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Chandler Ho, MS, MLS(ASCP)^CM, MB, DLM, is a regulatory manager and sits on ASCP’s Council of Laboratory Management and Administration. Mr. Ho recently participated in a “3 Questions With…” interview for Critical Values. 

Here, Mr. Ho shares his leadership lessons learned from his “work mom,” the loneliness of laboratory science during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the three practical responsibilities every effective leader should prioritize.  

Tell us about the impact a mentor has had on your professional practice.

The person who most shaped my career was my ‘work mom.’ I worked under her supervision for eight years as a staff medical laboratory scientist (MLS) and another year and a half as a supervisor before she retired. Looking back now, I realize we were living through succession planning every single day. I think part of me quietly believed she would always be there. Her retirement felt distant until suddenly it was not. Frankly, it was not until her final day of work that she acknowledged herself as my ‘work mom.’ By then, most of our relationship had already been built in silence, routine, criticism, trust, and time. We had a complicated relationship in the best way. We challenged each other constantly. We were often critical of one another’s decisions, but that friction created closeness rather than distance. She had remarkable patience and a quiet confidence that I would eventually grow into leadership, even when I could not yet see it myself. Written on her whiteboard for years was a sentence we never directly talked about: “You can feel emotion, don’t act on it.”

We met every week, always focused on work. There was always another assignment waiting for me. At times it felt overwhelming, almost like being handed endless homework. Yet, I completed every task with a strange sense of joy because I knew those assignments were her way of investing in me. Each responsibility felt daunting at first. Over time, the work became easier to carry, though never lighter. 

She taught practical leadership through ordinary things:

• People need to be paid,
• Manage team’s vacation calendar,
• Get the right people to do the right job.
  

I used to push back on that last lesson. Our team was largely homogeneous, mostly MLS staff, and I would ask what happens when everyone has a similar background. Then it is just many people with the same job. She never really answered me. At the time, I thought she was withholding the answer on purpose, like a teacher trying to force independence through discomfort. Years later, I realized something more bittersweet: maybe she did not fully know the answer either. Maybe leadership is sometimes just carrying uncertainty without letting the team feel the weight of it. Still, she made me think critically for myself, and that independence became one of the greatest gifts she gave me.

Ironically, my real growth began after she retired. The absence of her presence was immediate. The lab felt quieter, but also lonelier. I had spent years learning under her, but once she was gone, there was no longer anyone standing behind me. The timing made it harder. COVID had just begun, and leadership suddenly became heavier for everyone. There was uncertainty everywhere, and I often found myself thinking about how she would have approached certain decisions. What stayed with me most was not necessarily what we would decide, but how we decided. We thrived on disagreement. In a strange way, the chaos of COVID leadership reminded me of those conversations with her. 

As I moved into new leadership roles, I reflected deeply on both the strengths and the costs of her leadership style. She led with conviction and by example. Her presence filled every room she entered. I had felt both admiration and burnout while working under her. Because of that, I chose a different approach for myself. I wanted to build systems that did not depend entirely on one person’s presence. 

I created an electronic scheduling system where team members could transparently manage PTO and scheduling together. Over time, the team fully took ownership of it. Eventually, they even began using AI tools to optimize scheduling in ways I never had. I remember feeling a brief moment of annoyance with a tinge of enviousness. I wished those tools had existed when I was struggling through those responsibilities myself. But underneath that feeling was pride. They no longer needed me to hold everything together. 

What moved me most was when my direct reports began challenging me the same way I once challenged my ‘work mom.’ At first, it was uncomfortable. Then, slowly, I recognized myself in those conversations. The questioning. The resistance. The unwillingness to accept easy answers. And suddenly I understood something I had missed for years. 

Those difficult conversations with my ‘work mom’ were never just disagreements. She was making space for me to grow. I understand now that my work mom was preparing me for her absence long before either of us could say it aloud. 

What are some of the lessons you have learned through the different volunteer roles you have taken on?   

Through my volunteer role, I learned how readily moral injury can emerge in laboratory leadership when expectations, resources, and patient needs are not aligned, a reality that was especially intensified during COVID. I often saw teams asked to uphold standards within constraints that made ideal practice difficult, creating a persistent tension between what should be done and what could be done. 

The key lesson for me was that moral injury is cumulative; it accrues over time when people are repeatedly required to reconcile quality care with persistent resource limitations. 

What is your favorite test to perform and why? 

COVID pooled testing during the COVID pandemic [was my favorite test to perform] because it was collaboration under fire. 

Our laboratory information system was not originally built for pooled workflows, so I led a collaboration among our bioinformatics scientist, IT team, and virology reference clinical laboratory scientist to develop a pooled testing solution in EPIC Beaker with minimal system modification. The pooled result interfaced back to each individual sample with a pool ID, and positive pools automatically triggered confirmatory single-sample testing. 

It was rewarding to see a team rapidly build a scalable system during a moment when testing capacity was critical. 

*This interview has been edited for clarity and length.