How to lead smart people at Signature Discovery – James Edgar

Episode 5: Workplace Confidence Podcast
Where people professionals share the great work they do

How do you lead very clever people? This is the topic of my conversation with James Edgar, Chief People Officer at Signature Discovery an outsourced provider of early-stage drug discovery services for biotech and pharma companies. Roughly 80% of his one thousand colleagues have a PhD.

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How do you manage a team of exceptionally clever individuals?

According to James leading very clever people is both a "privilege and a challenge." When you're leading people who are experts in their field - brilliant minds in their own right - he says, "The pressure can feel different."

This is because you aren’t just responsible for getting the job done. You’re responsible for creating an environment where their intelligence can truly shine.

“I feel like I’ve come to bring the average intellect down sometimes,” says James. It’s a relatable sentiment. But as he shares in our conversation, leading very clever people isn’t about trying to keep up with their knowledge. Instead, it’s about how you lead them with empathy, build their confidence and encourage co-creation.

Leading brilliant people with empathy

According to James, first and foremost, when you’re dealing with highly intellectual individuals, empathy is vital. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach.

Different people need different things to thrive, especially when they’re experts in niche fields.

James explains, in his experience, leading a team of scientists requires him to adapt: “Their personas are probably more introverted, so some of the mechanisms we used in the media world, we’ve had to think differently here.”

In more fast-paced, creative industries, people are often comfortable with rapid brainstorming and sharing ideas on the fly. But with scientists, it’s different. As James explains, “We think much more about how we disseminate information and how people want to take it away, reflect on it, rather than be very explicit.”

You can’t expect the same approach to work in every context. Leading clever people often means giving them the time and space to reflect, so their ideas can mature into well-formed solutions.

Building confidence in colleagues with lots of intelligence and expertise

Another key point James touches on is the need to build confidence within your team - even when they’re incredibly bright and expert. You might assume that people with impressive qualifications or deep expertise come with built-in confidence.

However, as James points out, “You’d think with a PhD, you’d be super confident. But what I discovered was that because everyone’s so bright, everyone’s a bit, ‘I don’t know if I know as much as the other person.’”

It’s easy for even the smartest people to feel insecure when they’re surrounded by other highly capable individuals. And as a leader, your job is to create an environment where they feel supported.

"Confidence isn’t static," James says. "People ebb and flow. A lot of it depends on the environment that you're in." You’ve got to build a culture of trust, where your team feels safe enough to push boundaries, make mistakes, and learn from them. It’s about offering encouragement when self-doubt creeps in and reminding them of their value.

Co-creation: The secret to engagement with very clever colleagues

One of the most powerful tools in managing clever people is co-creation. It’s not about having all the answers yourself. Instead, it’s about creating an environment where your team is actively involved in shaping solutions and driving the company’s direction.

In the podcast, James shares how Signature Discovery built its values through employee involvement. “We’ve done several interviews with a cross-section of employees,” he explains. “We then started creating some values based on that feedback and went back out to different focus groups both in the UK and Canada.”

By involving employees in these decisions, you foster a deeper sense of ownership and engagement. Your team feels valued because they aren’t just following orders—they’re helping to shape the future of the business.

He points to this approach having a powerful impact: “We want to change this, help us design it and be part of the solution. That’s slightly different for them because they’ve not had that before, but it’s part of the culture that we want to get to.” Co-creation doesn’t just solve problems - it strengthens your team’s commitment to the organisation.

Other key insights for leading brilliant minds: adaptability and trust

James also touches on the importance of adaptability and trust when leading clever people. As organisations grow, it becomes harder to maintain the same level of communication and personal connection.

James shares how he initially tried using “skip-level” meetings - informal sessions where senior leaders meet with lower-level employees to gather feedback.

However, these didn’t always work in a scientific environment: “The attendance was anything between one and, I think at best, five people.”

Through trial and error, the team at Signature Discovery learned that different approaches work for other groups. Sometimes it’s about building trust over time. For example, when introducing a new appraisal system, Signature Discovery created face-to-face workshops but also provided other mechanisms for quieter individuals to engage, like email chains. “It’s just made us think slightly differently,” James explains. “We’ve had to be more thoughtful around how we do that and how we start including them into the process a bit earlier.”

