Headline: PhD Engineer Learns from Everyone!
Among engineering leadership skills, Strategic Leadership requires Vision, Ingenuity, and Influence.
Strategic Leadership for Engineers: Vision, Ingenuity, & Influence
Among engineering leadership skills, Strategic Leadership requires Vision, Ingenuity, and Influence.
Leadership Empowerment for Engineers: Trust & Respect
Among engineering leadership skills, team empowerment requires a leader to trust and respect.
Leadership Identity for Engineers: Learning, Integrity, and Presence
Learning, Integrity, and Presence are essential components of Leadership Identity.
How to Break Silos in an Engineering Department
Wanting More Collaboration & Employee Growth Breaking down silos doesn’t require a massive reorganization. It can begin with small, deliberate leadership choices. Earlier today I had a conversation with an engineering department head about their desire to better support collaboration and growth within the team. This is a big goal, but they wanted something small […]
Essential Leadership Skills for Engineers
Why Another Leadership Framework? Many organizations have published lists and discussions about essential leadership elements. Recently, I made my own research project to study them. To pick them apart. They cooked down to 8 essential leadership elements. I cross-referenced everything others cataloged – even if they needed 15 or even 20 items to get there. […]
Don’t Suppress Legitimate Concerns
Why This Matters Following Last Week’s Post Following on from last week’s post, particularly the second scenario, I want to emphasize an option that wasn’t discussed. To refresh, the situation is that someone is going to raise a concern in a problematic manner. The person should find a better way to raise the concern. But […]
Engineers Use Leadership Skills to Influence Decisions
Technical Excellence Is Not Enough Do engineers need leadership skills? Do engineers need to be leaders? Yes! Do you want others to accept and adopt your design? Agree with your recommendation? Follow your product development path? Of course you do. That requires leadership skills, even in purely technical roles. Any time you want others […]
How I Became a New Engineering Leader at NASA
A Leadership Opening I Didn’t Expect When I first started considering a formal position in engineering leadership at NASA, it was because I had discovered a conundrum. The mechanical engineering department head had decided that he wanted to go back to project management. As part of the department (albeit not a mechanical engineer), my reaction […]
Chaos is Not Normal: A Leadership Perspective
Leaders Don’t Accept Chaos Is Normal “Chaos is the new normal” is a catchphrase that’s been around for a decade or more. Recently, in a casual conversation, the phrase came up and I responded “that’s just capitulated bullshit.” I was respectfully challenged to explore the thought. So, here we go. First, let’s take the petty […]