But after only a year as a department manager, he decided he had his fill of leadership. "One, I wasn't ready. I was more focused on the science," says Henner, who would eventually re-enter management and, in the1990s, become the company's senior vice president of research. "And two, I had not really had much exposure to management, especially managing peers, other scientists. It was not a simple transition."
| Courtesy of Dennis Henner |
 Dennis Henner |
The transition took Henner about five years. In that time, he says, he learned to look beyond his own research aims and developed an understanding of the intersection between the scientists' careers and the company goals. Such lessons have proven so valuable to young scientists who take on management roles they have become a staple of Genentech's internal training procedures; these lessons in leadership have also become critical to work in academic laboratories.
"Universities are very ...
