Operationalizing interpersonal behaviours of leadership for early-career engineers

• Autores: Meg H. Handley, Catherine G.P. Berdanier
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 35, no. 3, 2019, págs. 719-732
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This qualitative research employs interview techniques to understand behavioural evidence of early-career engineeringleadership. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine engineering leaders from three large internationalengineering companies. Analysis of the interview data through constant comparative open and axial coding methodssuggest that traditional notions of interpersonal competencies, such as extroversion and charisma, often may not reflectpracticing engineers’ preferences toward leadership. Instead, this research reveals four behaviouralthemes of interpersonalbehaviours related to engineering leadership: technical forthrightness, positivity through sociotechnical constraints, buildsinterdisciplinary alliances, adaptive communication. Further, we view our results through Bartram’s Great Eightcompetency framework, which outlines general competencies for leadership across settings. By mapping our interpersonalbehavioural themes of engineering leadership onto the Great Eight competencies, we operationalize leadership behavioursmanifest in engineering. We propose that by teaching engineering students—future engineering professionals—theinterpersonal behaviours for successful engineering leadership, we encourage a reflective and person-centred approachto teaching the more general leadership competencies.