Leading the people and leading the work: Practical considerations for ethical research

Scientific work is demanding and complex, requiring those leading research to be simultaneously innovative and ethical in their work. Along with this, those leading scientific teams need to be able to influence both the work being done and lab members doing the work. Thus, both leadership and management skills are necessary to navigating the organizational, social, and ethical components of the research process in order to do rigorous, ethical, and high-quality scientific work. This paper recommends a number of practices that leaders of research teams should engage in, including management behaviors for "leading the work" and leadership behaviors for "leading the people" that foster excellence and integrity in research labs. Researchers can take an intentional approach to leadership and management to create a robust environment for ethical research. Overall, a researcher's routine behaviors as leaders of their labs should establish a healthy work environment and promote effective interpersonal interactions among lab members. Further, the lab requires routine procedures and structure to provide adequate oversight of the research. This paper also addresses challenges that may arise when implementing leadership and management practices, along with strategies for overcoming these strategies. Avenues for future research and policy development related to leadership and management in scientific contexts are discussed.