Engineering is the one major profession for which the primary accredited degree in the United States is still at the bachelor’s level. The result is a crowded curriculum in which there is barely room for anything beyond the required science, mathematics, engineering principles, and capstone design courses. Yet there are other attributes that engineers need to possess in order to be successful throughout their careers.

Communication skills – speaking and writing – have been recognized for decades as vital abilities for engineers. Many universities have instituted special courses or components of courses on these subjects for engineering students at the school, college, or departmental level. Engineering ethics has been similarly recognized, but is a less common component of engineering curricula. In industry, engineers commonly work as part of groups, with other engineers and often with persons from other disciplinary or professional backgrounds. Leadership and teamwork skills are important in structured group work, and become continually more important as an engineer moves along a career and reaches levels of ever greater responsibility. Leadership abilities are keys to success, but they have not traditionally had much place in engineering curricula.

Movie buffs may recall the 1955 film, The Long Gray Line, in which Tyrone Power plays Marty Maher, the long‐time swimming instructor at West Point, the United States Military Academy. As a Signal Corps Army officer, my father was an Instructor of Electricity and Chemistry at West Point during my earliest years, and so it was decided that I should learn swimming from none other than Marty himself. Marty’s rather idiosyncratic instructional technique consisted of placing the pupil in a cork life jacket suspended from a ropes‐and‐pulley apparatus that would be moved from the edge to the center of the pool and then lowered into the water so that the pupil could learn simply by doing what came naturally. In my case, being aged 4 or so at the time, what came naturally seems to have been abject terror and much screaming.

Most engineers first encounter team leadership in the same unprepared fashion of sudden total immersion, but without the life jacket. Doing what comes naturally is often the wrong approach for leadership, and bruises, discouragement, and even sustained hard feelings among colleagues can be the result. Some people are natural leaders, but most are not. And yet, as Dennis Hess demonstrates ably in this book, there are many aspects of leadership that can readily be learned and which will go a long way to help engineers avoid mistakes and succeed in career paths that are necessarily built on leadership skills.

I have known Dennis Hess for forty years, since he arrived at Berkeley as an Assistant Professor following his time with Fairchild Semiconductor. Dennis is himself a capable leader. As Dean, I had the pleasure of starting him off administratively as Assistant Dean in Berkeley’s College of Chemistry, and he has now gone on to such things as being President of the Electrochemical Society and Director of Georgia Tech’s NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center for New Electronic Materials. We are fortunate that he has turned the contents of his unique course on technical leadership into this book, which should help its readers to be understanding and effective leaders while minimizing scarring pitfalls as they proceed along their careers.

In my 37 years working in the Chevron Downstream business, my first conversation with a new young scientist or engineer always went something like this, “if you are going to be successful in your job, you need to understand why things work the way they work.” Generally they just smiled and said thank you for the tip. More than once however, I received a note, sometimes years later, saying “now I understand what you meant!” When I first started sharing this “wisdom” I was referring to refinery processes and equipment troubleshooting; if they did not understand what was supposed to happen, then they had no chance to diagnose a problem and recommend ways to solve it. Over time, I came to realize this was even more vital in their roles as leaders.

When Dennis first invited me to give a guest lecture for his Georgia Tech chemical engineering class on leadership, I was quite intrigued. In my day nothing like this was part of any science or engineering curriculum. I had to learn it over time; largely through experience and reflection on what seemed to work well and what did not. About a decade into my career, Chevron allowed me to attend a number of excellent leadership trainings courses. What struck me after the lecture was that the students would be starting their careers with a set of skills it took me years to develop.

What Dennis has been providing his students in his leadership course is captured perfectly in this new book. He covers all the critical skills, but even more importantly he shares how to put them into practice.

It is often said that leadership is a team sport. While this is most certainly true, a critical attribute of the sport known as leadership is how leaders support their teams. One of my mentors told be something I never forgot. He said, “Always remember you need the team in order to be successful in your job, however the reverse is rarely true!”

Enjoy!

This book is intended to promote awareness of and approaches to effective technical leadership by technically trained individuals. Scientists and engineers undergo extensive education and training in the fundamentals associated with their fields. As part of this education, they solve numerous problems using the skills and knowledge they have acquired; in addition, they are given somewhat limited exposure to working in teams. However, virtually no education or insight into effective and ineffective leadership skills are offered within core or even elective courses. After graduation, scientists and engineers work almost solely in teams or groups where a leader is appointed. In this structure, they employ their skills to address technical problems that may or may not have viable solutions or even directions, thereby demanding vision‐generation, goal‐setting, consensus‐building, decision‐making, and communication. Success in these activities and responsibilities begins with the leader.

