From a Design Engineer to a Leader: Not an Easy Road
Publication: Leadership and Management in Engineering
Volume 11, Issue 4
Textbooks, reference manuals, calculators, scales, and plans are all tools that we as engineers use in exercising our technical skills. While these tools may help us as technical professionals, they won’t help us develop our leadership abilities, which are critical to career success. The path from engineer to leader is a challenging one, and in this column I offer some guidance I hope will make your path a little easier.
As engineers, we follow a pretty standard path from high school through our engineering career. The path for the most part looks like this:
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Decide in high school that you are interested in engineering.
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Enroll in an accredited engineering college or university.
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Take an introduction to engineering course and decide on the engineering discipline that you would like to pursue.
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Spend the next 4 (or 5) years going through a rigorous math and science curriculum, performing thousands of calculations along the way.
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Take your fundamentals of engineering exam at or soon after graduation.
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Obtain a job as a design engineer in the discipline of your choice.
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Design, design, design for 4 years and then apply for the principles and practices of engineering (P.E.) exam.
Not all engineers follow this exact path, but many do. The path is fairly standard. Once you obtain your professional engineering license, however, the path may meander and become very challenging.
Once you have your license, you usually get the opportunity to start taking on a management role in your organization, and younger engineers start looking up to you as a leader. It is an opportunity-filled time in your career; however, many engineers fail to make a smooth transition from day-to-day design calculations to the role of leader. If an engineer is taught to solve problems, why wouldn’t he or she be able to assume the role of leader? The answer to this question is very clear to me. Engineers are taught to solve problems; they spend hours on equations and calculations during college and early in their career, but usually they are not taught how to lead.
Good leaders usually exhibit some or all of the following eight abilities. As you read these skills, think about how many of them you learned in school. Good leaders typically
1.
Exhibit confidence,
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Communicate extremely well,
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Delegate tasks properly,
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Focus on the small details of a project while never losing sight of the big picture,
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Look for opportunities in every situation,
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Maintain a positive attitude,
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Respect the people they work with, and
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Show appreciation to those they work with.
Of these eight abilities, how many did you learn in engineering school? Most likely fewer than half of them. Even if you did learn some of these in school, did you have the time or support to develop them?
Let’s think as engineers and ask ourselves, “If this is a real problem, how do we solve it?” What steps can we take to ensure that engineers are well balanced in their technical and management abilities? In my opinion, the best way to solve this problem is to modify the current college curriculum to include classes on management and leadership, including topics such as communication and delegation. Professors teaching these classes should be required to have a certain amount of experience as a practicing professional.
In addition to the management courses, group activities in the general curriculum courses should be increased. Many schools offer a senior project, which is usually helpful, but why not do more? Have a series of smaller projects in which students can rotate as team leader. Encourage role-playing, with the professor acting as a client instead of their teacher so that the students get a feel for communicating with clients. Require students to present their design work in front of the class as often as possible to help develop their public speaking skills and confidence.
What if you are a practicing engineer who has already graduated college and you lack these management skills? Here are some things you can do to develop your leadership abilities:
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Improve your communication skills by reading books on the topic or taking a course such as a Dale Carnegie training course.
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Join a local chapter of Toastmasters International, an organization that will help you improve your confidence, communication, and public speaking abilities.
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Find a mentor who has successfully broken out of his or her technical shell to be a leader in your industry. Don’t be intimidated to ask; you’ll be surprised how much people really want to help you.
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Volunteer to go to project meetings with your superiors, such as a municipal planning board meeting, to see how engineers present projects to the public. This will help you develop.
As you can see, these aren’t necessarily things you would normally do in your engineering career, and that’s exactly the point. If you want to be an above-average, well-rounded engineer, you need to push yourself and do things that most people wouldn’t.
Being a leader in the engineering industry requires a lot of hard work, determination, and a burning desire to succeed. However, once you decide to go that route, you will open your career up to opportunities that can take you places you never thought you could go. The choice is up to you!
Biographies
Anthony Fasano is a civil engineer who recently became an executive coach, author, and professional speaker and started his own company, Powerful Purpose Associates. After 12 years as a design engineer, Anthony now spends his time inspiring engineers across the globe by coaching, speaking, and writing on the topics of career advancement and leadership development. His new book Engineer Your Own Success: 7 Key Elements to Creating an Extraordinary Engineering Career is a guide to help engineers achieve career success through developing their nontechnical skills. He is also the author of A Daily Boost From Your Professional Partner, a free service through which he e-mails daily career advancement tips to engineers to help them stay focused and inspired in their career and leadership endeavors. He can be contacted at [email protected].
One of the objectives of this column is to provide a forum for anyone interested to submit their comments and have them discussed in this column. We invite your comments and suggestions on how to improve the process of educating engineers. Comments can be sent to Merlin Kirschenman at [email protected] or Brian Brenner at [email protected].
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Leadership and Management in Engineering
Volume 11 • Issue 4 • October 2011
Pages: 342 - 343
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 28, 2011
Accepted: Jun 28, 2011
Published online: Sep 15, 2011
Published in print: Oct 1, 2011
ASCE Technical Topics:
Authors
Metrics & Citations
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