Caryn Lerman, Director of USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Keck Medicine of USC, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Sometimes leaders have to make decisions that suck.
With NIH funding cuts and university budgets tightening, cancer center directors and other leaders across the country are being asked to do more with less: cut staff, reduce programs, and advise trainees entering the workforce during a historic challenging time for academic medicine.
What keeps me up at night is not the spreadsheets or the budget meetings. It’s looking people in the eye knowing their job might disappear because of decisions that neither of us can control. Every austerity measure has a human cost.
I’ve seen two types of leaders: those who cut strategically and those who cut desperately. Strategic cuts are harder. It means choosing what matters most, protecting your core mission, and sometimes letting good programs go to save great ones.
So how do you lead when you have to hurt people to save the mission? By telling the truth and fighting like hell to protect the people and programs that matter most.
The budget crisis will pass eventually. How we show up during it will be remembered forever.”
More posts featuring Caryn Lerman.