Leading very clever people isn’t about outsmarting them

Leading very clever people isn’t about outsmarting the - it’s about empowering them to use their brilliance to its fullest. As James says, “It’s not about knowing everything. It’s about creating the environment where others can contribute their best.” By leading with empathy, building their confidence, and inviting them into the process through co-creation, you create a culture where great ideas can flourish.

If you want to learn more about James’ approach to leadership and how he manages a team of brilliant scientists, check out his episode on the Workplace Confidence Podcast. It’s full of valuable insights on building an inclusive, innovative workplace.

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How to lead smart people at Signature Discovery – James Edgar

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Transcript: How do you lead very clever people? James Edgar Chief People Officer at Signature Discovery

James Edgar
I started my career in Ford Motor Company.

So brilliant grounding and amazing to kind of, you know, on one hand be on a shop floor, you know, making cars and then the next job being in a European bank, opening up new offices in Eastern Europe. And so I've kind of jumped from manufacturing, I've done financial services, I've done investment banking, corporate banking, retail. Bizarrely, I had a very small stint in private prisons. So helps, I was a HR director for a private prison provider in the UK.

And as you say, I've done some consulting and more recently media advertising before I came here two years ago.

P.H.
Okay, we're to look at James's CVs and all of that has got nothing to do with the STEM sector. How did you get this job then?

James Edgar
I think there's two things. I think there was a bit about where Stignature was in its life cycle. So we're private equity backed and we've had phenomenal growth over the last kind of five years. But I think, you know, any business that goes through that scale of growth naturally hit some growing pains.

(02:21.36)
And so I think they were looking for a new chief people officer to help really put the right foundations in place for the next phase of growth and kind of continue that on. I think I was lucky. I got headhunted for the role. And I think in my career, I've always wanted to have variety. I've kind of enjoyed testing myself and learning new things. And so the pitch to me was this is a really interesting business. It's something out of norm.

But there's something that you can provide, bringing some external fresh perspective into a business, but also a huge learning curve for you. So this might be knowing me, the right thing for me. And I suppose the other big appeal was, you know, it was very strong on values and very people-oriented. So the CEO is the founder who is incredibly aspirational about the business, but also very down to earth and very centered on what we're doing for ultimately patients

but also the people in the organization serving those patients. And so again, it really struck a chord for me. The other bit was the growth plan. know, coming into a business that is, when I joined, it was about 500 people. So we've doubled it in two years. know, that ability to have that growth and look at where we want to be in another three years time was something that again, you don't get often. So I just wanted to take the opportunity.

P.H.
That is a fierce amount of recruitment.

James Edgar
It's a mixture of organic and inorganic be honest. We've bought, we're quite acquisitive. But again, that creates lots of challenges in terms of integration and how we're going to bring this together. lots of recruitment, lots of retention and actually lots of more design operating model work, which again is quite interesting to be part of.

P.H.
So tell me about the people that you look after, the thousand people. I believe most of them are scientists. Is that right? They'd have to be, wouldn't they? But it's a lot of brains in the room, aren't there? A lot of brains in the building. that presenting you with challenges on retention or recruitment or growth. mean, tell me about that colleague population and what it brings to you that's different to what you've experienced in the past.

James Edgar
Yeah, all of the above really. I feel like I've come to bring the average intellect down sometimes. We're about 900 scientists, about 80 % of that are PhDs qualified, highly specialised in their areas. So we started as a chemistry business, but we've built out

(04:43.52)
a number of other services. What it does do is, you know, from a purpose point of view, you have a lot of people who are really excited and engaged with finding that next breakthrough, trying to solve the next problem, which is, like I say, it's quite awe inspiring to look at. And when you walk around the labs and feel that, like I say, you can just, it's quite palpable. What you've got also is quite an energetic population who are really keen about the growth of the business. And so,

you know, as we've grown through that, we should see more opportunities come through for those people. And I think that starts presenting a very different offer that we've not necessarily had before, particularly internationally, which we just don't scratch the surface of right now.

