Rethinking leadership in drug discovery projects.
Great efforts have been dedicated to rebuilding the engine of pharmaceutical R&D. However, one potential area of improvement has received limited attention in the literature and in practice: namely, leadership. In this article, we enrich the traditional views of leadership, which consider leadership a responsibility of a few centrally placed authorities, with the concept of distributed leadership. Distributed leadership reflects a group-based capability driven by everyday activities and the key scientific questions at hand. We identify three leadership challenges faced by R&D teams that could be addressed by implementing distributed leadership. Furthermore, we provide some suggestions as to how to foster distributed leadership in drug discovery projects.
ETH Zurich, Department of Management, Technology and Economics, Zurich, Switzerland.
Andreas
A
Schneider
Zeynep
Z
Erden
Hans
H
Widmer
Guido
G
Koch
Christine
C
Billy
Georg
G
von Krogh
D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D055808:Drug Discovery / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D007857:Leadership; D009936:Organizational Innovation