Gary M Butler, PE

LEADERSHIP TYPES

Natural leaders exist.  Some of them even graduate from engineering schools.  But just like the rest of us they rarely have the total suite of skills required to be successful when leading within a company.  The Baldrige National Quality Award, the touchstone for this series of articles, weights Leadership second only to Business Results in importance.  There are 3 types or levels of leadership we need to consider:

1. Personal Leadership
2. Supervisory Leadership
3. Executive Leadership

Each of these requires a unique skill set, but there are commonalities to be found.

NEW ENGINEERS

You would think that each year’s crop of newly minted engineering graduates would be ready to be turned loose on the world to solve its technical problems.  Engineering colleges certainly present them as if they are.  Unfortunately, in my experience, despite the brilliance of their professors and the difficulty of the curriculum most new engineers (yours truly included) barely know a thing about what it takes to solve technical problems in the real world.  The technology, science and calculations that got them through school are just the beginning of what they need to know.  Even those engineers with business classes will not be able to succeed without significant mentoring and coaching.  It falls to the organizations that hire them to complete their education.