Developing senior leaders in STEM, Biotech and Pharma

The transition from smart technical expert or leading scientist, into inspirational, charismatic leader is no mean feat. There’s a whole new world of skills and behaviours needed, to feel confident and balanced setting the vision and direction, and communicating that across a team.

No longer do the measures of accuracy, fact and data work, once we’re leading people. Nothing that we measured ourselves upon, throughout our early academic career, is relevant now, as we step up into the strategic and people-focused roles.

Leaders we’ve worked with describe a dip in confidence and a disconcerting loss of certainty, as they move out of their academic speciality and into people leadership. Finding their place at the top table; Having the difficult feedback conversations; Dealing with different personalities and their interactions all day every day; leaving their own science speciality behind; managing the pace – can all be overwhelming at first.

Some describe a sense of confusion; Others tell us they’re struggling to establish their own sense of true, heart-led leadership in a world full of fluff and “personal branding” jargon.

Accessing great leadership development can be transformational for bright STEM leaders. Smart, focused individuals are often the quickest to understand and adopt new behaviours, giving obvious and rapid return on your investment.

Imagine if you equip your best scientists and technical experts with leadership confidence as early as possible in their career. Help them find their voice, lead their teams, communicate their vision with ease. Enabling your own leaders to develop their own leadership style, gather feedback and raise their self-awareness, will help you hold onto talented people, and help them develop the personal impact they seek.

Working with senior leaders in STEM, Biotech and Pharma is exactly our sweet spot, so get in touch and see how we can help.

Are we the team for you?

    If you are:
  • Responsible for developing senior leaders and rising talent within your STEM, Biotech or Pharma organisation
  • Looking for expert executive and leadership coaching in your sector
  • Looking to help technically smart and scientific leaders transition into the top lead teams
  • Aiming to build a confident, assured leadership capability across your organisation, with emotional intelligence and flexibility
  • Seeking an L&OD partnership of trust, with fair pricing
  • Frustrated that some of your most talented scientists are leaving

3 ways…

Then access leadership development at Clearworks in three main ways:

121 coaching for
leaders in STEM

Flexible virtual and face to face coaching programmes for senior leaders.

    General programmes as well as specialist programmes including:
  • Route to CTO
  • Route to CSO
  • Maternity Leave Return
  • First 100 Days

Clearworks coaching circles

Semi-structured, affordable group coaching programmes to support and challenge leaders in STEM: “The six by six”: Six leaders, six months, one specialist coach.

Early career programmes:

Clearworks runs a specialist programme for new and aspiring leaders in STEM, Biotech and Pharma called Lab to LeadershipT™.


Recent Assignments

The Route to CSO

A senior leader in a drug discovery company had a reputation for being: ‘exceptional at science’ and ‘a smart guy’ at the company. He wanted to expand his influence, grow his presence in the industry and ‘feel more like a leader’ consistently and was looking for promotion to the board. Despite his reputation he struggled to feel 100% sure of his own leadership style, describing classic ‘imposter syndrome’ characteristics. He benefited from the chance to explore this and to challenge his self-limiting beliefs and confidence.

A sixth month programme of 121 coaching and he’s achieved his aspiration and been promoted to C.S.O.

Looking like a Leader

A very smart junior leader in a digital organisation was feeling frustrated with consistent feedback that she wasn’t demonstrating enough ‘leadership presence’. She was irritated with management ‘fluff’ and felt that people who were overtaking her had learned the rules to some inauthentic game she didn’t want to play. After some deep work with a coach, this leader started to find her own, real leadership style and voice, that felt authentic and fluff-free. She worked out how to find ‘leadership presence’ that was absolutely real, and gained promotion within three months of completion.

Winding others up

A STEM leader who had been working in an organisation for more than ten years was being overtaken for top roles in the top teams, receiving feedback that although he was technically brilliant, he could often wind people up and fail to get the influence he needed across the organisation and externally. He completed an emotional intelligence awareness process, the EQ-I 2.0 and explored the difference in perceptions of him across his team and peers. He understood the styles and needs of others more, and began to flex his own leadership style. He’s now much better prepared for future promotion and describes feeling better, clearer and more aligned with others at work.

Preparing to scale

A fast-growth biotech contacted us to say they had reached a critical moment where they needed to transform from research-based laboratory-led organisation to a commercial firm. The numbers would grow, the markets would change, the task was entirely different now. We were asked to engage with a group of leaders to help them step up into the brave new world of commercial courage and risk. We worked individually and as a group, to ensure alignment at the same time as growth. The leaders are well equipped to lead their teams, sharing learning, reflections, hopes and fears. They understand their strengths and gaps and had opportunities to explore real life challenges ready for the exciting expansion ahead.