Engineering Management Institute

UPCOMING TRAINING

Leadership

Remember Who You Work For

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This is a guest blog by Mickey Addison, MSCE, PMP

Work ForWhen someone asks a leader who they work for, the best answer is “I work for my team.” That’s obviously not a complete answer, but it speaks to a mindset. Leadership is service, and leaders who approach their roles with that mindset are more likely to be successful. It’s not the complete answer, of course, so to that end, let’s spend some time thinking about respect. Leaders must demonstrate respect, require it in the team, and be able to move our organizations forward in a rapidly changing world.

Everyone Deserves Respect

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TSEC 33: Leading With Outcomes: Keys to Advancing Your Engineering Career

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Advancing Your Engineering CareerIn this episode of The Structural Engineering Channel Podcast, we talk to Rens Hayes, Principal at H+O Structural Engineering, about strategic planning, organizational structure, leadership, management, and advancing your engineering career. Regardless of your current position and aspirations in your engineering career, if advancement is something you’d like to continue to pursue, this episode is full of big-picture insights that will help you see where opportunity for growth lies.

Engineering Quotes:

Advancing Your Engineering Career

Advancing Your Engineering Career

Here Are Some of the Questions We Ask Rens in This Episode:

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Would You Want to Work With You?

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This is a guest blog by Steve Soldati, P.E.

Work WithPicture this: It’s 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, you’re thinking about where to go for lunch, but you are still waiting for a response from your project team member. You had requested this information via email three weeks ago and every few days you get a, “You should have it soon.” You sent an email earlier that morning asking for an update on the project designs and calculations to incorporate into your plan set, which is due in just one week, but still no word. You go off to lunch, steaming and upset about the lack of urgency and communication of your colleagues.

When you arrive back at the office, you open your inbox to see an email from your team member with the requested design and calculations. “Yes, finally!” you shout out loud. But when you open the email, the design is incomplete, and your team member has additional questions that should have been asked much earlier. You storm over to their desk to chew them out and tell them how poorly they performed. You tell them they need to communicate better, learn to design properly, and take responsibility for their work. Then you head back to your desk to rework the design, spending many additional hours to get it ready for the upcoming deadline. And you grow even more frustrated and stressed because there is still so much on your plate that needs to be done, but you are now worried that won’t happen. This causes you to become even more uneasy, cranky, and unpleasant to be around.

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What Does Transformational Leadership Mean for Engineers?

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 This is a guest blog by Holly Welles

Transformational LeadershipTransformational leadership is a model of leadership that involves a leader who inspires his or her followers to work together toward a common goal and focus on the greater good. The best transformational leaders can enter a stagnant organization, identify its issues, and begin making improvements almost immediately.

While this type of leadership may come naturally to some people, most must learn how to develop these skills before they can apply them. As future engineers, this means developing yourself, practicing these newly learned skills, and working towards a common goal with an organization in which you’re already involved.

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TCEP 137: The Role of Project Management in Consulting Engineering

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Consulting EngineeringIn this episode, I talk to Ann Tomalavage, PE, PMP, LEED AP, a licensed professional engineer who has spent the last 20+ years training engineering professionals on how to become great project managers. Ann talks about some of the key points to becoming a successful project manager, and she also discusses the role of project management in consulting engineering.

Engineering Quotes:

Consulting Engineering

Here Are Some of the Questions I Ask Ann Tomalavage:

  • How did you get into project management training and how did you become so interested and passionate about the topic of project management?
  • What differences could an engineer expect when transitioning from a project engineer to a project manager role?
  • What made you decide to start a project management training course?
  • You recently talked at an ACEC event on project management; could you tell us about it and the feedback that you received from the audience?
  • What would you say is one of the biggest challenges for engineers in terms of making the transition to project management?

Here Are Some Key Points Discussed in This Episode About The Role of Project Management in Consulting Engineering:

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Scientific Laws of Leadership

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This is a guest blog by Jeff Perry
Scientific Laws

As engineers, we learn massive amounts of equations, corollaries, theorems, and laws. These typically apply to mathematics or scientific laws that must be understood in order to make appropriate engineering designs and calculations. However, have you ever wondered if these scientific laws that the natural world follows have applications to our personal growth, development, and leadership? In my opinion, the answer is a clear “Yes!”

In this post, I’ll take examples from some of the most commonly known scientific laws of physics — Newton’s Laws of Motion. I’ll show you how these fundamental laws apply to the movement and progress of people and teams, not just physical objects. Then, I’ll provide suggestions actions, or “motions,” you can take in your own leadership. 

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How to Build Genuine Inclusion into Your Corporate Culture

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How to Build Genuine Inclusion into Your Corporate Culture is a guest blog by Michael J. Carragher, P.E., VHB

Genuine InclusionAs engineers, we like hard lines and definition in our daily lives – spreadsheets, CADD drawings, checklists and things we can easily see and measure. While these characteristics support effective work products, they are often the traits that inhibit us from excelling in the more unstructured human factors that are crucial to organizational success. [Read more…] about How to Build Genuine Inclusion into Your Corporate Culture

TCEP 119: Working in the Public Sector Versus Private Sector for Civil Engineering Professionals

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Public Sector Versus Private SectorIn episode 119 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I visit with  John M. Keller PE, PMP, who serves as the Executive Director of The New Jersey Turnpike Authority. We talk about the differences between working in the public sector versus private sector and John provides some very specific examples, which may help you if you are deciding between these two career paths.

Engineering Quotes:

Public Sector Versus Private Sector

Public Sector Versus Private Sector

Here Are Some of the Questions I Ask John Keller during the interview:

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Tips to Engineer Your Leadership and Coaching Skills for Better Product Development

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This is a guest blog by Nader Mowlaee

Product DevelopmentSo, you have an awesome idea for a new technology for product development. This is the one. It’s going to make you a millionaire. Or so you think. The problem is, 90 percent of new startups fail, and a lack of collaboration is one of the reasons why.

Sure, you want to take the credit and take action and start developing your new product as quickly as possible, however, you can’t do everything yourself. Instead, you need a team of experienced engineers, managers, and stakeholders to help you along the way. And, you’ll need to provide them with leadership, accountability, and coaching. Here’s why: [Read more…] about Tips to Engineer Your Leadership and Coaching Skills for Better Product Development

TECC 196: Where Passion Meets Productivity: The Intersection Between People’s Careers and the Company Objective

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In this episode, I will be speaking to Jakob Heuser, an engineering leader, writer, speaker and entrepreneur about the intersection between people’s careers and the company objective.

For this episode we will have a guest co-host named Carolette Wright. Carolette is a mechanical engineer and she has been an avid listener of our show who has volunteered to help with this episode and some of the other content we produce in hopes of inspiring engineers.

Engineering Quotes:



Here are some of the key points discussed about the intersection between people’s careers and the company objective:

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