Steer Your Way Toward a Sustainable Engineering Career

This is a guest blog by Gina Covarrubias

Sustainable Engineering Career

Careers can last a lifetime. Have you thought about how to sustain your long-term engineering career? Here are three ships you can sail to generate and maintain sustainability in your own career: Ownership, Leadership, and Mentorship.

1. Ownership

It may sound basic on the surface. However, taking ownership of your duties is a fundamental employee activity that could easily fall to the wayside.

Performing tasks and duties is one thing; owning them is another. According to Merriam-Webster’s definition of “own,” it means “to keep, control, or experience as one’s own.” Think of owning a car or a house, wherein you’ve been provided a baseline from which to craft your own creation.

Compare this to your job — you’ve been provided an opportunity to craft a role into a creative function of you.

Owning your role includes:

  • Speaking up and speaking out on matters that are relevant to your job objectives
  • Admitting mistakes and failures as well as successes
  • Making decisions without complete information at hand
  • Backing yourself up with belief in your work if others question your methods
  • Inserting your personal uniqueness into everyday efforts

By commanding ownership of your role, you can elevate your perspective, approach, and the way you operate, taking your career to the next level.

This is one way to sustain your career regardless of experience.

2. Leadership

Owning your role also builds leadership abilities, which is necessary for career sustainment.

There are two facets of leadership: Internal leadership (how you lead yourself) versus external leadership (how you lead others). Regarding career sustainment, we will focus on internal leadership. The reason is because regardless of title or where you land on an organizational chart, you are always leading yourself through a journey.

Given that you are engaging in a career, you are always a leader. Somebody is always counting on you or turning to you for answers. Even if your role doesn’t feel as “special” or as important as others, there are always people who depend on you for something. Your output may have a much wider impact than you think.

Leadership is not about being correct all the time, and it’s not about being the smartest one around. Leaders don’t become leaders without making mistakes, because mistakes are our teachers.

As employees, our duty is to lead ourselves through the process of providing our best efforts.

Doing your best and giving your all on a day-to-day basis, regardless of the outcome, is a fundamental strategy for career sustainment. The recognition of knowing you tried your best will sustain you for years to come.

3. Mentorship

Mentorship includes two vital components.

First, it is crucial to receive mentorship at every stage of your sustainable engineering career. Mentors are supposed to be trustworthy people who offer guidance and wisdom in times of need, or they can share personal stories of success and failure. Mentors can consist of current or former colleagues, classmates, or managers.

A best practice when seeking a mentor is to have a conversation with the person first. It is only fair to them that they know you are prospecting them to mentor you. Ideally, both parties should be crystal-clear on guidelines around mentorship activities.

A robust network of dependable mentors is essential for any career to thrive in the long-term!

In addition, it can be crucial to offer mentorship. Think about how you might be able to mentor — what stories or struggles can you offer someone in the name of helping? It can feel a bit vulnerable, but that’s exactly why mentoring can add to your development portfolio.

Mentoring others will help you build necessary skills to enhance a long-term career, including but not limited to:

  • Communication (written and verbal)
  • Patience
  • Maturity
  • Listening and teaching
  • Managing emotions through challenging conversations

In summary, as we focus on building a future, let’s not forget that our careers require tools for sustainability.

Challenge yourself today to get on board with the three sustainability ships for a sustainable engineering career that stands the test of time!

About the Author Gina Covarrubias

Deliberate Doing

Certified Life Coach, B.S. Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering (Purdue University), M.S. Mechanical Engineering (University of Utah).

Gina is founder of Deliberate Doing, an exclusive STEM professional development service dedicated to helping engineers optimize their careers. She is the authority on establishing a purposeful career with her book, Career Purpose: When Work Isn’t Working for You. Whether speaking or coaching, she offers practical guidance for early and mid-level engineers.

Gina’s distinctive background blends life coaching expertise with 12+ years engineering/technology experience in the government, academic and corporate environments, all within the aerospace sector.

We would love to hear any questions you might have or stories you might share on creating a sustainable engineering career.

Please leave your comments, feedback or questions in the section below.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider downloading our free list of 33 Productivity Routines of Top Engineering Executives. Click the button below to download.

To your success,

Anthony Fasano, PE, LEED AP
Engineering Management Institute
Author of Engineer Your Own Success

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