Stephanie Whitehead did not set out to become a vice president of pathology. Early in her career, her goal was much simpler: become a highly competent night-shift generalist.
She wanted to master every bench. She wanted to be reliable in blood bank. She wanted to do the work well.
Then, at 23, she became a lab director.
It was not the traditional path from bench scientist to supervisor to manager to director. Whitehead skipped several of the middle steps that many laboratory professionals rely on to build confidence and experience. She went from generalist to director and suddenly found herself leading employees who had worked in laboratory medicine longer than she had been alive.
“I do not advise doing this the way that I did it,” Whitehead jokes.
Still, that unusual start shaped much of what she now understands about leadership. Technical competence mattered, especially at the bench, but it was not enough to lead people. In the director role, she had to learn how to communicate, advocate, collaborate, manage projects, and influence people who did not automatically see her age or experience level as enough reason to follow her.
That realization has stayed with Whitehead, now vice president of pathology at University Health, as she leads teams, develops people, and encourages other lab professionals to step into larger roles.
Finding leadership through concern for others
Whitehead does not describe herself as someone who always knew she wanted to lead.
“I don’t think I ever woke up one day and said, ‘I want to be a leader,’” she says. “I think you can be born with leadership attributes, but leadership, as I’ve learned, is definitely a skill. It’s not something you are, but something you continuously develop.”
What she did notice, even early on, was that she cared deeply about the people around her. She cared whether new employees felt supported. She cared whether experienced staff felt heard. She cared about why people left when the reason was not simply a normal life change.
“Early on in my career, I encountered so many brilliant laboratorians that were burnt out,” she says. “It wasn’t because of the science necessarily. It was because of the environment that they were working in, because they perpetually felt not heard or supported or developed in their professional growth the way they wanted to be.”
That instinct, more than a title, pulled her toward leadership. She wanted to help shape the environment. She wanted people to thrive. She wanted to “be the change” she hoped to see in the lab.
The shift from technical expert to steady center
Whitehead’s early technical roles required accuracy, consistency, reliability, and fast turnaround times. Those skills helped her build trust at the bench. But director-level leadership required a different skill set.
“When I moved into leadership and into director roles, the shift was less about that because I wasn’t the one actually doing the work,” she says. “So it had to be more about how do I communicate? How do I advocate? How do I collaborate? How do I manage projects?”
One mentor helped her reframe leadership by describing it as an “infinite game.” In a finite game, there are winners, losers, clear rules, and an endpoint. Laboratory leadership, especially in healthcare, does not work that way.
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“You’re not ever going to win the workforce shortage. You’re not ever going to win Medicare reimbursement. You can’t play it like it’s a short-term game. You have to have a mindset that gives you the stamina to know that this is an infinite thing,” explains Whitehead.
This mindset changed how she approached chronic challenges. Turnover, staffing pressure, reimbursement, burnout, and operational strain are not problems leaders solve once and close out forever. They require stamina, adaptation, and a broader view of success.
Some leaders respond to pressure by adding another policy, checklist, dashboard, or metric. Those tools have value, but Whitehead cautions against treating them as the whole answer. Her lab currently includes more than 300 people and is expected to grow closer to 400. In this environment, she says, leaders cannot treat people like machines.
“At some point, you have to shift from metrics being the sole thing that matters to the mission and the people being the thing[s] that matters,” she says. “It can’t just be about managing the task. It has to be about the human side of organizational performance.”
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Whitehead believes that being in executive leadership means holding both realities: the lab needs metrics, financial literacy, strategy, and operational discipline, but it also needs leaders who understand the human side of performance.
Normalizing problems without becoming numb to them
One of the most important leadership lessons Whitehead learned was to normalize problems.
In healthcare, interruptions, issues, and complications are not exceptions to the work. They are part of the work.
“Problems are my job security,” she says. “That is the reason I’m here.”
That mindset helps her stay calm when something goes wrong. In fact, one of the compliments she hears most often is that she remains calm under pressure. She finds that response almost funny because, from her perspective, problem-solving is exactly what leaders are paid to do.
“The bigger the title, the bigger the office, the bigger the paycheck, the bigger the problems you should be able to handle," she says. To develop her sense of calm, Whitehead has worked on self-awareness and emotional regulation. She studies how she responds under stress, what triggers her, and how she can keep herself grounded during difficult conversations.
