Wider aspects of science management

1. Decide on your core principles of management and disseminate these. If you value scientific quality very highly, then tell everyone. Do not be sucked into micro-management.
2. Whether you know it or not, you set the atmosphere or culture for those who work for you. This will influence all parts of their outlook and behavior at work.
3. Management starts with recruiting great people. Character is often more important than knowledge. You can teach knowledge but you cannot change someone’s character.
4. Project management has three pillars for you to control; quality, time and budget. Quality is clearly important but all three pillars need your attention.
5. Don’t get so mired in process that you lose sight of the purpose of the organization!
6. Empower people by giving them your trust.
7. When the opportunity arises, don’t hesitate to praise staff, but be genuine.
8. Be loyal to your staff in public.
9. As opportunities change, you may need to re-structure, but give your staff a good rationale. Review evidence from the past to find out what worked?
10. Communicate clearly; avoid, if not eliminate entirely, as much jargon and acronym use as possible.
11. Reduce your emails and put effort into seeing people face to face.