By Jane Chin, Ph.D.
How do you excel in your MSL career in 2008? By effectively “Managing up”, in other words, managing your relationship with your MSL manager, and for some of you in a flatter/smaller organization, the MSL director.
One MSL director offered these three tips for MSLs when managing up:
1. Understand your own expectations and goals as well as those of your manager. Ideally these should all should be transparent, but in reality, this may not always be the case. Effective MSLs will engage in continual and active dialog with their managers about not just their own goals, but how they help in the overall success of the program and volunteer to help their managers achieve success.
2. Prepare for ride alongs with your manager. Don’t wait for the manager to set up a planning session. Then, come to the ride along prepared with an agenda and schedule. Effective MSLs don’t wait for the manager to solicit them for available ride along times, they want to gain face time with their managers so they will know how they’re performing.
3. Think about how you are perceived. Effective MSLs think about the attitude they are presenting to the company. This MSL director is often surprised that many MSLs don’t recognize this aspect. Before you send out an email, take a step back and read what you’ve written or how you are expressing frustration. In the past, I talked about one way you can prevent “sender’s regret” (“Increase Your Email Productivity as a MSL”, Medical Science Liaison Newsletters, Volume 2, Number 1, Jan 2007. Archive).
Remember: Your manager can be your best ally or your biggest hindrance, depending on the health of your relationship.