Top-Down and Bottom-Up Leadership
How a Moment of Exclusion Taught Me That Real Leadership Comes From Creating Belonging
I Was Invited Into the Meeting... Just to Leave
I was working hard at my first job in Boston, surrounded by researchers from around the world in a young laboratory tackling novel cancer research. I was thrilled to be there. During my interview, I sat with starry eyes, even mispronouncing the names of famous scientists I had only ever read about in journal articles. To me, they were legends.
Suddenly, I was working alongside them.
Once I joined the lab, I immersed myself completely. I spent long hours learning, collaborating, and making myself as useful as possible. Every experiment, every meeting, and every new project felt like an opportunity to grow. Looking back, I'm sure part of what got me hired was my enthusiasm.
What I didn't realize was that the same enthusiasm would also make me notice things I hadn't expected.
One afternoon, I was working quietly at my computer when our principal investigator walked into the conference room with several senior researchers. Through the glass walls, I could see that all the key decision-makers were gathering. There were five or six people in the room.
Only one of them was a woman.
I sat up a little straighter, focused on my work, and continued typing.
A few moments later, I received an email from the principal investigator asking me to come into the conference room.
I looked up. Through the glass, the entire group was looking back at me.
My first thought was that they needed someone to take notes. I grabbed my laptop, a notebook, and a pen before walking into the room.
As soon as I opened the door, the principal investigator smiled and said, "You can go. I just needed you to come into the room."
I was confused.
I had been prepared to participate. I had even been prepared to serve as the meeting secretary if that was what was needed. Instead, I was asked to leave almost immediately.
As I turned to walk out, I glanced at the only woman in the room. She looked at me, then back at him, visibly disappointed. From the brief exchange that followed, it became clear what had happened.
She had pointed out that she was the only woman in the meeting.
His solution had been to briefly add another woman to the room.
Then send her away.
I returned to my desk with my face burning, trying to refocus after an interruption that left me feeling embarrassed and disoriented.
A few minutes later, the principal investigator came out of the conference room and apologized. He knew it had been a poor decision. His apology was sincere, and I accepted it without hesitation.
Forgiveness cost me nothing.
But I didn't forget.
It wasn't malicious. It wasn't intended to demean me. It was simply a clumsy attempt to solve a legitimate problem in the quickest possible way. Still, it reduced representation to appearance instead of participation.
I never reported the incident to HR. I don't even remember telling my direct supervisor, who was also a woman. At the time, I loved the work we were doing. We were building technologies that could help researchers better understand cancer. Compared with that mission, filing a complaint didn't feel like the best use of my energy.
I also saw the humanity of our leader. Through my role, I was aware of many of the personal and professional pressures he carried. He wasn't simply a renowned scientist; he was also trying to hold together a fast-moving research program while navigating his own challenges.
That perspective didn't excuse what happened, but it helped me understand that good leaders sometimes make poor decisions.
That Experience Changed How I Thought About Leadership
Leadership isn't only exercised from the top down. It also happens from the bottom up.
I couldn't control who sat around the conference table, but I could control how I treated the people around me. I could make junior researchers feel welcome. I could mentor students. I could listen. I could ensure people felt included because of what they contributed, not because of how they helped a room look.
The experience also deepened my appreciation for the challenges many women—and many people from historically underrepresented groups—face in research and other male-dominated fields.
Inclusion isn't about filling seats. It's about ensuring every person in the room has a voice that is heard and respected.
That lesson has stayed with me far longer than the meeting itself.
Over the next two years, I stopped thinking about inclusion as something that depended solely on leadership titles. Instead, I focused on the systems I could influence.
I helped build processes that made collaboration easier across disciplines. I wrote standard operating procedures that made knowledge accessible instead of allowing it to live only in the minds of senior researchers. I organized workshops, connected people who might not otherwise have worked together, and tried to be someone who welcomed new students and staff into the lab.
Those efforts weren't labeled as "diversity initiatives," but they created an environment where people felt comfortable asking questions, sharing ideas, and participating.
Looking back, I realized that culture is often shaped by hundreds of small, consistent actions rather than a handful of grand gestures.
One Thursday afternoon, that culture became visible in a way I hadn't expected.
Nearly the entire lab had gathered to celebrate my birthday. Scientists, engineers, students, administrators—people from different backgrounds, countries, and disciplines—were all standing together, talking and laughing over slices of cake.
In the middle of the celebration, the principal investigator walked in. For a brief moment, I wondered if he would remind everyone to get back to work.
Instead, he looked around the room, grabbed a piece of cake, smiled, and quietly walked back out without saying a word.
I smiled too.
It wasn't about the cake. It wasn't even about my birthday. It was a reminder that leadership had become something shared.
The laboratory had evolved into a place where people genuinely enjoyed being together, where collaboration extended beyond experiments, and where community was recognized as part of doing excellent science.
Whether or not anyone realized it at the time, I had contributed to that shift—not through authority, but through consistency, relationships, and the systems I helped build.
That experience reinforced one of the most important lessons of my career:
Lasting change rarely begins with a single meeting or a single leader. More often, it begins with people who quietly create environments where everyone feels they belong.
