Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills
to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.
As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.
When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find
that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research
program.
Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.
However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.
For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians
the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.
Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.
Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast.
I'm your host Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is such a pleasure to be here today.
I'm especially excited because I have a very, very, very special guest on today.
She is not a physician.
She's a pharmacist, or I should say she was a pharmacist, because right now she is president
of Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.
Dr. Tofade, or should I say President Tofade, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Dr. Tafade, one of the reasons I asked you to come here is because you are one of my
mentors and sponsors, and you've been a coach to me in many things.
I consider myself very fortunate because not very many people have presidents as mentors
or sponsors.
But we're here today to really talk in general about mentorship and sponsorship, and even
across disciplines.
But before we get started, I want you to just help our audience.
We're clinicians, scientists, help our audience understand your journey to where you are today.
Well, thank you.
Thank you so much, and greetings to everybody who's listening to this podcast.
I'm Toyin Tofade, and I started my journey being a pharmacist, actually.
I did my master's in PharmD at UNC Chapel Hill, and I also practiced as a pharmacist,
a clinical specialist at UNC hospitals for several years.
Then moved to Raleigh in North Carolina at the Wake Area Health Education Center, which
is where I served for about nine years, first doing some continuing education work in addition
to practicing on the WakeMed physicians training team.
And so that was a great experience to be able to teach physicians some of the ways in which
we use drugs in patients, while at the same time having residents, fellows, students on
the pharmacy side co-learn in such a teaching environment.
So that was fantastic.
And then moved into more of a leadership role as associate director or pharmacotherapy services
director by creating experiences for our students in the Wake County region, about a nine-county
region.
That's how UNC train their students, similar to how they train the physicians on clock
shifts.
And so after that was done, we were able to have this opportunity to do the same thing
at a different state, so University of Maryland Baltimore.
I was there as associate director and then eventually assistant dean, so about over four
years.
I was really growing the experiential component of the student pharmacist learning opportunities
there and that scope covered the entire state.
So that was a privilege to be able to serve the institution in that way.
And after completing that, I had the distinct opportunity to serve as dean of Howard University
College of Pharmacy for about six years.
So that was in DC and then came here.
Not too long, so six years after completing dean, I had the opportunity to come to Albany
College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences to serve as president and professor.
So it's been a journey.
It's been just a privilege to serve people all through that journey.
Yeah.
Dr. Safade, thank you so much, and as you are sharing your journey, I'm struck, I think,
by the number of institutions that you've had the opportunity to serve.
Now sometimes people talk about when you stay at the same institution, there are advantages,
right?
Because there's deep knowledge of the institution, there's so many people you know, you've had
the opportunity to move from place to place.
Talk about some of the advantages in your career of doing these moves and some of the
disadvantages you feel like may have come from moving.
Some of the advantages of staying in the same location is the upward mobility that it might
provide, and really just growing roots, strengthening the work and the projects you might have done
there.
And one of the things that my dad always told me is, you know, when the applause is loudest
and that's when you have to consider leaving.
I think what that translates to is you have to assess yourself and the accomplishments
that you have, you know, been able to establish right in that location or institution or committee
or wherever it is you're referring to.
And ask the question, am I done?
Done not in the sense of frustration or done in the sense of, ugh, let's go.
But thinking about, can I outdo myself here?
At least that's the question that I ask myself is, is there anything else?
How can I top this?
Because I'm very goal driven.
I try to serve the institution with all my heart, soul, and mind as much as possible.
And so there comes a time when you realize, you know, A, there might be somebody who can
do better here and I don't have that skill set to take it to the next level that I think
it needs to go, or I have maxed out what I believe my capacity is able to accomplish
and in alignment with long-term goals and long-term impact, it is a mutually win-win
benefit to move to a different institution.
For everybody, that's different.
For everybody, it varies.
So I'm grateful that for me, for each move, it has aligned nicely with what was necessary
and it was very positive actually for everyone that I have served so far.
And I'm just grateful and honored to have served each and every one of these institutions
to the best of my ability and to leave it in a place where you can say was better than
when you met it.
I love it.
