Engineering Management Institute

UPCOMING TRAINING

Leadership

Engaging the Engagers: Succeeding in the New Era with Better Leadership and Management

By

This is a guest blog by Peter C. Atherton, P.E.

Better Leadership

“Literally nothing a CEO or CHRO does will authentically, structurally, and sustainably change the value of your organization more.”

This is a statement from the recently released book written by Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, and Jim Harter, PhD, Chief Workplace Scientist for Gallup, based on their research and more than 30 years of data, to help workplaces thrive and produce something the whole world wants.

What they are referencing is “improving your ratio of great to lousy managers”.  The key to this, however, rests solely with leaders.

It’s Both

To succeed today in any position of authority we need to both lead and manage.

Leadership is a role to establish a clear vision for a mission that inspires others to follow and then enable achievement through times of both conflict and harmony.

[Read more…] about Engaging the Engagers: Succeeding in the New Era with Better Leadership and Management

TCEP 155: Learning and Development: Understanding People Starts With Understanding Yourself

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Learning and DevelopmentIn this episode, I talk to Gil Hantzsch, P.E., FACEC, the CEO at MSA Professional Services, Inc., about his career journey of becoming a CEO. He provides some great learning and development advice throughout the episode, which makes it one of my favorites.

Engineering Quotes:

Learning and Development

Learning and Development

Here Are Some of the Questions I Ask Gil:

  • How big is your firm and what markets do you serve?
  • What advice can you give engineers who want to be in a leadership role but are struggling to work with people?
  • How do you see the civil engineering industry going for the next three to five years and beyond?
  • With all that has happened with the pandemic, does this change the way you think about the future for the company?
  • You are a big proponent of learning and development. Why is it important to you?

Here Are Some Key Points Discussed in This Episode:

[Read more…] about TCEP 155: Learning and Development: Understanding People Starts With Understanding Yourself

Leadership Is Not a Title — It Is a Perspective

By

This is a guest blog by Mike Burns, PE, PgMP, DBIA

LeadershipPreviously, we discussed the importance of your voice as an industry and community integrator: Who Knows What You Know? — Your Voice Matters! Taking this guidance an important step further, I encourage you to move from managing people to empowering leadership from every vantage point, as our ability to deliver complex solutions in a timely manner necessitates an artful migration of diverse perspectives into inclusive solutions.

Infrastructure projects are inherently local and therefore unique, necessitating a patient combination of political savvy and technical expertise to move from policy expectations to project implementation. At each step, we must acknowledge, explore, and address ever-changing stakeholder wants and needs. Our ability to artfully migrate these evolving demands into sustainable, resilient, and equitable community solutions requires dispersed leadership. This is a concept that is at the heart of Progressive Design-Build , which seeks to empower robust communications as leadership ebbs and flows across an evolving set of teams.

[Read more…] about Leadership Is Not a Title — It Is a Perspective

Remember Who You Work For

By

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

[Read more…] about Remember Who You Work For

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

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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:

[Read more…] about TSEC 33: Leading With Outcomes: Keys to Advancing Your Engineering Career

Would You Want to Work With You?

By

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.

[Read more…] about Would You Want to Work With You?

What Does Transformational Leadership Mean for Engineers?

By

 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.

[Read more…] about What Does Transformational Leadership Mean for Engineers?

TCEP 137: The Role of Project Management in Consulting Engineering

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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:

[Read more…] about TCEP 137: The Role of Project Management in Consulting Engineering

Scientific Laws of Leadership

By

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. 

[Read more…] about Scientific Laws of Leadership

How to Build Genuine Inclusion into Your Corporate Culture

By

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