One of the challenges, I guess, and it is different, say, media and advertising that you mentioned before, is what you've got is sweeping generalization, but the persona is probably more introverted. And so in some of the mechanisms that we might have used in the media world,

we have to think slightly differently here because it is much more on an individual basis. We think much more about how we disseminate information and how people want to kind of take it away, reflect on it rather than really, you know, very explicit here.

P.H.
Can you give an example of that? I'd love to sort of have the curtain pulled back on what you mean by the differences in mechanism and communication, et cetera.

James Edgar
Well, one of the things that we've been really keen to do is we've grown naturally is how do we make sure communication remains effective?

And so some of the channels that we've used aren't always the things that we can rely on as we get bigger, more international. I also wanted to make sure that it's a very person-centric business and it's not particularly hierarchical. It's, you know, we just, lot of people talk about signature family. And so as a new incoming CPO, one of the things that I did in my media world was actually do lots of skip levels.

So go around sites just to organize 10 to 15 people to just have a chat about, know, what strategy is, any kind of questions that people are feeling on the ground. So, you know, direct access to me, great learning curve for me to understand how it feels to be in that space. What I've realised is when you get invited or offered to come meet the new Chief People Officer in a very scientific world, it's quite off-putting for them to come meet someone.

(07:00.75)
of seniority, I don't think I'm particularly hierarchical or off-putting, just the concept of the invite. so we did-

P.H
Put chief in a title and it makes people feel all sorts of strange things, doesn't it? To do, like, how to connect with you. Are you some sort of alien being from a higher planet that's going to do all sorts of things to our workplace? Why is he coming to meet me? What have I done?

James Edgar
I did it with my Chief Operating Officer. did, I want to say about eight or nine of these across our UK sites. And the attendance was anything between one and I think at best like five people. I this would be a great opportunity. mean, the saving grace was at the end of the ones that we did was actually a lot of people said, actually, I didn't realise what it was, but this is great to have the chance to speak to you was fabulous. But I never really thought that.

be what it's for. So, you know, is one of those that I think you have to build a lot of trust out, but also know that not everything is going to be a face-to-face conversation. Sometimes, you know, you have to present information that people take it away and soak on it before we, you know, then do anything with it. we've had to be a bit more thoughtful around some of the change stuff that we've needed to do. We've, good example, we've got a new appraisal system. And again, what we've done is set up face-to-face workshops

that have been quite well attended, but what you find is you need another level of mechanisms to allow people to ask questions because they feel quite inhibited to ask a question in front of peers. So sometimes it's through email chains or stuff like that. So it's just made us think slightly differently about how we do that. And also how we start including them into the process a bit earlier, we're trying to do a lot more co-creation with people to say, you know,

If we want to change this, we've heard the feedback from you, we want to change this, help us design and be part of the solution. That's slightly different for them because they've not had that before, but it's part of the culture that we want to get to.

P.H.
And hugely stereotyping here, but I would imagine that you've experienced this. Media and advertising people, quick to speak, happy to respond immediately to an idea, get excited, grow it together. Might not always get actioned and might not be a very good idea, but...

(09:15.692)
You've got a different type of person in the science world who perhaps would take a week to think about something and come back to you with some really decent quality content. Is that what you've experienced? And that's how you're reacting to this flow of information and feedback, et cetera.

James Edgar
On the whole, yeah, I mean, I suppose there is a danger of obviously going too broad in stereotyping, but broadly, yes. I think what I find is particularly with some of the scientists, they're trained to be quite contrarian.

You know, they have a hypothesis and the aim of it is to prove that hypothesis wrong. And if you can't prove it wrong, then you've got something to go for. as you say, moving from media where we just talk about all of this to then launch something and then have a lot of people say it won't work for this or this reason was a bit of a shock, have to dispiriting. It can be. Yeah, it can be. So it does knock your confidence a bit. But it's just the psyche of the business and the psyche of the people that you're kind of working with. And a lot of it is about trying to get under the skin of them and

and change the way that you approach it to be a bit more understanding and empathetic to that group.

P.H
How would you describe culture at Signature Discovery? Yeah, good question.

