on those extraneous things and let you focus on the technical solution.

27:27
And then there, think the other aspect of people like this is the, this level of leadership. They’re just very encouraging, right? You want to be around them. They, they lift people up. don’t tear things down. Also, have say invest in their people, not just from a technical point of view. Yeah. So they actively say here, let’s not just talk about Bayesian statistics and multiple imputation and.

27:57
causal inference and whatsoever. Let’s also uh have programs about how to present better, how to negotiate better, how to communicate better, lots of different things. And the more more influential they are, they have that even in their complete functions that there’s something like that. uh

28:24
Right. And they tend to have a very genuine concern for people around them, especially the people that work for them. I would almost say they, they love the people that, that work for them. Right. And they show them love and kindness in the way they, they help them grow as a person, not just, not just as a business, just help you grow as an individual. I had a boss like that once where I was a bit of a complainer for a while in my career. And I just complain about anything. It was a habit that I had just to complain.

28:54
And my friends and I, the coworkers, we’d sit around the lunch table and we just complain all lunch about things. And it got around that I was complaining a lot and, it was starting to have a negative impact on the way people were perceiving me and people wanting to work with me. And so my boss called me in the office and talked to me about it. And I remember that being a very, very difficult conversation to hear, but it was one of the best conversations I ever had in my career because

29:23
He helped me see something about myself that needed to get better and really did it in a way that was encouraging, right? That you can do this, you can actually change and you can be less of a complainer and more encouraging. uh so that was, uh I was really thankful for that. That is a very, just a bright point in my career. I remember that very vividly and uh really thankful that it made a big impact on me and I changed.

29:52
after that. Yeah. And that’s great if people have this ability to provide constructive feedback in a way that the other person can accept it. Right. I remember the most piercing words that he said to me was, are you okay? He didn’t ask me how things are going to business. He asked me how I was like, how am I really okay? Am I okay on the inside? You know, in my heart and my thinking.

30:20
And that really showed me he cared about me, right? It wasn’t just about me being a problem. Yeah. So maybe you’re suffering from depression. Yeah. Or is there some really kind of difficult season in your life and things are out of order. Yeah. And that may be why some people get perceived at different levels of leadership when they, they see it. They don’t see themselves at that level, but other people do. Um, because of

30:48
those other aspects of life that are going on that, that would just weigh you down and having a, having a great high level leader. That’s that entrepreneur that cares about people can actually help you too. I, I would say if you have someone like that in your life, can be at work or in their community, make an appointment and just go talk with them. You know, they, they probably can do something for you to help you see things differently, have a different way of thinking about things and, and, and actually maybe get better.

31:18
Yeah. So the great thing here is also that such people are able to attract great other people. Yeah. And they are able to develop good relationships far beyond kind of their area. And they also, you know, then can rely on the relationships that the team is building. Yeah. Because they encourage people to build relationships and therefore the, it’s not just

31:48
You know, that they become better leaders, the whole functions, their whole organization becomes better in terms of leadership. And so that’s where, you know, the, the influence and really kind of exponentially grows because it’s not just about you. It’s about others that you, uh, that you, uh, that you built. And I think the other point is that also leads to leaving a legacy. Right.

32:18
Will people remember you five years after you left the job? Yes. Ten years after you left the job. Yeah. In a positive way. a good way. You know, I think, you know, kind of bring this all around, you you’ve got these, you came up with these five levels and you could give them different labels if you wanted to, but what they are showing is a progression from just a very technical focus on the actual science or math or whatever to growing towards more of a

32:46
of a broader focus about the people and the business and the environment around you. And I think if you get stuck, like you feel like I could, I could do this. I could go to this next level, but I’m not getting there. Some of the things we shared maybe as a way to help you evaluate where you’re at. Maybe the issue is I need to like people more. You know, you, you, like when you have that aloof attitude that, I’m the, I’ll tell you what the statistical answer is and you can do it or not. That’s not going to.

33:14
when you friends, that’s not going to gain you influence and you maybe need to work a little bit on your communication and, focusing more on people. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s really where you spend your time. Also how good you’re on, you know, self reflection, self awareness, try also to find mentors that help you there invest in your leadership skills. Of course, you know, we have some leadership.

33:41
programs that we are offering from time to time that may actually help you to accelerate faster. Right. Okay, very good. That was an awesome discussion about leadership. Thanks so much, Sam. Yeah, that was great. I have so much fun to just talk about it. And it makes me think a little bit more even now about how I need to improve my leadership skills even more. Yeah.

34:07
there isn’t a day that where I don’t see anything where I can improve on in terms of leadership skills. So this journey never ends. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye bye. I hope you enjoyed this show, which was created in association with PSI. Thanks to Rain who helps with the show in the background and thank you for listening. Head over to theeffectivestatistician.com

34:36
where you can re-read all these things about the five levels of being a statistical leader and you can learn much more about becoming an effective leader. There’s lots of materials there that is there for free. Reach your potential, lead great science and serve patients. Just be an effective statistician.