Discuss about the Engineering Leadership skills and knowledge about the given Case Study.
Engineering leadership is the leadership or the management of technical and technological skills and knowledge that are utilized for the betterment of the organization or the project that he is working for. The report describes the three major traits of engineering leadership with proper examples. The traits are important for engineering leadership in all organizations (Denstadli, Julsrud and Hjorthol 2012). The case study given in this report clearly mentions the modification of the communication plan.
The report outlines a communication plan for the case study given. The communication plan for the mentioned project needs serious modification, which is to be done with the help of the engineering leadership traits (Ahn et al. 2014). The report describes the traits with proper examples, which help to understand the traits better. The report further covers the benefits of face-to-face meetings and what can be the other option if face-to-face meetings are not possible. It also helps to understand the difference between the traditional project communication plan and the modern project communication plan. The description of the case study is given in the following paragraphs.
Engineering Leadership
The innovative and technical skills and knowledge that are utilized for the betterment of a company or organization is known as the engineering leadership. This particular type of leadership is needed in every organization (Rottmann, Sacks and Reeve 2015). This type of leadership is used to bring alterations and changes in the company. The changes include the new and unconventional design, implementation and conception, of new processes, materials, products, projects, systems, software, and molecules, which are reinforced by the creation of enabling different technologies, to meet the necessities and needs of society and the clients of the project. Engineering leadership is useful and extremely important for all organizations. This is generally an amalgamation of both engineering and management (García-Morales, Jiménez-Barrionuevo and Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez 2012). The skills and knowledge of engineering background and the ability to control and manage situations, together constitute engineering leadership.
The six famous engineering leaders, who have helped the world with their exclusive engineering knowledge, skills and leadership, are mentioned in this report. The engineering leaders have unique engineering skills and management ability that have made famous (Hwang and Ng 2013).
Trait 1
A good engineering leader becomes successful if he/she succeeds in the trait of acceptance of risks and failures that are coupled together to make the staffs learn how to overcome the situation if the project goes wrong. The two examples of such leaders are as follows:
Personalities
Tim Cook: Timothy Donald Cook an American industrial engineer, business executive and developer. Cook is the CEO or the Chief Executive Officer of Apple Inc., who was previously serving as the Apple Inc.’s Chief Operating Officer, under the founder Steve Jobs (Cameron 2012). Apple Inc. launched watches under their brand on 24 April, 2015. However, the watch did not become as popular as the other Apple products. It faced huge losses. However, Cook did not break down and neither did he allow his employees to feel down. He rather planned to make the watch better, so that the customers accept it. Finally, on 16 September, 2016, Apple Inc. launched the second version of Apple watch. This was well accepted by the customers.
Sundar Pichai: Sundar Pichai is an Indian business executive who is the Chief Executive Officer or CEO of Google Inc. (Saebi and Foss 2015). He has completed his engineering from IIT Madras and done his M.S. from Stanford University. Google Lively was one of the biggest mistakes of Google. It did not last for more than six months in 2008. However, Pichai did not break down, rather he helped his fellow employees to overcome the situation.
Trait 2
The second trait is the building and directing teams that are winning for retaining and attracting the innovators. A leader becomes successful when he has the ability to manage and guide his teams in such a way that it retains innovators (Hwang and Ng 2013). The examples of such engineering leaders are as follows:
Personalities
Erin Hoffman: Erin Hoffman is an American blogger, game developer and writer. She is famous for her popular game Kung Fu Panda World. She is a wonderful engineering leader with amazing leadership skills. Kung Fu Panda game was launched on 3rd June, 2008 and soon it attracted clients (Rottmann, Sacks and Reeve 2015). Hoffman managed and directed her employees in such a way that they retained and attracted the customers.
Bridget Frey: Bridget Frey is the CTO of Redfin since the year 2015. Previously, she was the Vice President of engineering in Redfin and the director of Analytics & Business Applications for Lithium. She was even the founding member of the analytics team of IntrinsiQ. She even held senior management positions in Plumtree and IMlogic. During her stay in the management positions, Frey retained and directed her staffs.
Trait 3
The third trait of leadership is the degree of passion for innovation and mission in the work, as well as sharing that passion with the employees. Innovation is needed for any product or organization. Every engineering leader should have the passion for innovation (Rottmann, Sacks and Reeve 2015). The two famous leaders, who have excelled in this trait, are as follows:
Personalities
Noah Glass: Noah Glass is one of the co-founders of the social networking site Twitter. Twitter’s stock declined around 45% in the year 2015. However, the new changes and the innovations made by Glass, helped Twitter to increase the popularity. Glass always had a thirst for innovations, which he even passed on to his employees.
Jerry Yang: The co-founder and the former CEO of Yahoo! Inc., Jerry Yang is one of the famous engineering leaders. Yahoo was the first recognized search engine before Google. After Yahoo search engine became popular, Yahoo mail was launched (Cameron 2012). Yang had the passion for his work and innovations, and he shared this passion with his employees.