James Edgar
So what I see and what I feel and what we see from lots of interviews and the way people describe it, there's a very strong sense of family. There's a real strong sense of collaboration. There's a real pride and real excellence in wanting to be the best.

you know, looking at the way that we do the science or really driving for the right thing for the business, we're very low ego. So we are very supportive of one another. And interesting when people leave, that's the biggest thing that they regret about leaving Signature as they're losing that family, even though the opportunity or the career change might be what they want to do. There is a real core element of this kind of identity unity.

P.H.
Have you given much consideration to how to contain that culture and engender it and scale it as you scale as a company? Is there a danger of losing that sense of family the bigger you get and what have you thought about that?

James Edgar
We've kind of doubled the business in two years, so it's really hard to kind of keep that essence there. What we've tried to do is do a number of things. We've looked at how do we start describing our values as a business on a global scale. We've actually included a lot of

(11:33.326)
employee voice-up. We've done a number of interviews with a cross-section of employees that kind of went through why have they chosen Signature, what is it about Signature that really makes them excited, what are they really proud about in Signature? And also, you know, sometimes it's difficult to hear, but what are the things that really frustrate them about Signature, where's the friction? So we had a lot of data that came from that. So we started

then create some values based on that feedback. And then we then went back out to different focus groups, both here in the UK and Canada, to say, look, if we were to talk about signature in these three words, how does that resonate? And again, there was lots of chopping and changing, but we've tried to make it more of an employee, consulted led piece. And then the way we think about it is kind of, I hate to use this language, but almost hard and soft. So,

What I mean by that is how do we build it in some of the processes that we've got? So we've built it into the new appraisal system, we've built it into our inductions, we're building it into our job descriptions. So you can see it come through from a policy point of view. One of the changes that I've done in the team is start getting to think about employee experience and employee journeys. So a bit like consumers do. But how do we start thinking about because the employee journey at Signature,

and how do we underpin the values in there? So we talk about being collaborative, innovative, and driving excellence. And so how do we really show that in every touch point that employees have? We've built our HR strategy around the life cycle. So we talk about how do we want people to arrive at Signature? How will we allow people to thrive at Signature? And we will lose people, so how do they depart? But still depart with a very positive view of Signature and that kind of sense of value and family.

And then what we're also looking now at is how do we start looking at maybe the softer things around, you know, celebrating those values. So, we're to start doing workshops where people can start saying, this is how we're going to bring this to life in my department. How are we going to start mixing the departments up so we still retain that family feel even though we're growing at a pace where the danger is you can get to know fewer people within your department than not across the business.

(13:46.702)
And so we also want to try and look at how do we then have some bits that actually behaviorally start really giving us some really good examables and rewarding and recognising those things.

P.H.
Sounds like you've got it under control.

James Edgar
No, I wouldn't say that. I would be lying to say that it's all set out. There's always surprises. You know, there's things that kind of happen very quickly in this business that means you have to course correct. I wouldn't want to give the impression that it's all under control. We're trying our best, but there's a lot of kind of

rebalancing and course correcting as we go through this.

P.H.
That's one of the aspects, isn't it, of being a chief something that you don't really know whether you've made the right decisions. Five or 10 years later on, you might do and look back and go, that was great. We there. Work well. And you in the maybe in the moment with something so vast and so energised.

that's got momentum. Yeah, I mean, you've got great experience, obviously. But there must be a discomfort there or frustration that you just don't know whether this is absolutely the best thing to be doing.

James Edgar
You don't, you don't. And I think, you know, I suppose what I've learned through my career is sometimes you just have to back yourself. You know, I was listening to a podcast the other day from Paul Smith, he talked about, you know, do the right thing rather than the easy thing. I think it's sometimes very easy to do the easy thing. And

Yeah, I think you just have to back up, which is easier said than done. I kind of think there's a lot about gut. I think you get a feel for what's right and you have to kind of stand up and do that.

P.H.
You've got to have a lot of confidence. Do feel that that has been useful to you in backing yourself and going with your gut and having the courage in your convictions as a sort of mainstay of how you've operated over the years?

