Roles of a group leader

As a group leader, you will have many different roles. Traditionallly, many of these are actually not done by the leader, but instead are handled by others in the group or the broader department/university. These roles don’t contradict each other as much as those of a junior researcher.

Funder

First and most obviously, the group leader serves to get funding for many of their group members. Plenty of junior researchers have, or apply for, their own funding, but in the end, in some fields, this falls to the research supervisor if there are no other options.

Sometimes, projects can be so diverse that the common funding source is the only thing bringing people together.

Easy because: Funding makes the leadership and supervision clear. It provides clear motivation for good supervision. It provides a clear connection between people. It (usually) makes the junior research an employee, which provides good labor protections.

Hard because: It’s stressful if someone needs funding, but there is not any.

Employer

The group leader often serves as the supervisor (from a HR point of view) of the group, as the legal representative of the employer. HR thinks this means you set the tasks and responsibilities of the employee (directing work). See Roles of a junior researcher for thoughts on how much this makes sense. Being the HR-related supervisor might be the only task a supervisor is actually required to do.

Of course, while an supervisor-employer can direct work, someone who does this too much would be considered a bad academic supervisor. Someone that is hands-off is usually considered good (but hopefully this book gives some reasons why being too hands-off is bad).

Easy because: HR prepares you and tells you what to do. It’s a clearly legally defined relationship. You can tell people what to do if needed.

Difficult because: Researchers don’t want to be treated as employees.

Employee

Let’s not forget that a supervisor is also an employee of the organization (usually). In theory, this means that practices come from the organization, through the supervisor, to the employees. This can be much more loose in practice - it’s almost like each research group is its own startup. (Look for horror stories of chaotic employment practices in startups and see how similar it feels.)

Scientific advisor

A group leader usually advises their group in the scientific topics needed for projects. This is a usually a pretty clear role and what group leaders have been trained for - at least more than anything else on this page. It can be a delicate balance between advisory and letting people learn themselves.

Easy because: It’s what you have the most experience in. You have experience receiving scientific advice. It’s expected.

Hard because: You don’t want to tell people “no”. It’s opinion based. It’s hard to measure if the advice is good or not.

Research process mentor

A group leader usually advises their group in the process (social side) of doing their projects: how to approach projects, the publication process, collaborations, and so on. Group leaders have usually have training here.

Easy because: You have experience in this. It’s expected.

Hard because: Most of this is “word of mouth”.

Practical mentor

There are all types of practical difficulties a young person may have in life when moving from undergraduate education to something sort-of like working life. Young researchers may have few people they can connect with, especially if they have moved far away.

As an example: at Aalto University (Finland), there are two types of people: those from Finland, and those not. Those from Finland have had everything work perfectly all their life and have plenty of friends who can help with anything else. Those not have various problems and many don’t have that support network. Like it our not, these questions end up at the group leader, and the group leader often provides better service than other official support structures (even if it’s just by being understanding of the situation).

Easy because: ??

Hard because: You don’t want to take on any more tasks. Opinion based. Different experiences.

Life coach

A junior researcher often doesn’t know exactly where they want to go in their life. Like it or not, most of the senior people they know are in academia, and thus those people are the life coaches.