crystals, energy and leadership

I have always wondered what makes a good leader.  There are classes on leadership, but I don't think leadership can be taught in a class.  I was sent to a leadership class, only to be given a book entitled "Leadership: how to deal with difficult people", which wasn't what I envisioned leadership to be, so I stopped going.  I think many leadership classes are really management classes. That can be taught to some extent.  I also don't think leadership is something one is born with. What I do believe is that leadership is something that one learns along the way, but through experience, not through classes or books.  I also know that I can recognize a leader when I see one. A leader is someone I respect and trust. That is I respect my leader if she/he has proven depth of expertise, experience and knowledge of the domain that she/he is overseeing. I expect leaders to also be able to see the big picture, to be strong in her/his domain, but broad enough to understand other domains to some extent. It is only then that the leader can have a vision that is both meaningful and backed up by substance.  Trust is also key. The leader needs to think about the team.  They may answer to higher leaders, they may answer to shareholders, they may have grand visions, but at the end of the day, they serve their people and their company, department, etc.  The team is the highest priority.  And to have the best interests of the team and the team members, one must have a genuine and impactful interest in what everyone on the team is doing.

If you define leadership like this, it is possible to have an entire team of people who are leaders, even if they are not officially holding the leader's title.  Leadership is about team work. True leaders learn from each other and then pass that information on.  There is no reason why you can't have a team full of leaders, if you define it the way I do. And so I see the world this way.  Those who know what they're doing and look out for the team, and those who don't know anything, but are constantly trying to sell themselves. Surround yourself with the former.

In academia, watch out for any so-called "leader" who doesn't have the academic street cred: impactful contributions in their domain. If it's science, you better have the quality and quantity of papers that deserve respect. If it's music, you better have some talent. If it's literature, you better have some important writings.  Simply put, a leader cannot demand quality if she/he never reached that level nor can a leader, who has never arrived, recognize talent. One who has never done impactful work is unlikely to recognize what it takes to nurture greatness in his/her own people.  Of course, impactful contributions alone do not make a true leader.  It is a necessary quantity but not sufficient.  A leader needs to have genuine and meaningful interest in his/her people and their work.


One thing that I've been deeply focused on is crystal growth. We're working on clocking how fast crystal grows in pegmatites. The only motivation for working on this is because, well, pegmatite crystals are just so interesting. Sometimes, one should just work on things that interest you and not chase the latest fad (I truly despise fad chasers).  Of course, our interest in crystal growth in natural sytsems is partly a way for us to educate ourselves in a fun way about the physics of crystal growth so that we can control how crystals nucleate and grow. I am in particularly interested in storing energy in the form of super-saturated solutions. I leave the rest to your imagination.