Building a stronger organization through leadership development at Parke‐Davis Research

This article describes a systematic process initiated by Parke‐Davis Pharmaceutical Research and Development to increase the leadership capabilities of its scientific management staff. Our approach to helping scientists step up to the challenging responsibility of leading others was built around four powerful ideas: imagination, leadership, application, and community. A process of university based executive education programs and follow‐up sessions was initiated to help managers shift their perspective from following the science to leading other scientists. Achievement of this objective was accomplished by developing a partnership with the University of Michigan Executive Education Center.