2016 Leadership Institute

SBM Past-President Marian L. Fitzgibbon, PhD, began developing the year-long Leadership Institute for mid-career members after identifying leadership training as a high-need area among mid-career individuals, despite the fact that they often find themselves at pivotal career junctures where leadership skills or career coaching would prove helpful.

The inaugural Leadership Institute kicked off at SBM's 2016 Annual Meeting. The 36 Leadership Institute fellows met during an intensive two-day workshop that included sessions on:

• Negotiating and resolving conflicts
• How equity, diversity, and inclusion makes for a better, faster, stronger leader
• Building collaborative teams
• Exploring personal and professional development
• Career planning, led by a team of SBM leaders

Following the in-person session, fellows participated throughout the year in individual coaching sessions, developed a self-selected leadership project under the mentorship of recognized SBM leaders, and joined periodic calls with a “learning community” of five to seven fellows with similar professional interests.

Leadership Institute fellows met for a two-day training March 29-30 during SBM’s 2016 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.

2016-17 fellows have shared testimonials about the institute's benefits:

Randal Wada, MD, on building leadership skills:
“At this stage in my convoluted career trajectory, learning about leadership is more important to me than learning about science. Thanks to the institute, I can say that I will be better at leadership tomorrow than I am today.”

Karen Mustian, PhD, MPH, on the leadership project:
“The end of that project culminated in me presenting an overview of our [cancer] research program to our senior [institutional] leadership and creating an ‘ask’ to grow the program. This resulted in my obtaining almost a million dollars in new support for our group.”

Lynette Craft, PhD, FACSM, on coaching:
"Part of our time together was spent working on how I can better manage the groups I'm in charge of. A lot of what we talked about was perspective taking. As leaders, we have to get our work done but we also need to understand the perspectives of others, especially when working with volunteers. ... It was helpful to discuss strategies."

Corrine Voils, PhD, on workshop sessions:
“The session reminded me that building diverse, inclusive, highly-functioning teams depends, in large part, on effective leadership. … I’m grateful to SBM for these opportunities.”

Congratulations to the inaugural 2016-17 Leadership Institute fellows:

Thank you fellow sponsors:

And a special thank you to the SBM leaders who served as institute mentors, discussion panelists, and on the institute's steering committee: