Leadership is one of the most important skills professionals can obtain. Its value extends across industries, including engineering.
The engineering industry needs skilled leaders for several reasons. Its current challenges—such as climate change and a shortage of skilled labor—require a business-focused skill set many don’t get from their engineering education.
If you’re an engineering professional who wants to transition into a higher-level position, here’s an overview of leadership in engineering, why it’s important, and how you can become a leader.
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DOWNLOAD NOWWhat Is Leadership in Engineering?
Leadership is “mobilizing others so they can execute a set of individual and collective tasks,” according to Harvard Business School Professor Anthony Mayo in the online course Leadership Principles. This ability to create a transformative vision, guide employees in making it a reality, and enable them to overcome barriers is essential for any engineering leader who wants to inspire and energize their team.
“The work of leadership is not just about the work that you individually perform,” Mayo says in Leadership Principles. “It’s about your ability to create the conditions that enable others to thrive.”
Authentic leaders have several characteristics that distinguish them from others in leadership roles, including:
- A commitment to self-improvement
- Continuous cultivation of self-awareness
- Discipline and follow-through
- Dedication to their mission
- Trust and faith in their endeavors
The Importance of Engineering Leadership
Leadership is critical to a company's success. According to Zippia, 69 percent of employees say they'd work harder if they felt their efforts were appreciated by organizational leadership. Seventy-nine percent who quit their position say they did so because of a lack of leadership.
Employee turnover is a concern in any industry, but engineering experiences it at a greater rate than most. According to LinkedIn data, the tech and media industry has the second highest turnover rate at 12.9 percent, compared to the average 10.6 percent.
For this reason, leadership is among the top business skills prospective employers in the engineering industry seek in candidates.
Engineering Leadership vs. Management
Before learning how to become an engineering leader, it's important to recognize the difference between leadership and management.
- Leadership: An effective leader creates a vision and inspires others to follow it through. Leadership is people-focused and involves developing ideas. It's more of a quality than a role.
- Management: A manager guides individuals to accomplish recurring tasks. Management focuses on existing processes rather than innovation and encourages people to adhere to existing structures and systems.
Management and leadership are necessary for a company to succeed. Leadership qualities enhance management skills, so focus on developing both.
How to Become an Engineering Leader
Are you worried you don’t have the right leadership skills to advance your career? The good news is that leadership can be learned. Approximately 70 percent of leadership qualities are acquired through experience and education—meaning engineering professionals can develop this highly sought-after skill. Here are several ways to do so.
Develop Complementary Skills
If you want an impressive resume, develop skills that complement the roles you aspire to. For example, if you want to participate in more high-level decision-making in your organization, you’ll need hard and soft skills to land the job. The following are skills all engineering professionals should gain.
Engineering Skills
If you’re climbing the corporate ladder, you may get discouraged regarding your lack of experience leading a team. However, you’ve likely developed several skills necessary for leadership roles throughout your career, such as:
- Problem-solving: Engineers constantly simplify complex problems and find effective solutions.
- Attention to detail: Paying attention to small details can make the difference between an effective leader and an unsuccessful one. It allows engineering leaders to determine the practicality of a solution or identify a potential problem.
- Humility: The best engineers want to learn from others and better themselves personally and professionally. The same can be said for leaders in the field. Humility and a willingness to learn can make all the difference in engineering leadership.
These skills can bolster your resume for leadership positions, so if you've developed them during your career, highlight them on job applications.
Leadership Skills
While there's no right way to lead a team effectively, successful leaders possess certain qualities you should strive to obtain. These include:
- An ability to influence others
- A balance of transparency and privacy
- Encouragement of risk-taking and innovation
- A strong sense of ethics and integrity
- Decisive action
- A symmetry of hard truths and optimism
Even if you don't have much experience in engineering’s business side, start building your skill set. According to the Harvard Business Review, the three steps you can take in developing self-directed leadership qualities are:
- Determining which leadership competencies you'd like to develop and finding ways to do so.
- Seeking input from others and learning from them when facing a challenge.
- Identifying behaviors you need to adjust or change using your understanding of a situation and others’ feedback.
Business Skills
Technical knowledge and expertise aren't the only skills needed for a successful engineering career—it also requires business skills beyond leadership, such as:
- Communication: For engineering leaders to gain support for their initiatives, they often must simplify complex topics for others across their organizations.
- Management essentials: Decision-making and strategy implementation require a thorough grasp of management essentials.
- Problem-solving: Creative problem-solving is a vital business skill because it increases productivity and facilitates innovation.
- Business operations: Since many management positions require budgeting, understanding different aspects of business operations, such as financial accounting, is critical.
- Research and critical thinking: Technology is continuously advancing and disrupting industries. Engineering leaders must be alert for opportunities and validate their ideas.
"If an engineer graduating from college ascends from an entry-level position to CEO, with each promotion, they use less engineering skills and more business skills,” says Kyle Rosenmeyer, an engineer who completed the three-course Credential of Readiness (CORe) program to gain foundational business knowledge.
Consider Advancing Your Education
One way to increase your marketability for leadership positions is to advance your education. While it isn't necessary, it can help you stand out from other applicants who only possess technical skills.
While many master’s programs can supplement your technical engineering education, additional options are available if you want to advance your career. For instance, obtaining a business certificate, such as those offered by HBS Online. Many have benefited from the knowledge and skills these certificates instill, like chemical engineer Samir Ghosalkar, who completed CORe and Management Essentials to make more informed business decisions and advance his career. Through these courses, Ghosalkar was able to:
- Understand economic return by learning about return on investment, break-even, internal rate of return, and discounted cash flows, and how to use them to make business cases to management.
- Harness the power of social learning by reflecting on his and his classmates’ work.
- Master hypothesis testing to improve processes and forecasting to translate soft benefits into hard numbers.
Take the Next Steps in Your Leadership Journey
Whether you're an engineer hoping for a management position or want to start your own company, there are several ways to obtain the skills needed for leadership positions. The skills employers tend to value have shifted; while technical skills can help you enter highly specialized industries—such as engineering—business skills can take your career to the next level.
Are you ready to advance your education and learn how to become an effective leader? Consider enrolling in one of our leadership and management courses. Download this free flowchart to determine which best suits your goals and interests.