Thank you for sharing that.
What I hear also in what you're sharing is even if we don't think about it as leaving
institutions, I mean, even within institutions, people move from position to position and
thinking about have you maxed out the benefit in that position and is it time to move to
the next position?
So even if you're not moving institutions, it sounds to me like it's a great, it's always
great to assess and say I've been doing this for a long time, what's the next level and
am I the right person to bring this position to the next level?
So thank you for sharing that.
My pleasure.
Okay.
So I want to get into a story in my life where you were very crucial and I've talked about
it a couple of times on this podcast episode.
So my audience is somewhat familiar, but I got to a place in my career where I was ready
to quit medicine or at least I was ready to quit all of academia.
And we had a conversation, that was a very pivotal conversation.
And I have to say, I want to say that at the time that I was experiencing all these challenges,
I didn't think, oh, I have a mentor who at the time you were dean, I didn't think, oh,
I have a mentor who's dean of the college of pharmacy.
Why don't I go talk to her?
Because it didn't seem to me as if you, I mean, it was clinical medicine, but it became
really important and relevant because in your journey in academia, you've had challenges
too.
So you shared challenges with me that changed the way I thought about my challenges.
So the first question I want to ask you to speak to or answer is this whole concept of
mentoring across disciplines.
How should people really be thinking about their network of mentors, sponsors, and especially
in terms of thinking about the transdisciplinary mentorship or across professions?
So there are certain fundamental challenges that every discipline will face.
And it comes to a point in your journey or growth in your career where it's no longer
about the science or the fundamental knowledge of medicine or pharmacy, in my case, that
is determining what you're facing, that you call challenges.
And when we're able to sort of separate those two, your fundamental training as an MD versus
a PharmD or perhaps an engineer even, and the root cause of the challenges, which many
times are very different from the training, then you cease to see yourself as, oh, their
medicine, their pharmacy.
You see yourselves as co-leaders growing on a ladder, and in each rung of those ladders,
there are challenges you are going to face that will be common all across the board,
regardless of whether you're a lawyer or what.
And the trick is really your interactions with people and how successful you are with
that because IRN is going to be similar, right?
The challenges with offers, benefits, those kinds of things, the details might be different,
but how you approach those would likely be similar, right?
Then when you get to how to manage people in an organization, people are people are
people are people.
And if we knew people fully, there'll be no wars in the entire world, right?
But that's why we have to keep learning.
That's why we have to keep sharpening our knowledge around dealing with conflict, dealing
with challenges, dealing with managing envy, sabotage, or the four horsemen, for example,
really just dealing with people.
It's people.
And people challenges in every single institution is similar.
And so it's a matter of then separating that out and saying, hmm, what am I dealing with
here?
And as you, a physician, you try to diagnose what the situation, what's the people challenge
that I'm facing here.
And when you can identify what that people challenge is, then you can approach it with
the same way you would approach it, whether it be an engineering or lawyer fields that
presents itself because people are still people.
Yeah, no, that's really good.
It's really good because I think that we do think very siloed and there's this sense that,
well, you're not a physician.
You can't understand my problems.
And yes, the details are different, but the general challenges are similar.
And so maybe this is a good time to speak about how should people be thinking about
curating their network of sponsors, of mentors, because I meet a lot of faculty who say, I
don't have a mentor.
And maybe what they're saying is I don't have a research mentor.
I don't have a mentor who's exactly my discipline, but nobody comes as far as you come without
mentors.
And so maybe speak to how should people be thinking about curating their networks of
mentors and sponsors?
One of the advice that I give our students and anyone I get a chance to meet, young professionals,
is to have at least six to eight mentors.
What that means is you have to be able to build relationships.
If you can't build relationships, you're dead in the water because it's the people that
you interact with.
It's the people who care about you, the people who see your work, your growth that will eventually
choose to either guide you, show you where the stones are, so to speak, or say, oh, I
know this individual.
She's nice and she's very accommodating and she's brilliant and she would be good for
X or Y or Z. Those are your sponsors.
Those people who will speak to your capabilities when you can't be there.
