A year in management overwhelmed microbiologist Dennis J. Henner, and he retreated to the bench. The time was the mid-1980s. The company: Genentech Inc. in South San Francisco, a biotechnology pioneer that had vowed to make recombinant DNA technology a commercial success. The young bench scientist scaled the career ladder by steering a team of company scientists.
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...
Interested in reading more?
Become a Member of
Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!