Leadership Lessons from a Senior Biotech Executive

Interview with Snehal Patel, SVP and Head of Technical Operations at Sana Biotechnology

I have the privilege of meeting a lot of leaders, people who put on their shoulders responsibility for helping people in their careers and producing results. I’m impressed with anyone who will accept that responsibility. I’ve known Snehal for some years and have been uniquely impressed with his calm, humanism, and elegance … all while succeeding in one role after another. We spent time recently where I got to ask him about leadership. 

LEADERSHIP IS ABOUT HEART 

For me, leadership is inspiring, motivating others, bringing out the best in people, putting them in position to succeed. Leadership is different from management. You're not just managing them to do a job; you’re going to make them shine. You're invested in their interests, you're invested in their development, and you want what's best for them. 

GIVING TIME IS SHOWING YOU CARE 

When somebody took an interest in me and took the time out of their schedule to come and teach me something or help me in some capacity … that left an invaluable impression on me. I said to myself, wow, this person's got probably a million things to do, but they're taking time out for me. 

TOUGH IS NOT MY DEFAULT LEADERSHIP STYLE 

My first supervisor was just unbelievably hard. It was never good enough. She was micromanaging and kept pushing my buttons. I was new and she was shattering my confidence. It taught me I didn’t want to lead like that. I want to build people’s confidence. 

BRINGING PEOPLE INTO BIGGER CONVERSATIONS 

I let my current boss, the CEO of Sana, know I wanted to bring my people into conversations with his team. It’s important for them to hear the conversation, and I need their input. Fast forward, with this model of learning and bringing people together … the biggest compliment I got from the CEO was that I had elevated everybody's game. 

MAKING DIFFICULT DECISIONS 

Restructuring is never a good feeling, but it's sometimes necessary. With start-ups, you have to try things. And if they don't work, you have to be willing to make a decision and move forward. Because if you don't, the lack of decision is the decision in itself. Earlier in my career, I was like, I gotta make it work, I gotta make it work. I gotta somehow make it work. And it would cloud me from the seeing the forest for the trees. It never feels right to let someone go, so I strive to do it with compassion. 

KEYS TO PREVENTING BURNOUT 

I establish good boundaries. I have short meetings and “do not schedule” blocks. Every new member that comes on my team, I say, here's how we operate. Working 12-hour days doesn’t impress me. It’s about you taking care of yourself and making sure that you're present in the moment. There are a lot of things that I put in place to make sure we don't impact people's lives and such and help them create that safe space. For me, I used to think I could accomplish everything if I put everything on my shoulders. And that was wrong. Completely wrong.