The following is a summary of Episode 61 of my podcast, The Engineering Career Coach (TECC) Podcast. I will summarize the main points in this post; however, you can also listen to the show through the website or by subscribing on iTunes. I offer a career-changing tip at the end of each podcast session.

In this session of The Engineering Career Coach (TECC) Podcast, I interview Melinda Tourangeau whom I met at the Engineering Career Success Summit in D.C. where she was an attendee and a very active one.  She will share some characteristics about technical leadership based on her PhD research.

Melinda is a third-year doctoral student in the Ed.D. Leadership and Learning program at Rivier University, focusing on the characteristics of technical leadership, and their relationship to technical professionals. She has a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology, and an MBA from Northeastern University. She spent the first part of her professional career as a software engineer. After obtaining her MBA, she moved into engineering management. She is currently employed as a program manager at Northrop Grumman Corporation.

Listen to this session and learn about Melinda’s research on technical leadership including:

• Engineering managers face a lot of challenges today in leadership mainly because leadership is not taught in engineering schools.
• Most of the resources today about transitioning from technical professionals to technical managers are based on experience and observation and are not based on research.
• Two ways to measure and explore the characteristics of technical leadership:
  
  • Quantitative – using an established survey like the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ5X) that can generate numerical data for statistical analysis.
  • Qualitative – using semi-structured interviews or ethnographic study of the managers and their subordinates and see if it matches up with the quantitative results.
• It takes time and effort to become an engineering manager. You have to improve certain skills but the reward is fulfilling.
• Try taking a self assessment as a leader and also get feedback from people around you about your leadership style.
• Melinda reviews some of the details of her research and how she plans to present it to the technical community, hoping to assist technical professionals become the best leaders they can possibly be.

If you have any empirical reports or journals about technical leadership that you would like to share with Melinda or if you are interested in participating the MLQ5X survey- Melinda is in need of 100 leaders, please contact me at our Ask Us page or simply e-mail me at afasano@engineeringcareercoach.com.

How do you see yourself as an engineering leader?

Anthony Fasano, PE, author of Engineer Your Own Success, found success as an engineer at a very early age and now writes and podcasts to help other engineers do the same. Visit Anthony’s website at EngineeringCareerCoach.com to access all of the free engineering career resources he has created to help engineers succeed.