James Edgar
Yes. But I think it's developed over time. You know, I think

you like most people, I'm really honest, especially jumping sector, you go from one job to another and think, am I really right for this job? Or, you know, what do I bring? You know, I joked about the different sectors I've been in, but when I left investment banking to go into private prisons, that was a real jolt. You know, you kind of go from very flashy glass and steel in Canary Wharf to, you know, prisons across the UK. so

(16:12.002)
there's been times blatantly where I've had imposter syndrome and doubts on myself. And so the confidence has definitely ebbed and flowed. wouldn't say it's a constant. You kind of go through that. think, what I've learned through this, and particularly in kind of moving from big company to small, is sometimes you need to build your own support networks. So, know, in big companies, sometimes you have that naturally, you have a big function, you can go and speak to people. When you're the number one in your function, it can be a bit lonely. And so...

I think having the support networks that, you know, when it is tough or the bad day, you've got something to kind of just fall back on, sometimes not in the company, which is super safe.

P.H.
So what is your support network then, James Edgar?

James Edgar
A number of different reasons, different avenues, if I'm honest. So family is blatantly one. I've got an incredibly supportive family and I'm very mindful about the kind of work blend because I find it really hard to switch off. Sometimes, you you can actually come back from work and put it into the house and vice versa.

Very fortunate I have that. I do have some great peers and friends I can just lean on. And sometimes, this hasn't worked quite well or probably feeling great about this, can we have a chat? I'm also trained as an exec coach and I think that's been a really valuable experience to me. And so again, through that, there's lots of of techniques I've learned about myself so I can coach myself. But I also have a coaching supervisor that I use and that's also a massive

support and help for me as I go through some of this as well.

P.H.
I think that self-awareness and self-acceptance are unsung heroes of successful chief anything, C-suite level, in being a better leader and a more people-centric person, people-centered person. Without that, we see a lot of leaders flailing around, don't we? What's your experience in your

senior peers where there's been greater self-awareness and self-acceptance in their abilities at leading versus somebody who's perhaps a bit closed off to those ideas and doesn't want to go there.

James Edgar
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I've seen a variety of peers and senior people who have been on that kind of continuum of being very self-aware and being very honest with it right through to those that have been quite closed off. mean,

(18:32.05)
My experience, suppose, one of the beliefs I have is all about connection. The more seen you get is about how you connect with people, is how you work with people and through people. yes, some of your technical knowledge is important, but that's not the be all and end all. And what I find is I find it much easier to connect with someone who is very down to earth, that is just quite apparent with themselves. And I've been that person, you know, I think early on in some of my career, you...

when you have the imposter syndrome, you play up to a role that you think you need to play to. And every time I found that, found that, you know, maybe the feedback has been, it's been hard to connect to you as a person or we've just lost something about you in that. think the coaching that I went through, the training that I went through, I was really surprised how much you end up learning about yourself and what makes you, you know, what makes you tick. I'm still, I'm not at the end of that journey, but it's definitely.

created this thirst to do that. But what it has made me realise is that it's all right to say, I don't know this, or it's all right to say, here's my limitations. And sometimes that feels quite uncomfortable. you know, I'm a massive proponent that I think vulnerability is actually a strength rather than a weakness. And I think, you know, one of the things I would like to think about myself is I do create good followership, but it's because I don't know everything. It's actually having create the environment that other people can thrive and do that for you. And it's a team effort.

P.H.
And there's a strength in not knowing everything because it leads to more coaching conversations, doesn't it? Where you can ask other people, well, what do you think we should do? Because I haven't got much of a clue. And as a coach, you know this, don't you? What do you reckon? Do you think a self-aware, self-accepted leader is a better leader because of those abilities to connect and be vulnerable?

James Edgar
I think it definitely helps for sure. know, the other bit I'd add to that is I think some of the best ideas come out from those moments where you're encouraging others, right? If you're relying on one person to lead, it becomes a bit binary. And I would have no qualms about saying some of the stuff that I'm really proud of, I didn't come up with, my team did. And we've made an environment that made that work and we've executed that. But it's the power of the whole team rather than just me. And I just see that more and more.

(20:47.438)
P.H.
Well, I am really interested, of course, in confidence. Now, I've worked with academics and you'd think, wouldn't you, with a PhD, you'd be super confident. And actually, what I discovered was that because everyone's so bright, everyone's a bit, I don't know if I know as much as the other person. And do you find that confidence, self-belief needs looking at in your organization at the moment for those reasons?