But if you haven't already built that network over the years, then it won't be able to
serve you when you actually need them.
So the advice about curating those, to curate that network of mentors and sponsors is think
about everybody in front of you as a potential person who either you are meant to serve or
they might be there to serve you in the future.
If you see everybody in front of you and every relationship as critical, that there's a reason
for it, there's a purpose for it, you will be intentional about how you interact with
people generally.
Now you don't want to talk to folks because you think, oh, can you be my mentor?
I remember I was in that phase at one point in time and I thought, oh, I need a mentor
and I was really desperate to try to get a mentor.
And then I began to learn that that's not how it works.
In fact, most people are spooked by the word mentor because they feel like there is this
huge responsibility that they have to accomplish and they have these expectations.
And you know, academics too, we can layer on top of it.
First month you do this, second month you do this, third month you do this, otherwise
you'll be evaluated and you're going to be, you know, maybe you've done a bad job.
And then people are just like, I'd rather have nothing to do with that.
My advice to many of the people that I've interacted with is just build relationships.
Don't label it.
Do not label it.
Don't put pressure on it.
It's almost like dating in many ways where the moment you start putting labels on things
and things start falling apart, don't put a label on it.
Just build a relationship.
If it's happening, it's happening.
If it's not happening, it's not happening.
Don't worry about it.
I've had, I'm going to give a couple of examples.
One example, I had a meeting with the vice president and one of my institutions in the
past, and I hadn't even met her before.
This was the very first time I'd just been promoted to assistant dean and I was trying
to do a job and I needed to meet her to learn something to get the job done.
And so I sat in her, in her office and she was about to share with me and give me insights
into the task and the project I was working on for the first 30 minutes of that meeting.
She's retired now.
For the first 30 minutes of that meeting, she was just downloading about how to be an
executive and how to be successful as an executive female.
And I just took my notepad and my pen and I just kept writing pages and pages before
we even got down to business.
And that was the season when I actually was thinking about, oh, I need a mentor.
I need a mentor.
I never met her before.
I didn't even, I can't even remember her name now, but that was it.
That was the opening into here is information you've been looking for.
Now I'm a person of faith, so I had been praying about this, obviously, to say, Lord, please
help me.
And I remember that word that came, which was I am that I am.
I will be your mentor.
Now that sounds crazy, but that relaxed me to see that I needed to just open my mind
to understand that the people that I thought would be my best mentors or that would be
a best fit for me may not necessarily be the ones that will give me the information that
I needed.
And I tell you, after she was, she told me conferences I needed to attend, ways I need
to posture myself, how I needed to present.
I was full.
30 minutes, I was full.
Then we went to business, we were done.
Shortly after that, she retired.
We got maybe one other chance, I took out to lunch just so that I could learn some more.
Mentors, you have to notice and make sure you're serving them for them to serve you.
So you don't have a sense of expectation or entitlement.
They're giving you valued time.
So you have to think about that.
Can you take them out to coffee and have a conversation?
You don't have to put too much, but learn about what they care about.
And then before you know it, they start sharing things that you need.
The second example that I will share, I was at a conference in Croatia and I was with
this colleague, friend is how I will call her.
She was a systems leader and she was also at that conference.
She's from Australia.
And we were supposed to go into a session and I had just gotten my role as dean and
I was just casually sharing the news that, oh, you know, that, you know, dean now and
so on and so forth.
Meanwhile, before that time I had met with, because it was a new role for me, I just randomly
five minutes would meet with people who I knew were deans and just ask them simple questions.
And I say, knowing what you know now, what do you wish you knew before becoming a dean?
And I tell you that opened up a whole set of tips and tricks that 20 deans were able
to share with me.
I'll just meet them casually one on one.
That didn't require a whole mentoring protocol.
It was information that was going to solidify my foundation before getting into the deanship.
And it was so valuable because there were 20 different deans, male, female, different
races, you know, that were sharing with me.
And I valued that.
So back to the Croatia example.
So when I went there, I just, you know, told her, oh, this is going on and so on and so
forth.
Somebody I respect so much internationally known.
And she said something.