“In the lab, when things become escalated, I intentionally slow down my tempo,” she says. “I intentionally lower my voice, slow down my cadence, shorten my sentences, because I do feel like calmness is contagious.”
Confidence follows action
Impostor syndrome is common among laboratory professionals, especially those who move from the bench into supervisory or management roles. Many are promoted because of their technical expertise, but they often receive little leadership or business management skills. The transition can leave new managers questioning whether they belong in the role or whether they are truly prepared for the responsibilities that come with it. Whitehead frequently mentors professionals navigating those feelings and helps them build confidence as they develop the nontechnical skills leadership requires, though she prefers to revisit the term’s original framing as “impostor phenomenon.”
To her, “syndrome” can make the feeling sound permanent. “Phenomenon” makes it feel more temporary, more situational, and more manageable. She also reminds people that feeling uncertain in a new role does not make them an imposter. It may simply mean they are new to something complex. That perspective connects to how she views confidence: “I learned early on that you can’t have confidence in something you’ve never done before. Competency builds confidence. Confidence doesn’t come first, competency does.”
That means professionals who want to grow cannot wait until they feel ready. They build readiness by accepting stretch assignments, having difficult conversations, presenting, applying for roles, and stepping forward when part of them wants to step back.
“Pushing myself to accept stretch assignments, having uncomfortable conversations, stepping forward instead of stepping back—those all make small deposits in your confidence bank,” Whitehead says.
Her advice pushes against the idea that another certification, degree, or year of experience will finally make someone feel ready. Those credentials may help, but they do not replace action.
“Confidence isn’t a prerequisite to leadership,” she says. “It’s a byproduct of continuing to work at it and continuing to commit to improving yourself and growing in the areas where you feel like you don’t have it.”
The second wind
Despite her rapid rise, Whitehead reached a point when she felt ready to leave the field.
“I was exhausted, to be completely honest,” she says.
She had become a director early and worked in that role for about a decade. Instead of feeling limitless opportunity, she felt as though she had hit the ceiling of what she could do in laboratory medicine.
“I was just like, what else can I possibly do?” she says.
A mentor encouraged her to get involved in professional organizations. That advice changed her relationship with the field. Volunteering exposed her to laboratorians beyond her own workplace and community.
“Being around other gifted individuals, talking about advocacy and projects and things that were so much bigger than where I was and what I was working on, where I was living, and the community I was in was really invigorating.” That work helped her lead in a different way, too. She was no longer only leading within her own laboratory. She was contributing to the profession more broadly.
For lab managers who feel stalled, Whitehead’s experience illustrates that growth may require looking beyond the walls of your own lab. Professional organizations, committees, speaking opportunities, writing, mentoring, and advocacy can renew a person’s connection to the field while building executive-level skills.
From managing tasks to shaping the future
Whitehead values both middle management and executive leadership, but she sees a clear shift between the two. Managers keep the lab moving day to day through schedules, inspections, workflows, and procedures. Executives must widen the lens, connecting the lab’s work to strategy, resources, culture, and the larger organization.
“It’s the difference between scope and altitude,” she says. “Managers are looking at directly what’s in front of them, and leaders are looking at what’s beyond them, around them, underneath them.”
For aspiring directors and executives, that shift requires owning the lab’s role in the larger system and communicating its impact on patients, operations, and organizational goals.
Her final advice to aspiring leaders comes from a phrase she has found both blunt and liberating: no one is coming.
“Nobody is coming to hand you confidence,” Whitehead says. “Nobody is coming to tell you that you are ready to give that presentation or to submit an abstract for that conference. Nobody is coming to validate that you’re good enough to lead. You just need to apply for that job.”
“Early in my career, I was thinking maybe if I get another certification, or maybe if I get another master’s degree, or maybe if I get another year of experience, somebody will tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘Stephanie, you’re ready,’” she says. “But leadership is not assigned to you. You have to assume it.”
Instead of asking, “Am I ready?” Whitehead suggests a different question:
“Are you willing to?”
For lab managers eyeing the next level, readiness starts with action: apply, speak up, volunteer, lead the project, and grow through the work.