James Edgar
Yeah, I think so.I think so. And again, I'll come back to you mentioned before, well, I don't think self-confidence is a static, know, people ebb and flow. And I think a lot of that also depends on the environment that you're in. And, you know, the culture that you're facing into as well. I think you can have all the knowledge yourself. It doesn't naturally give a direct correlation to confidence, right? In some ways actually can be used as a bit of a mask. So you can hide behind intellectual knowledge.

rather than actually use it as a way to have confidence. Do I think, yes, of course we do. We have people from different generations joining at different stages in their career, you know, to actually kind of keep pushing themselves out of their comfort zone to develop is some, they create some vulnerability, but also a need for trust and safety to be able to do that. So I think it's endemic in the organization. How do we create that space and support that people can go out of that, regardless of how intellectual you are or how capable you are or.

you know, where you've got from a qualifications point of view, you know, we're still people.

P.H.
Do you have an answer to that? How you create that environment? Do you have any hunch that what you're doing is the right thing or the best thing?

James Edgar
Yeah, good question.

P.H.
It's a bugger, isn't it? The culture question. How do you describe it? I don't know. How do you engender this feeling?

James Edgar
That's the thing, isn't it? And how do you measure it if it's actually working? That's the thing. I think, you know,

you could get so hung up on the kind of measurement side. Again, I'll keep coming back to the hard and soft piece. You know, I think we'll have some measures from a hard point of view around how people are feeling about the organization and what they say, how they're scoring us. But you also know when you walk around, you know, you just get a sense of walking around a lab or an office and you can hear the chatter or you can hear what's going on. Is it quiet? Is it not? You know, you just get that sense. What we're trying to do is

(23:06.956)
A lot of it's about building trust across an organisational and individual level. So we're trying to be much more transparent and regular in our communications. We're trying to support line managers with skills so they can have more meaningful conversations. We're looking at how do we create more space? So I've talked about the skip levels. We will try and do another round of those just to see if that creates some momentum. But having the space to just stop, think, ask those questions, I think naturally starts.

building curiosity and building the trust to have some of those discussions. I don't think there's one end. So I hope that we're starting to have a culture change that will get us there. I get some anecdotal feedback, but that's what being felt. So it's a bit of a shot on the arm to say that we're moving in the right direction. So let's keep going. But yeah, you don't definitely know until you kind of get a sense of another feeding, I guess. I know that's not the most hard and fast answer, but I think it's a bit of a mixture of both.

P.H.
Yeah, that's a really good answer actually, because it is a difficult question to sort of have a definitive way of doing things that would be best practice in all of this, because it's totally contextual, isn't it? You know, you've put in another pun there about a shot in the arm. Did you mean that one as well? No, I'm just that I've missed my calling in life, don't I? You have, yeah. Here I am, here all week. So, James, final question for you then. If you were to help your fellow people professionals with a shot in the arm for their own feelings of ability and vision and enabling them to do their work really well. What would you say to them from your experience?

James Edgar
If I look at my career, what I got taught really early was you learn your business, know, the HR bit follows, but get really curious about your business and really understand your business. And I don't think that ever stops. You know, I think this curiosity for learning is really paramount.

I find I get a lot of value and a lot of energy from networking with peers and other people, not only just in the people function, but other functions. think there are a number of ideas that happen in other sectors that can come into your sector or other functions that come into your function. A massive proponent about thinking about, you know, consumer experience to employee experience and how there's a big crossover there. And I think there's also bit about how do you just work on yourself?

(25:29.378)
you know, how do you start building what you know and who you are to make the best of you and the best impact you can have. And it's also a bit about being kind, you know, I would say I'm pretty driven, but there's also quite a negative voice in there that drives me on. And sometimes it's about balancing that to say, actually, it's not all bad. There's some stuff that you've done pretty well. So this is peace around how you back yourself. And sometimes in those difficult situations, actually, you have to go through that to get to

a better place or a new stage of your career, but it's worth the journey. so everything isn't going to be plain sailing. You have to go through that to get to the end, but keep going, have that persistence.