And here's the trick about mentorship, right?
You have to know when it's about to happen and you have to be willing to sacrifice whatever
necessary to get what is about to happen and position yourself for what's about to happen
to you.
And so she said, we're about to go into the next session.
We're going to coffee break, you know, 15, 20 minute coffee break.
We're about to go into the next session.
I said, would you like to take a few minutes and I could just spend some time with you?
And I was thinking like, what?
Yes, ma'am.
Absolutely.
And so I just stayed.
We were right there on a bistro table.
The session had resumed.
And I kid you not, we were there for at least an hour.
At least an hour.
She was willing to, let me tell you, if I had to pay for that session, I don't know
how much it would have cost, but she was willing.
Time and opportunity.
You have to know when it's happening and make sure your position to receive whatever is
there for you.
And I sat there and we stood initially, then we had to move a location to sit because it
was getting so good.
And for a whole hour, she just started downloading examples, experiences, how to, and she pretty
much laid the landscape, how people will approach me in my beginning weeks and so on and so
forth and how to not take the first impressions that you get from your new role.
Very valuable wisdom.
Eventually, she offered that because one of the tips they tell you is you technically
want to be careful about sharing details, particularly if you're in a decision-making
type of role like Adine, with individuals in the exact same institution you are because
it's going to spread.
People will talk about what you're saying to other people.
And so being that she was in an institution that the likelihood of her knowing anybody
in the institution I was in was slim, it was a safer bet to have somebody like her.
And she offered herself.
So 6 p.m., 7 p.m. in Eastern time was 9 a.m. or 8 a.m. early morning in Australia time.
And we will meet every other month just to debrief if there were any challenges that
I had, I could bring it to her and she would help tease it out based on her experience
because she'd been doing this a minute.
I am grateful, grateful to God for people like that who just offered their time.
And said that there are individuals who are available to mentor you for a fee and there's
nothing wrong in that.
Value their time, respect their time, bring the questions you have to the session so that
you can get the value that you need.
I've had to do that as well, to have a coach type individual.
So it was almost like a coach slash mentor.
Because they've done the work right, they can help you tease out and really give you
the 10,000 foot view you need to have concerning what you're doing.
So I'm going to stop there, but it's a lot.
It's very important.
Make sure you have mentors.
Make sure you are sensitive to when somebody is trying to give you wisdom.
Don't think you're smarter than anyone.
You'll be surprised what kinds of information is out there that can make your work go faster.
Thank you.
I got so much from what you said.
I just want to make some of those things explicit.
So one of the first things I got is the sense of not being desperate, not feeling like there's
only one person for you.
And so you go with that desperate energy to scare people out of your path.
It's just really thinking about the fact that you're cultivating relationships and you're
thinking in every relationship, how do I serve this person?
This person may be here to serve me.
How do I meet my end of the bargain rate?
Because that's what I'm in control of.
And so really thinking of people as just how do I build good relationships?
And that takes the pressure off those, I need you to be my mentor.
And it allows you to be a more normal human.
You didn't say that, but that's what I got out of it.
And then the other thing that I also hear is that it seems as if people in these positions
are wanting to pour out.
And they're just looking for people who are open and available.
And I will want you to speak in a few minutes about whether that had anything to do with,
because you talked a lot about women, I heard.
And so I wonder if perhaps you had some male examples or whether there was a sense of this
person is kind of sharing the same experiences as me and therefore I feel like I really need
to invest.
So I wonder if there's some of that.
But it does sound like people who are in positions ahead of us, mentors that we're looking to,
are really looking to pour out into people.
And the moment they have opportunity, they want to do that.
And we have to be willing to recognize it and to be available to take advantage of that.
And then I think the third thing I heard you say is just the openness of mentoring can
happen in different ways.
And if you're just in a one track mind of it has to be a meeting with this person every
week, you may miss mentoring opportunities that may be one-off mentoring opportunities,
that may be invitations to have continued relationships of mentoring, but mentoring
can come in different formats and so people should stay open.
So you said a lot of things, but those are three things I wanted to say.
