The role of a laboratory manager continues to evolve, demanding adaptability, strategic vision, and strong leadership. In today’s fast-paced scientific landscape, lab managers must oversee operations, personnel, and resource allocation while ensuring efficiency and innovation. From coordinating research projects to maintaining cutting-edge equipment, managing budgets to fostering collaboration, laboratory managers play a critical role in driving scientific progress.

Each year, Lab Manager honors individuals who demonstrate effective lab leadership skills through our Leadership Excellence Awards program. This year, the Leadership Excellence Awards judges chose to recognize seven individuals for their impressive contributions to their respective organizations.

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Diane Young, director of technical services and owner of Foundation Analytical Laboratory (FAL), is the recipient of the 2025 Overall Lab Manager Excellence Award, the highest honor in this program.

Michelle Gaulin, associate editor at Lab Manager, spoke with Young about her servant leadership approach, mentorship, and EntreLeadership principles, highlighting how these strategies foster collaboration, innovation, and long-term lab success.

Q: What resources or individuals did you learn your leadership and management skills from?

“One of the most important things I have learned in my leadership journey is that to lead others, you must be able and willing to do the most difficult thing: lead yourself.”

A: Early in my career, I learned many amazing leadership lessons; however, I may have learned more about what I didn’t want in leadership rather than what I did want.

One of the first books I read was Leadership by the Book by Ken Blanchard, Bill Hybels, and Phil Hodges. When I started FAL from square one, I knew that servant leadership and faith would be the “foundation” of this business.

A few years ago, I read another book that epitomized the culture at FAL—EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey. It was a great feeling to know that many of the things we do at FAL align with the core leadership principles Dave Ramsey uses in his business.

Our team embodies the EntreLeadership way of thinking. Each year, we send a team to the EntreLeadership Summit as well as the EntreLeadership Master Series, using these trainings as a platform to invest in our team’s personal, professional, and leadership growth—everyone is included! We also use EntreLeadership for weekly online check-ins with our team, which track morale, stress, workload, weekly highs, weekly lows, and anything else of note. This information is then used in one-on-one check-ins between individual team members and their immediate supervisors, and trends are discussed in weekly leadership meetings.

One of the most important things I have learned in my leadership journey is that to lead others, you must be able and willing to do the most difficult thing: lead yourself. And to lead yourself, you must know yourself.

I am a Maxwell Leadership Certified Team Member in facilitating, coaching, speaking, and training. In addition, I am a certified Maxwell DISC Trainer, which stands for Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. The DISC assessments and reports help individuals understand their communication style, the communication styles of others and how to connect with them, the ideal environment where they can bring their best forward, their strengths in seven key areas of influence, and how they can grow into their potential.

I will never stop learning how to lead myself and my team better. John Maxwell, Dave Ramsey, Patrick Lencioni, Dr Henry Cloud, and Simon Sinek are my go-to influencers for inspiration.

Q: What do you enjoy most about your role and/or career?

A: What I enjoy most about my career:

• Loving my team well
• Creating an extremely successful business in my rural Cherokee, Iowa, community, serving clients from all over the world with exemplary customer service and scientific excellence
• Developing my team to serve each other and our clients well
• Creating a place to keep our best and brightest in our community for careers after college graduation—our entire team has grown up in Iowa
• Creating a culture that cannot be beaten: “We are a group of highly educated, hardworking Iowa farm kids who do what it takes!”
• Not only getting the “right people on the bus” but also getting them in the “right seat on the bus”
• Establishing client-partner relationships with those who view FAL as an extension of their business

Q: In your opinion, what are the most important qualities or skills for a laboratory leader to possess?

A: In my opinion, the most important qualities of a laboratory leader are:

• Integrity
• Caring
• Clear communication
• Visionary thinking
• Inspiring and empowering others
• Good decision-making and critical thinking skills
• Active listening

Q: How do you foster a culture of collaboration and innovation within your lab?

“Our culture drives our business. We focus on bringing together people with different perspectives and experiences to work on projects, which leads to innovative solutions for our clients.”

A: To break the mold and do something different with our lab, it was important for me to build it from the ground up. I am a collaborative leader—I know that each person on our team has a role to play and is instrumental in our success. We hire team members who fit our culture, and I am willing to be short-staffed for a while before hiring the wrong person. Our culture drives our business. We focus on bringing together people with different perspectives and experiences to work on projects, which leads to innovative solutions for our clients. This approach creates the best victories and is the biggest contributor to the company’s success.

Q: What strategies have you implemented to navigate challenges and drive continuous improvement in your lab?

A: Our fiscal strategy is to keep retained earnings so we can navigate unforeseen financial challenges but, more importantly, seize opportunities. I offer monthly profit sharing to the entire team because I want them to feel they are self-employed. I share my profits with them—the more money the company makes, the more money each person on the team makes.

I also believe everyone in the company has a voice. Our staff is encouraged to share ideas, opinions, and thoughts as part of what I call “inspired collaboration.” We are focused and intentional about building a team effort from the beginning to the end of every project.

Diane Young’s career journey

In 2008, with a passionate desire and clear entrepreneurial vision, Young, a graduate of Iowa State University, chose to leave the security of the corporate world and build an analytical laboratory from the ground up in her home community of Cherokee, Iowa. Her business acumen, as well as her experience with laboratory management on the other side of the sample and the expertise gained by working with successful companies, sparked her entrepreneurial passion.

Young’s team has grown from two full-time employees and an intern at the grand opening in July 2009 to a phenomenal team of 34 highly educated, hardworking Iowa farm kids who do what it takes. They have built a well-respected business based on exemplary customer service and scientific excellence in wet chemistry, chromatography, and microbiological analysis, serving clients in the fuel, food, feed, and environmental industries. This will continue to be achieved through investments in the latest technology and advancements in the laboratory industry. However, investments in technology are only one piece of the equation. Those investments, paired with the uniqueness of Young’s background in business and science, along with a team of rock stars, helped create the core of FAL. This is apparent in all facets of the business. Employees hold themselves to a high standard while understanding and anticipating client needs, which helps to develop a strong partnership between FAL and its clients.

A proponent of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, Young started this science-based business to give young, college-educated individuals a reason to return to the Cherokee, Iowa area. By providing quality, high-paying career opportunities in science and technology, she could attract young talent while enhancing her hometown economy.

Not only are they attracting young talent back to rural Iowa, but the entire team at FAL is heavily involved in the local school systems, which allows them to continue to fill the pipeline for the next generation of teammates—starting in high school, through college, to graduation, and then as full-fledged analysts.

Young serves as the co-chair with Governor Kim Reynolds for the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council and served as the agriculture co-chair on the Governor’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which worked diligently to ensure E88 ethanol availability statewide. She is a Maxwell Leadership Certified Team Member for facilitating, coaching, speaking, and training, as well as being a certified DISC communication trainer.