The Leadership Power of Different Perspectives

“Human nature is to surround yourself with people who are the same as you are, but in a leadership team you have to do the opposite.”

— Erin Chambers, Global Vice President & General Manager, Consumables & Lab Automation, Waters Corporation

Asked for the best leadership advice she's received, Erin Chambers, global vice president and general manager of Waters Corporation's consumables and lab automation business, offers two guiding philosophies. The first: hire people who are smarter and more expert than you are, trust them, and then get out of their way. In an industry that moves as fast as analytical science, she says, no individual can keep up with every advancement alone, and bringing in genuine experts creates a cycle where those experts become trusted partners to customers, who then come back with their hardest questions first, a cycle she describes as virtuous once it's established.

The second philosophy centers on building a leadership team that thinks differently than you do. Chambers recalls sitting in a project review board meeting, growing impatient watching a methodical colleague take their time reaching a decision, before realizing their approach was exactly what the team needed to balance her own style. She also describes a three-part mantra she lives by: be optimistic, be pragmatic, and be accountable, crediting her current leader with a saying that captures the accountability piece: 'If not me, then who?"“—an obligation, she says, owed to herself, to the people who trust her, and to the organization she works within.

Chambers answered the following question:

• What’s the best piece of leadership advice that you have received in your career?

Watch the full interview clips here:
Column Chemistry: Chromatography's New Frontier From Emerging Modalities to R&D Priorities
Data Reliability and Regulatory Readiness
AI's Impact on the Chromatography Community
The Leadership Power of Different Perspectives

For more information on Waters, please click here.