On teams, the gap between using fundamental knowledge to solve problems and progress toward or completion of a task invariably involves effective leadership that facilitates cooperation, synergy, and creativity within an extremely diverse group of individuals. Although such abilities are typically not developed in formal degree programs, graduates are expected to have the appropriate “soft, professional, or people skills” to successfully lead a team or organization. Many of the limitations and frustrations generally experienced by new leaders are related to the difficulties in inspiring, influencing, and guiding team members to decisions that move projects forward.

Numerous books are available that address leadership theories and studies for use in business degree programs or self‐study; only a few address technical leadership and are written from the viewpoint of technically trained leaders. Rather, nearly all existing books identify and discuss specific leadership traits which must be developed and practiced in order to successfully navigate leadership roles. Examples of well‐known leaders’ approaches to achieving high performance are described to exemplify desired behavior or illustrate poor behavior, although these examples are typically Presidents, CEOs, or other high level administrators who have little or no technical training. Discussion of and the manner by which scientists and engineers might deal with specific leadership scenarios commonly encountered in early to mid‐career positions is lacking in almost every case.

This book was developed to supply assistance to scientists and engineers as they consider or begin their role as technical leaders with small groups or teams. It is an outgrowth of technical leadership courses that I have taught to undergraduate and graduate students in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) at the Georgia Institute of Technology. These courses arose from many years of teaching‐required safety courses to ChBE majors where information on ethics, professionalism, and decision‐making was presented to describe and discuss the causes and implications of various incidents (e.g. Bophal, Flixborough, Piper Alpha, T2). These topics facilitated discussion of the fact that numerous situations occur in science and engineering research, development, and production where no “correct” answer exists, but decisions must be made and directions established with considerably less than complete and generally with conflicting information. This is the domain encompassed by the technical leader and addressed in this book.

The content and topic sequence of the book draw on the analysis and critical thinking skills of engineers/scientists to address specific situational or contextual leadership scenarios that are encountered in small teams, but also at higher managerial levels, where egos, personal biases, and emotions can and do dictate behavior. After some background regarding what a leader is and is not, why engineers and scientists are excellent candidates for leadership positions, and limitations of a technical background insofar as leadership behavior is concerned, ineffective habits or characteristics of “leaders” are described so that readers can identify aspects of their own personality or behavior that detract from their ultimate capabilities. Ethics and professionalism are discussed briefly to describe their critical role in leadership functions. Effective leader behavior and characteristics required to maintain personal sanity and be successful (time management, personal values, development of credibility and trust) are described to place in context a variety of scenarios that will serve as illustrations.

After this prelude to leadership, specific topical areas that relate to responsibilities, professional skills and behaviors, and situations encountered frequently by technical leaders are discussed. Initially, discussion of how to use questions to effectively lead and influence others is described. Questioning is a continuing theme throughout this book, since this type of approach generally leads to open discussions and effective exchange of information. Such outcomes are in stark contrast to the resistance and accompanying cessation of communication that frequently results when orders or statements are offered. Subsequent topics covered in the remaining chapters include developing a vision, building a team, running an effective meeting, decision‐making, managing change, managing conflict, communication, and presenting difficult messages to others.

Within each topical area, numerous homework problems are given; some of these can be used as discussion questions for class or small group meetings. In addition, discussion questions and vignettes (mini case studies) are presented in shaded boxes throughout the text; some of these include suggested approaches that offer ways that the situation might be addressed. These scenarios are presented to develop awareness of and practice dealing with problems that have only better or poorer approaches rather than right or wrong answers.

Problems with no “correct” (or even good) answers are often uncomfortable to technically educated and focused individuals. The questions can be effectively discussed in a group/class setting with pros and cons of possible approaches debated and consequences of specific decisions described. These questions or scenarios can be used for self‐study, homework, class/group discussion either in a separate leadership course, as examples in courses where team projects are employed, or in workshops. Such activities develop critical thinking skills via active learning by using inquiry‐based or problem‐based approaches. In this mode, the instructor serves as a facilitator or a naysayer as needed to supply perspective to open‐ended questions or complex situations where actions must be proposed or conclusions drawn with considerably less than complete information. The variety of scenarios posed offers situational leadership practice for current or aspiring technical leaders; these exercises aid the development of professional skills and thereby help prepare students and early career engineers and scientists for leadership roles.

