The Scientific Methods of Leadership

Accruing experience and wisdom as we progress in life is as inevitable as aging itself. The skills, lessons, as well as morals we gain along the way are key to leading a better life, and living as a lifelong learner maximizes the potential for self-improvement. However, self-improvement is inherently focused on one’s self; removing the “self” leaves us with improvements in a vacuum. Presumably all may stand to benefit from these improvements, as they should; good utility lies in gaining the wisdom to live well, great utility lies in passing forward your knowledge to others so that they’re better equipped to follow suit. Living well is appropriately ambiguous, but I’ll use it in the context of doing good work. In the field of science, I see knowledge passed forward all the time in the form of scientific literature, which not only educates but can inspire future related research. In leadership roles, passing forward wisdom enables future leaders to do better work, as well as treat their people right to maximize the team’s potential.

Majoring in exercise science has brought its fair share of classes with corequisite labs, but my favorite lab out of them all was BIO 302L, Cell and Molecular Biology Lab. Unlike many other labs with a wide variety of topics and experiments, BIO 302L had a far narrower focus. The duration of the lab was centered around the central dogma in the HL-60 cell line, exhibited by patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia. HL-60 cells are factor independent, immortal, and very valuable to study in vitro. This is due to their unique ability to proliferate indefinitely when properly suspended in a cell culture. The central dogma of molecular biology states that DNA is transcribed into RNA, which is then translated into Protein. HL-60 cells are initially undifferentiated, but specific compounds can affect their central dogma process so that they differentiate into varying specialized cells. Our lab had us learn ways to examine the transcription and translation so that the last 1/3rd of the lab could be spent developing our own experimental protocol. My lab group and I decided on using a compound known as Retinoic Acid (RA) to induce differentiation. Older scientific literature suggested that RA would indeed induce HL-60 cell differentiation into specialized cells called granulocytes (Breitman, Selonick, & Collins, 1980). Our group asked how reliably we could create granulocytes with RA, studied the background knowledge, then continued the scientific method by forming a hypothesis essentially stating that if HL-60 cells are treated with RA, then there will be increased differentiation into granulocytes. These are the beginning steps of the scientific method, and the lesson here was how to truly apply the method to a real experiment we were creating on our own. By the end of the experiment, the last step of the scientific method was to communicate the results.

Artifact A: Excerpt from the final lab report written

I wrote an 18-page lab report on the entire process, and the highlighted section of my lab report for this lab shows how I applied this protocol to our experiment. I had written many lab reports before, but they all had pre-written methods we followed, so the concept of lab reports being written to enable future research was relatively lost on me. Having to blend many different methods together to fit our hypothesis stuck with me in a new way, knowing that hypothetically future labs could follow our procedures to test our experiment. In a way I hadn’t learned truly appreciated before, BIO 302L taught me how to apply the scientific method to form a hypothesis, create a method of conducting the experiment, test it, then analyze the results.

Simultaneously, I was serving my second Student Government (SG) term in the 111th Student Senate, fulfilling the role of Speaker Pro Tempore. My role was to lead the legislative branch, and being cast into such a large position came with the opportunity to learn tremendously as both a person and as a leader. All of my actions, interpersonal interactions, and decisions gave me an incredible amount of knowledge, as well as social, time management, and critical thinking skills. By the end of my term, I had experienced a wide variety of good, chaos, adversarial situations, and tests of moral character; I previously mentioned how learning from each experience maximizes the potential for self-improvement, and I wanted a way to pass as much wisdom forward as I could. To achieve this, I wrote an 8-page transition document for future Pro Tempores, but much of the document was applicable to chairmen as well as normal senators. The document was reflective and at times brutally candid, but I feel that future senators need more than sugarcoated suggestions or a simple list of goals to succeed. Some of these goals included a more hands-on approach to the Delegation Steering Committee within Senate, continuing onwards with the survey for all students I created, ensuring accountability, and looking out for dishonest practices or intentions. I included my leadership philosophy, how I feel a leader ought to treat their people, as well as series of recommendations as to how to better accomplish the job. For example, the committee I chaired met every Sunday night, and I learned in military to take notes of nearly anything for future use; this resulted in personal notes spanning 30 pages, which proved invaluable in looking to the past for inspiration and accountability. This transition document’s purpose aligned with my BIO 302 Lab’s goal of driving home the scientific method, and I learned how my writing could parallel a methods section in its own way. Essentially, I was outlining a plan and structure so that whoever read it was able to hypothetically recreate it, but hopefully in a better way.

Artifact B: Second page of the Pro Tempore transition document; my leadership philosophy

My Cell and Molecular Biology lab taught me the power of processes, and this was evidenced in my Speaker Pro Tempore transition document too. We hypothesized that a specific treatment for the HL-60 cells would result in a specific outcome, then created the procedure to test that result. I hypothesized that if I create a transition document, then the result would be a wiser and more prepared future Pro Tempore. I outlined the methods that individual could use to become an more effective leader, and the results have yet to be seen. The scientific literature not only inspired our lab experiment, but told us what to expect (and how to expect it) based on those researcher’s findings. My hope is to provide that same framework, and that one day my own hypothesis of helping future senators will prove to be accurate.

Outside of clinical research settings, my hope is to use what I’ve learned as a physician one day. I feel that I can implement aspects of the scientific method to similar leadership responsibilities as a doctor, especially in teaching/ training others around me. Additionally, understanding how to properly lay out a plan is important to implementing treatments, as well as ensuring everyone in the medical team understands what the idea is, how to make it happen, and what the desired outcome is.

Works Cited

Breitman, T. R., Selonick, S. E., & Collins, S. J. (1980, May). Induction of differentiation of the human promyelocytic leukemia cell line (HL-60) by retinoic acid. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 77(5), 2936-2940.

Collins, S. J. (1987, November 1). The HL-60 Promyelocytic Leukemia Cell Line: Proliferation, Differentiation, and Cellular Oncogene Expression. The Journal of The American Society of Hematology, 70(5), 1233-1244. Retrieved from http://www.bloodjournal.org/content/bloodjournal/70/5/1233.full.pdf