And I don't know if he wanted to just reflect or share any thoughts that come from that.
I think that's concise.
That's very good.
So the one thing you mentioned around whether individuals are open to mentoring, it depends.
There's some folks who are at a stage in their life where they are ready to leave a legacy
and they're hoping to identify proteges that will be willing to take on the mantle, so
to speak, to take that baton and go to the next level.
And they will be intentional about identifying said individual or individuals to mentor in
a very deliberate way.
Maybe they're going to end up being the next VP or the next president or the next name
that title.
There are other folks who have that grace, so to speak, or skill set of just raising
leaders.
They know how to do it.
They identify potential leaders and they just pour in generously.
Not too many people are like that, but when you encounter one of those, just be grateful
and don't compare yourself with the other person who they might be mentoring as well.
Because the historical way of succession planning has been there's one person who's going to
take over the company and then everybody is scrambling to be the one.
And that creates envy and that creates a lot of toxicity in the environment.
I encourage leaders, my approach is really to share generously because you never know
who is going to apply the information that you are sharing.
But if you share generously, then every single person, it's like the tide that raises all
boats, so to speak.
If everybody gets to the level of superstar leader, the organization benefits tremendously.
But if you pour and spend all your energy on one person and that person disappoints
you, then you've wasted your time in the sense that that person is not going to work out.
Now the organization is still where it was before.
So I encourage all leaders to have the mindset of raising leaders, period.
Now, when you get to the point of how do I begin to identify potential succession individuals
you have to have a knack for talent and leaders have to observe and really be intentional
about encouraging individuals to attend more training.
Now you can offer someone training, but if they don't think they need training, then
they miss out.
So it's a very complex field if you think about it in that way.
You might see 10 people who have potential and you share with them and say, look, there's
this training opportunity in X institution that would like you to attend.
And the individuals, maybe only two of them attend.
Whereas you identify 10, guess what?
Those two have distinguished themselves to be at a different caliber than the ones that
you had identified though in the same class, so to speak.
Now that's one thing that many rising stars don't realize.
Follow instructions.
Listen to the leaders who've been there, done that and are telling you things.
Even if you think it's minute and insignificant, there is a reason why they are sharing what
they're sharing with you.
I've learned that.
And I take very seriously every single piece of advice that my mentors have provided me
over the years.
I write it down.
I go back before I go back to meet my mentor, whoever I've identified as a mentor, even
before they call themselves my mentor.
And I've seen that, look, here is something regular coming from this individual.
I make sure to be accountable.
I go back to them and I say, you told me during our last minute to read this book.
I read the book.
I thank you.
This is what I learned from it so that they can see that the investment of time in my
life is worth it.
So that next time they would consider something else that they want to add value for me.
So I encourage mentors to think about that.
I mean mentees, excuse me.
You want to be a star mentee?
Listen to that mentor.
Hold yourself accountable before your next meeting.
Let them know what you have done since the last time.
Don't waste anybody's time.
Please don't tell them from the last time we met, you told me this, this, and this.
This is what's been going on.
This is what has happened.
This is what I've done differently.
I'm teaching my boys the same thing, you know, that when they meet with folks to make sure
that they follow the instructions that whoever is mentoring them is sharing with them.
Thank you.
That's really valuable and thank you for sharing so much wisdom.
I want you to talk about obstacles now because, you know, in my conversations with you over
the years and even in the last few years, you know, you seem to indicate that obstacles
are part of the course, they're part for the course.
And so where I think I felt like, oh my gosh, this is too hard.
It was like, oh yeah, this is the way it is.
Can you just speak to obstacles and the role that they have to play, especially the, I
don't want to say people obstacles because I mean, all obstacles really are, are really
about relationships, I think.
But can you speak to their role in our growth and development and how we should be looking
at them, especially for, for people who feel like this is not working and I want to quit?
Yeah.
So the obstacles that you face, they say, you know, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.
Yes.
Obstacles can help us build resilience.
It also helps us build experience and it helps us learn and that learning can eventually
become wisdom.