As with any textbook or professional development book, the content has been developed over time from interactions with a large number of colleagues and acquaintances. I owe a great debt to all of them. Unfortunately, there are too many to identify each by name. However, there are a few groups and individuals to whom I owe the most. The students who have been subjected to my attempts to “teach” leadership deserve special thanks. Their discussions, questions, comments, concerns, and enthusiasm have constantly improved my approaches and kept me motivated and humble. I have appreciated the collegiality and professionalism of colleagues at Fairchild Semiconductor, the University of California Berkeley, Lehigh University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. I would like to thank Professor C. Judson King, who, while Dean of the College of Chemistry at U. C. Berkeley, convinced me to begin administrative roles when I was in the Chemical Engineering Department. Jud was an outstanding role model who made success as Department Chair, Dean, Provost, and ultimately Vice President for Research of the University of California System, look so easy that many of us foolishly thought that we could also do these jobs. I have also benefitted greatly from the lectures that Rick Zalesky has given in the leadership courses that were the precursors to this book. I especially want to thank a number of my colleagues at Georgia Tech, Professors David Sholl, Ron Rousseau, Chris Jones, Chuck Eckert, G. Wayne Clough, Charles Liotta, Pradeep Agrawal, Michael Filler, Julie Champion, and Jacqueline Mohalley‐Snedeker for their extensive encouragement, advice, suggestions, and feedback on content and initial drafts of chapters contained in this book. Their insight and attention to detail and their willingness to serve as sounding boards for this project are sincerely appreciated; the content and quality of the book have been improved substantially by their contributions.

I greatly appreciate the assistance and encouragement of AIChE Executive Director June Wispelwey, who felt that the content of this book would be of value to Society members as well as engineers and scientists in general, and initiated the process of evaluation and approval. Kate McKay, AIChE Books consultant, deserves considerable credit for efficiently shepherding me through the application process. In addition, members of the AIChE New Books Subcommittee supplied many helpful comments on the book proposal that greatly aided effective presentation of leadership approaches.

I have benefitted immensely from the publishing team at Wiley who oversaw this effort, guided me as I undertook and ultimately completed the project, and made certain that the final product met their high standards. In particular, Michael Leventhal, Editor and Assistant, supplied information and assistance on the book title, cover selection, and marketing and ensured that the publication process was organized and coordinated. Beryl Mesiadhas, Project Editor, provided guidance, structure, and answered many questions regarding submission details and permissions. Amudhapriya Sivamurthy, Production Editor, directed me through the final stages of copyediting and page proofs. Her patience and precision in addressing my numerous questions is greatly appreciated.

Finally, I want to thank Patty Hess, my wife of 49 years. Through much patience, guidance, and personal examples, she demonstrated how leaders can display emotional intelligence and empathy. Despite her best attempts, I am still learning these skills; apparently, I am improving! I have learned more from her counsel and example than from numerous books that I have read on these topics. She has put up with and even accepted the many years I have spent sitting in front of a computer screen as a practicing academic, and most recently, formulating this book. I am extremely grateful for her love and support and that she chose to spend her life with me.

Exceptional performance in an engineering or scientific position and career requires detailed knowledge of the fundamentals of the specific field and related areas, and the ability to apply that knowledge to solve problems. However, these capabilities represent necessary but not sufficient conditions for career success. Less than 50% of an engineer’s or scientist’s time in any technical position will generally be spent on science‐ or engineering‐focused tasks. This percentage always decreases with responsibility level and experience; in high level leadership or management positions, less than 20% is typical. Much of the day‐to‐day time invested by practicing engineers or scientists irrespective of their specific vocation, involves interactions with other individuals and groups of individuals within or outside the organization, where directions, goals, and performance are discussed and decisions made. It is therefore critical to develop leadership and decision‐making skills, to communicate decisions and their implications clearly, and to ensure that these tasks are performed in an ethical and professional manner. That is, “… an engineer is hired for his/her technical skills, fired for poor people skills, and promoted for leadership and management skills” [1]. Despite the essential nature of these skills to career success, little emphasis is afforded them in core or even elective courses in science or engineering curricula.

The need for skill development in leadership can be envisioned easily. Below are three examples of situation types encountered frequently by technical leaders for which they have received no training and often have little awareness.

• Two of your team members are simply incompatible. They argue about trivial as well as significant issues, make derogatory remarks about each other to other team members, and their behavior is degrading collegiality and team productivity. As team leader, how do you resolve this issue?
• One of your team members is rude, arrogant, and disruptive at team meetings. Other team members avoid this individual and refuse to interact. Due to the specific technical background and expertise, the individual is critical to the success of two of your projects. How do you handle this situation?
• A decision must be made regarding the purchase of a new spectrometer for use in your analytical department. The department members are split regarding which manufacturer and model should be ordered, and the discussions have become extremely heated and emotional. As team leader, how do you make this decision, and how do you deal with the individuals whose recommendation you did not take?

If these examples make you uncomfortable, wonder how you might address such issues, and begin to question if you want to ever be a team leader, then you need to keep reading.

