The best laboratories are nourished by streams of graduate and postdoctoral students who bring fresh ideas and new approaches to old problems which is easier to achieve when linked to a good university. The desirable qualities of a laboratory chief are as hard to define as those of a good spouse. According to one psychologist s survey, men use their managerial jobs to bolster their masculinity and sublimate aggression, greed, and envy Such personalities do not make the best leaders of research. The positive qualities needed are judged best from descriptions of great heads of laboratories of the past. Bobri what physics was all about, that it was a social activity and that a teacher should be with his students.
Most scientists are enthusiastic about their own ideas and discoveries.
Rutherford and Bohr were exceptional in being enthusiastic about those of others. It was this generous spirit, the atmosphere of all things being possible, along with their scientific professionalism, intellectual force, and imaginative genius, rather than management, that made their laboratories inspiring and successful places in which to work. Inc. All rights reserved. We welcome your opinion.