So for example, you face a situation, maybe it's a difficult employee, employer, peer,
whatever that is personality, and you're just wondering how in the world am I going to survive
with said individual in my life or in this job.
If you want to quit because of somebody, let me tell you, when you go to the next place,
you might find five people worse than that individual in that job that you think is better
than the one you have.
Because during the interview, you're not going to know every single person you're trying
to interact with.
And so the approach that I have taken, particularly when it becomes people challenges is to try
to understand, seek to understand, try not to get sucked up in the emotional approach,
presentation of the individual triggers, try to focus on what's objective.
What are they trying to tell me?
What feedback are they giving me?
I remember a lady who many people in one of the organizations had been married when the
organization had said so many negative things about.
And the feedback I received from the individual was valuable, so much so that it seemed like
they would always come off negative and so on and so forth.
And I just would think, okay, if this were 2% true, that's one of the things they tell
us in our coaching classes is think about the 2% truth instead of just writing off the
feedback you're receiving is what's the 2% truth here?
That way you're not taking it personal.
You're trying to be as objective as necessary.
And after looking at things in that way, I found that when we would have meetings, I
would ask the question, what could go wrong?
And I could count on this individual to name at least a few things that would go wrong
in the plan.
But what I also did was it allowed my plan to be better.
Why?
Because you have included the reasons for it to go wrong and you have come up with solutions
for those reasons for it to go wrong.
So next time you have what people consider a naysayer, they might be the ones that are
going to strengthen your plan the best.
So that way you've had the positive outlook of what your plan is, what could go right.
This has such great potential.
That's good.
And then you look at it on the other side of things to see what could go wrong.
So that's where you start strengthening the risky parts of your plan.
And don't give up.
It's like, okay, what is the solution to that?
Well, the sky is going to fall and everybody, okay, how can we keep the sky from falling?
Or if the sky is going to fall anyway, how can we create, is it umbrellas or is it a
little shed to make sure everybody's protected, to think about the contingency plans to whatever
it is that comes forth.
And it just makes you a better administrator because you've thought of it from the positive
extreme and you've planned through the negative extreme as well.
And in the process, you've included the ideas of the individuals.
And so it's a little bit more robust in terms of the plan that you have.
Wow.
That's really, really powerful.
Thank you so much.
That's so insightful.
So here are a couple of things that come out for me.
But one is that I hear you saying that the agent who needs change is you.
Where if someone, even if they're so negative, is sharing something that's upsetting, it's
like, well, what are they saying that I can actually make use of?
And let's focus on that.
And where I think our tendency, at least I'll speak for myself, my tendency is to say, well,
look at the 98%, this person is clearly awful.
But to say, okay, well, this 2%, how do we use this to our advantage?
And so I hear you talking about opportunities to say, well, if someone is entirely negative,
how can you take advantage of that negativity to say, well, tell me all the negatives so
I can prepare?
Right?
And it's just, how do you best manage yourself so that you're able to really help people
serve you to their best advantage?
Whether other people might see it as negative, you're able to use the negative to your advantage.
That's amazing.
And I think that's an opportunity to grow, to be able to say, well, what can I take from
this person even if most of it feels like it's negative?
So that's one thing.
I think another thing that I hear you saying is kind of the importance of wanting all the
sides.
And so it's not wanting people who are always saying, well, great, everything is going great,
but really soliciting, and sometimes you don't have to solicit it, it comes free of charge,
but soliciting feedback from people who do have negative things to say, because it allows
you to really build a more realistic real world plan that is able to withstand either
extremes, the extremes of great or the extremes of not so great.
And then I think the third thing I heard you say is that, wow, if you think that you're
having a challenge with someone in one place, you have to recognize that that person is
going to be at your next place, even if it's not that same person.
And so you have to ask, well, how do I manage that person here?
So then I know I'm equipped to manage the other person there.
But I also hear you saying in the background of that, do not quit a job because of a person,
because that's not a great reason to do that.
Do you want to speak more about that?
Yeah, the question to ask is, what am I supposed to learn here?
What am I supposed to learn in this scenario?
I remember feeling that someone was trying to sabotage my work, at least that's the perception
that I had in one of the institutions I had.