Technical leadership effectiveness has been described through the relationship among various interpersonal effectiveness traits for engineers [2]; this view has also been applied to science and mathematics backgrounds [3]. The elements of interpersonal effectiveness are defined as [2]:

• Ability to solve problems, make decisions, communicate with and engage others
• Awareness of themselves, others, circumstances
• Commitment to responsibility, ethical behavior

The need for these interpersonal proficiencies are evident from even brief consideration of the situations described above. The importance of developing “soft” or “professional” skills has been the subject of recent articles for scientists [4, 5] and engineers [6], that illustrate what skills are needed; the articles offer brief descriptions of how these skill sets can be developed in students and early career professionals.

Corporations and academic institutions must identify and develop leaders who in addition to having engineering and scientific competency, can establish and promote a vision, build and run teams, make timely and effective decisions, communicate clearly, ensure high performance levels, and manage change. Individuals generally achieve the latter six proficiencies by trial‐and‐error or observation after completion of their degree(s). In their employment environment, they encounter many examples of leadership successes and failures. Being competent engineers/scientists, they analyze these situations either after their own initial success or failure or after observation of others displaying successful or unsuccessful attempts at these efforts; such “data” lead to a realization of how the situation could have been handled better. As Mark Twain, Will Rogers, or Rita Mae Brown (depending upon which search engine is used) noted:

Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.

These approaches to developing leadership skills are effective but linear and thus time intensive, since the number of different scenarios that can be encountered is infinite. A situational or contextual leadership approach is taken in this book, where specific situations are posed and/or discussed in light of the uniqueness of that particular scenario. Analogous to solving technical problems, the similarity among certain types of situations should shorten the time frame needed to develop technical leadership awareness and skills through identification, discussion, and recognition of how various commonly encountered situations might be handled. Such knowledge will allow engineers or scientists to progress rapidly up the learning curve in their “new” role of leading others.

Engineering and science students are taught how to address problems while increasing their understanding of the field by solving numerous problem types in homework sets or exams. The methods developed can then be used to attack new problems previously unknown to the students. After graduation, the students are expected to use their problem‐solving skills to address more open‐ended problems with a sufficient number of boundary conditions that an exact solution is unlikely or impossible. Rather, an “approximate or optimum” solution is needed, as experienced in process or product design problems. The intent of this book is to introduce the reader to open‐ended (situational or contextual) problems focused on technical and nontechnical colleagues, boss, or subordinate behavior and interactions that defy simple, clear, or exact solutions. By offering examples of dilemmas in technical leadership along with selected analyses of possible ways to address or consider such issues, aspiring or current leaders can build awareness and develop approaches to address future variations on these themes or new situations. In addition, many decisions must be made with less than adequate data or information, a situation that is not viewed favorably by engineers and scientists. When the situation to be resolved is dependent upon individual or group (personal) reactions and behavior, the resulting responses are often disconcerting to those who expect both system and individual behavior to be reproducible and predictable. Instead of this anticipated, or at least hoped‐for behavior, the approach needed to resolve problems and successfully lead others depends upon the specific people and personalities involved, the culture within the organization, and the time frame within which a decision is required. Because the leader has very limited or no control of these issues, frustration is a frequent outcome. An effective leader recognizes that the problem and frustration encountered may not be due to incompetence or mediocre performance, or to the unpredictable or illogical behavior of others; rather, the issues encountered may be due to the fact that the leader’s and team members’ perceptions of the situation differ because of either misunderstanding or to disparities in values, motivation, experiences, and priorities.

This book is intended for technically trained individuals who (i) are considering, anticipating, or have recently been promoted into formal leadership positions; (ii) wish to have a “snapshot” of the types of issues they will face in such positions; and more importantly, (iii) wish to know how they might deal with common situations encountered that involve personal, social, political, and economic aspects. The starting point in dealing with many leadership situations is for the leader to understand and control himself/herself. As a result, numerous discussion and homework questions focus on introspection to gain knowledge of and insight into who the reader (leader) is. The specific topics or chapters contained in this book will also be helpful to those who are currently struggling to function effectively in leadership positions and to those non‐technically trained individuals who have been given the task of leading or managing engineers and scientists (assuming that is possible). Within each chapter, there are discussion questions and frequently a vignette; these scenarios are set apart from the rest of the text by shaded text boxes. In the case of the vignettes that appear at the beginning of chapters, suggested ways to approach the dilemma described are offered at the end of the chapter.

It is also hoped that the concepts and information contained in this book will make those who are following leaders better “followers” since they will derive improved appreciation for the issues and complexities involved. Such appreciation should improve the behavior displayed when functioning on teams. Finally, since employees with leadership potential and “soft” or professional skills are strongly desired by every organization, it is hoped that the contents of this book will be helpful to individuals who are undergoing interviews and job searches where candidates’ abilities to demonstrate these skills are probed.