When Leaders Don’t See Themselves as Leaders

A project involving multiple departments had stalled. Deadlines kept slipping, responsibilities were unclear and progress had slowed as emails went unanswered and decisions remained unresolved. An early-career scholar stepped in, organized meetings, clarified expectations, connected people who had been working in parallel and helped participants agree on next steps. Within a few weeks, the project was moving again. Nothing about the scholar’s title changed, no formal authority was granted and no promotion followed. Most people involved would agree that leadership played a critical role in the project’s success. But would anyone, including the scholar themselves, call what happened leadership?

The answer may be no, because most of the early leadership experiences in higher education happen in places we rarely recognize as such. Yet one of the richest leadership-development programs in academic institutions may be the one nobody is calling leadership development. It unfolds every day in research groups, projects and hallway conversations as graduate students and postdoctoral researchers coordinate teams, guide peers, navigate conflict and help groups move toward shared goals. This work is rarely funded, measured, credited or even named as leadership. As a result, many emerging leaders spend years practicing leadership without learning to see themselves as leaders.

Leadership identity is not simply a collection of leadership skills and experiences. It is the understanding of oneself as a leader who contributes by shaping a vision, advancing progress and empowering others. In our experience, developing a leadership identity rarely happens through experience alone. While academic training intentionally provides language, milestones and feedback for scientific identity development, leadership experiences are often left uninterpreted, and leadership identities are frequently left to develop on their own. As a result, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers may accumulate substantial leadership experience without ever incorporating those experiences into their sense of who they are. In other words, leadership capacity and leadership identity do not always develop at the same pace.

What Is Missing for Leadership Identity Development

What is often missing in the academic environment is not leadership capability but the opportunities to recognize, reflect on and validate leadership experiences—all three critical factors in the development of a leadership identity.

• Recognition. Much of the leadership work performed by graduate students and postdoctoral researchers is camouflaged as ordinary academic work. Facilitating collaborations or helping a team navigate disagreement are often viewed simply in terms of being organized or dependable. Rarely do we call this work leadership. Yet these activities require influence, judgment and responsibility. When leadership tasks are framed as something else, early-career scholars lose opportunities to recognize leadership in their own experiences.

• Reflection. Academic training is designed to encourage reflection. We discuss experiments, conference presentations, manuscripts and dissertation milestones. In contrast, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers spend far less time reflecting on how they influence others, build trust or navigate conflict. Experiences do not automatically become developmental simply because they occur; reflection is what transforms experience into learning. Yet few of the structures commonly used to support professional development, including annual reviews and individual development plans, explicitly prompt reflection on leadership experiences. Without opportunities to look back and make sense of their lived experiences, many early-career scholars never connect what they are doing with the leaders they are becoming.
• Validation. Much of what early-career scholars learn about themselves comes from feedback they receive from others. Leadership identities are strengthened when mentors, supervisors and colleagues explicitly acknowledge leadership as it emerges. A graduate student or postdoctoral researcher who successfully guides a team through a challenge may see themselves as helpful or organized; a mentor who identifies that contribution as leadership can fundamentally change how the experience is interpreted. Validation helps individuals recognize and internalize leadership capabilities that may already be developing. When validation is absent, leadership often remains visible to everyone except the person exhibiting it.

What We Can Do Differently

Closing these gaps does not require new infrastructure for leadership development because much of the work is already happening throughout graduate and postdoctoral education. What we can now do is help early-career scholars recognize, interpret and articulate their leadership experiences.

For institutions and training offices, a good place to start is reflection. Individual development plans, mentoring programs and professional development workshops already provide spaces for discussing growth and future goals. Leadership can enter those conversations through questions such as:

• “Where did you exercise influence this year?”
• “Whom did you help become more effective?”
• “What challenges required you to bring people together, navigate uncertainty or move a project forward?”

Questions like these encourage graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to see leadership as something they are already practicing rather than something reserved for a future role.

Mentors and supervisors have an equally important responsibility. Many graduate students and postdoctoral researchers operate in environments where feedback is heavily focused on academic productivity, and conversations about leadership rarely happen on their own. Yet a brief observation from a mentor can fundamentally change how an early-career scholar understands a recent experience. When a graduate student or postdoctoral researcher creates the conditions for others to succeed, mentors should name that contribution for what it is: leadership.

Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers themselves have a role in this, too. Most maintain careful records of publications, presentations and academic accomplishments. Far fewer keep track of experiences involving coordination, mentoring, conflict management or influence. A habit of developing, documenting and reflecting on these experiences helps individuals recognize patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed. One practical exercise is to create a simple leadership inventory. Instead of asking, “Have I led anything?” the question becomes, “Where have I influenced outcomes, supported others or helped a group move forward?” The answers are often more numerous than expected.

Leadership Is Already Happening

Higher education tends to treat leadership as something that comes later: First, scholars learn science, then they establish independence and eventually they become leaders. In practice, leadership is intertwined with these experiences. Many graduate students and postdoctoral researchers are already leading long before anyone formally recognizes them as leaders.

Acknowledging this reality changes how we think about leadership development. The goal is not simply to prepare future leaders. It is to help people see and strengthen the leadership identity that they are developing every day. That is why recognition, reflection and validation matter so much. Rather than creating leadership capacities where none exist, these three factors can help people understand leadership that is already emerging and bring it into view.

The next time a graduate student or postdoctoral researcher successfully coordinates a project, mentors a colleague or creates the conditions for others to succeed, consider pausing, acknowledging and naming what happened as leadership. Not because they need praise, but because they need language. Because leadership identities often begin to develop when someone hears, perhaps for the first time, “You’re good at leading this! Have you noticed?”