That was the view that I had, and I had to go search.
How do you deal with saboteurs in an organization?
And the message from it, and I think it was HBR, one of those really wonderful newsletters
or so, was that you focus on your work.
Just stay focused on your work.
Don't get sucked into what the person is doing or not doing or how they're trying to pull
things down, so to speak.
Just stay focused.
And when you get results, the results will speak for themselves.
And that's what I've learned all through the years, and I've found that I've been able
to mentor individuals because of that experience that I've had, to say, don't get sucked in.
You focus on your work.
Get the results.
The results will speak.
That's one example.
No, it's good.
It's good, and thank you for sharing.
What I hear you talking about is the importance of self-management.
That's so important.
And being able to be self-aware enough to say, well, okay, well, maybe I think someone's
sabotaging my work instead of yelling at this person or saying, you saboteur, you.
Saying, well, how do people manage saboteurs?
Because this is not the first time.
Obviously, this is happening.
And being kind of aware enough to say, well, let me go find out information that helps
you grow so that the next time you face a saboteur, you're not thrown for a loop.
You know what to do.
So it's kind of the importance of focusing on what you control rather than the things
you don't control.
Absolutely.
You could summarize it.
You could write a book on this now.
Thank you.
No, it's really great.
I feel like you have so many great points.
And to be honest, there's so many more nuances to what you're saying.
And yeah, but those are at least some of the highlights I want to highlight for my audience.
Wow.
So I want to first of all say thank you so much, President Tafare.
Your time is so precious, and I appreciate that you spent it with me and my audience.
And I do want to ask before we close the conversation though, what have we left on set?
What is something that's important for early career faculty to be thinking about on their
journey in academia?
Be humble, be willing to learn, and don't discriminate against who can teach you.
Anybody can teach you, no matter their age, no matter their experience, no matter their
gender or identity.
Anybody can teach you.
Be open.
Just be open to learn.
And if you're open to learn, you're more likely to grow as fast as you'd be surprised what
you can accomplish when you learn from people.
That's what I've seen.
It's those individuals who humble themselves, receive information from mentors or even just
general advice, hallway advice.
Remember the advice that I received where someone said, oh, you have to make sure you
publish two papers every, at least two papers a year, right, to be able to qualify for professorship.
And I was like, is that right?
So I just stuck that in my brain.
I don't think it's written anywhere in stone, but it's that general advice people give.
And if you build your system to the point where you're very productive with publications,
then people notice.
The results will show.
You wouldn't have to lobby for, I'm worth it, it's my time.
The results will show, and then it becomes a slam dunk in the end.
So there's a lot to be said, but I just wanted to wrap it up there.
Yeah.
No, thank you.
Thank you, actually.
I don't want you to wrap it up just yet.
Okay.
What might you say differently for people who identify as women?
Yeah.
So one of the things I've learned by attending conferences and listening to presentations
about scholarly activity, growth, and just general leadership and advancement for females
is that we as females tend to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
Whereas our male counterparts are more likely to take risks and to allow the good to help
spur them along.
So for example, if there were a job out there that a female looked at it and said, well,
I'm not quite 80%.
I can't do, you know, I'm maybe just 60% of this.
You'll feel comfortable taking the job or applying for the job if she feels like, yeah,
I can do about 80% of this.
Let's go for it.
Whereas a guy will say, 60%?
Ah, let's go.
Let's go.
And then we find, and I'm not trying to overgeneralize, yes, there are equity issues out there and
there's so much that needs to be fixed with pay and all that good stuff.
But there are some observations that I have seen even as a leader for how females approach
offers.
Not many females negotiate, even the smart ones.
Whereas some guys who may not even have the same expertise as same female believe in that
they deserve more.
Why is that?
I don't have an answer.
It's just my observation from my few years of leadership.
So I want to encourage our females out there is to believe in yourself.
Talk to somebody who has gone ahead of you.
Have them coach you through what to be asking for and what to expect and what to say and
what not to say.
Simple advice somebody gave me is don't take the first offer that's out there, regardless
of whether you think it's a good one.
