Dec 08 2012
What does engineering leadership look like?
What Engineering Leadership Looks Like
Engineering Leadership Foundation
Reason For The ELF:
“Engineering is, by far, the most important profession on Earth, if only because it is the only profession capable of facilitating humanity’s continual presence on Earth. The sooner engineers and their technical brethren are capable of assuming leadership positions in society, the better off we all shall be.”
- John Philip Bachner
One response so far
Posted on behalf of Merlin Kirschenman, PE, CPC. Prof. Emeritus, NDSU
I agree, society will be better off with more engineering leaders!
There is little reason to think that effective engineering leadership should look much different than effective leadership from someone with a different background. However, engineers have a distinct advantage to be leaders when the situation involves leading situations that have components that contain products or process that require engineering, as they can relate to and understand the basis of what is being led. A leader with an engineering background should also have a better feel for the good and bad consequences for society of which projects or systems should be led to completion.
In my opinion, many more engineers would become excellent leaders of engineered systems if they had a more professional education as part of the engineering education process. This is the main reason I have been such a strong advocate of including the professional component, which includes a strong emphasis on leadership and communication, into the engineering education process. If it takes 5 years to obtain it, what harm is that. We are moving to a 5 year engineering education process anyway and it may as well prepare engineers to be leaders, not just a better technician.