Don't.
And that can be scary sometimes, but I just learned that through listening to people who've
gone through.
And then I strongly encourage females that you should have male mentors.
I'm not saying you shouldn't have female mentors.
Make sure that part of your suite of six to eight that you have male mentors.
There's a different way that guys look at things.
Sometimes as females we get sucked in the emotion around it.
It makes us really good leaders actually is what I've observed.
But there are times when you just have to do it and just have to go.
One guy asked me this question and he said, if you didn't have to worry about anything,
what would you do?
I wrote it on a little sticky note.
I put it in front of my computer and I look at it every day.
If you didn't have to worry about anything, what would you do?
As females many times we have the guilt problem.
Guilt.
We are the most sacrificial individuals I know, or species I know, and still we're feeling
guilty about it.
It's just amazing.
If you have somebody to say, that's why you need those people to help keep you objective
to say, look, look at what you're doing.
You're amazing.
You're doing fantastic over here.
This is what you need to do next.
That individual who asked me that question was a male.
I looked at him and after looking at that question I saw that he was trying to say that
I was holding myself back.
The worst challenge, the worst obstacle we have as females is ourselves.
Let me tell you, if I were to talk to my younger self, and that's why I spend a lot of time
with younger people is don't be so hard on yourself.
I told a lady yesterday, a very young lady I have respect for, she's finishing up her
undergraduate.
Brilliant lady.
She's going to graduate a four-year program in under four years and she's still hard
on herself.
I said, honey, don't be so hard on yourself.
I know your type because I'm like that too.
So hard on myself, have high expectations of myself.
I said, don't be so hard.
You're brilliant.
You're a superstar.
We need more people to remind ourselves, to remind our females that they're superstars.
One of the things I've had to do even as a president is I was sharing this with some
of my female presidents.
I'm a member of a women president's organization and they had come to my college.
They spent time with my students.
It was such a delightful time.
They poured into them and the students were asking questions.
It was just heaven on earth.
It was beautiful.
One of the things that we were sharing at one point, I said, sometimes with us females,
we're the hardest on ourselves.
You're like Wonder Woman Plus over there and still you think you're a zero.
Seriously?
Sometimes you have to actually type down, and I remember having to do this exercise
at one point, the feedback that people had given me that were positive.
I typed it down on one of my notes and started with the words, you are.
You are one of the most powerful first words.
You can put anything you put after that, negative or positive, can have significant impact.
So try and find something positive after that.
You are amazing.
Okay.
What did so and so say about you?
So and so say you're a good cook.
Okay, put it there.
So and so say you're a good leader.
Put it down.
Write the list of everything people have told you because we are also not the ones that
tend to give ourselves good self-talk.
We're not.
Not usually.
So write down everything people have said, even the ones you didn't believe.
Just write it down.
Make a list.
Keep making that list until you feel like you've captured everything people have been
telling you that you are this, you are that, the positive things.
Put it down there.
And then on the day when you think the hurricane has hit and the tornado came through town
and career-wise, journey-wise, whatever you want to call it, it looks like, ooh, it's
one of those days.
Go back to your notes.
Read through it.
See what it says.
Remind yourself of who you are.
And that should bring a burst of joy and a burst of confidence and a burst of positivity
into your life.
I also encourage females to make sure everybody actually needs this.
Make sure you have a stress toolkit.
Make sure you have a sunshine folder where you can put positive things to help push you
through those obstacles, those challenges, those bad days.
Bad days will come.
The storm comes.
The rain comes.
Summer comes.
And the sun will shine again.
Wow, President Tawthani, thank you so much.
It's been such a pleasure talking with you.
I appreciate you sharing your insights.
I mean, just so much.
So much I still want to ask you.
But we're going to wrap up the show.
I'm going to allow you to go on to your next thing.
But I want to thank you so much for being on the show and just for your words of wisdom.
Thanks for being here.
Thank you for having me.
It's my pleasure.
Well, for every member of our audience, thank you so much for listening.
We look forward to...
I look forward to talking with you again next time on the Clinician Researcher Podcast.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you.
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