AusElec is a large electronics company in Australia. I am the project leader of traditional and collocated projects, and I rely on the oral communication that is face-face meetings, and team meetings, emails, telephones and hard copies of memos, reports and letters. Recently, I was given a hybrid transnational project known as the Hytrans, where most of the team members are located in different parts and time zones of the world. Only me, Joseph and Tina are present in the headquarters of Sydney. Since most of the team members are located in different time zones of the world, it was extremely difficult for me to communicate with them and organize meetings. Any project is successful only when all the team members are present and they have meetings face-to-face. Video and audio conferences help in this case to some extent, although face-to-face meetings are way more successful than those conferences (Baek, Wojcieszak and Delli Carpini 2012). After the project is launched, I noticed that the communications plan that is made for the project needs severe modification. I need to draft a new communication plan with proper modification.
Communication planning is the science and art of meeting the target audiences using various marketing communication channels such as public relations, direct mails, advertising, or experiences (Szeberenyi 2015). I need to modify the communication plan of Hytrans. Since, only three members are present in the headquarters of Sydney and rest all, the members are located in different parts of the world, it became very difficult to communicate with them (Akmajian et al. 2013). When a member is present in one part of the world and the other member is present in other part of the world, there is a high chance that their time differences will clash. this exactly was happening with my team. Therefore, I decided that the new communication plan should have audio and video conferences instead of telephones and emails. The difference between the new and the traditional communication plans was that the communication mode was changed, which means there was video conferences instead of emails or memos.
Hytrans is a hybrid transnational project, in which most of the members are located in different time zones and different parts of the world. I being the project leader found it very hard to communicate with my team members. According to me, face-to-face meetings are extremely important for any organization (McConnell et al. 2013). The main reasons why face-to-face meetings are the best are as follows)
Body Language is communication: Body language is important for any sort of communication. Half of the words are spoken through body languages. When a team is interacting on phones or emails, there is no chance of showing body language, which can sometimes be misleading (Müller 2013). The person may not understand what the other person is wanting to express.
Ensures Engagement: All the team members can take part in discussions in face-to-face meetings, which is not possible in a virtual meeting
More Efficient: It is seen than face-to-face meetings are shorter than audio conferences.
Drives participation: Face-to-face meetings have more participation of members than in conference calls.
Face-to-face meetings are much better than other modes of meetings because of the above-mentioned reasons. I highly recommend such meetings for the success of Hytrans as it will clarify the doubts and the new communication plan can be easily modified (Denstadli, Julsrud and Hjorthol 2012). However, if face-to-face meetings are possible at any cost, the only other option against this, I think is the video conference. Video conferences can be the only substitute of face-to-face meetings.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that, engineering leadership is an important aspect in any business or any organization. This type of leadership helps the organization to make innovative alterations and changes in their project that will make the project even better. The report describes about the basic traits of engineering leadership that makes an engineering leader successful in his life. The report also describes the different engineering leadership strategies of six famous engineering leaders, who have used their engineering skills and managerial ability to conquer the world. The above report further describes about the modification in communication plan of the case study given and the benefits of face-to-face meetings.
References
Ahn, B., Cox, M.F., London, J., Cekic, O. and Zhu, J., 2014. Creating an instrument to measure leadership, change, and synthesis in engineering undergraduates. Journal of Engineering Education, 103(1), pp.115-136. [online] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jee.20036/full
Akmajian, A., Farmer, A.K., Bickmore, L. and Harnish, R.M., 2017. Linguistics: An introduction to language and communication. MIT press [online] https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=VF4nDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT8&dq=Akmajian,+A.,+Farmer,+A.K.,+Bickmore,+L.+and+Harnish,+R.M.,+2017.+Linguistics:+An+introduction+to+language+and+communication.+MIT+press&ots=oZXqzvs41v&sig=NTSxJPAIVy7FHtyWISWI06jd-Wk#v=onepage&q&f=false
Baek, Y.M., Wojcieszak, M. and Delli Carpini, M.X., 2012. Online versus face-to-face deliberation: Who? Why? What? With what effects?. New media & society, 14(3), pp.363-383. [online] https://www.looooker.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Online-versus-face-to-face-deliberation1.pdf
Cameron, K., 2012. Positive leadership: Strategies for extraordinary performance. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. [online] https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/29441788/positiveleadership.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1503036195&Signature=AL8bxmj5Vv9Mv359s7GEgK9xsvA%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DPositive_leadership_Strategies_for_extra.pdf
Denstadli, J.M., Julsrud, T.E. and Hjorthol, R.J., 2012. Videoconferencing as a mode of communication: A comparative study of the use of videoconferencing and face-to-face meetings. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 26(1), pp.65-91. [online] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Randi_Hjorthol/publication/239773432_Videoconferencing_as_a_Mode_of_Communication_A_Comparative_Study_of_the_Use_of_Videoconferencing_and_Face-to-Face_Meetings/links/00b7d5281cde1a0a1d000000.pdf
García-Morales, V.J., Jiménez-Barrionuevo, M.M. and Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, L., 2012. Transformational leadership influence on organizational performance through organizational learning and innovation. Journal of business research, 65(7), pp.1040-1050. [online] https://npchr.nipc.ir/uploads/Transformational_leadership_15525.pdf
Hwang, B.G. and Ng, W.J., 2013. Project management knowledge and skills for green construction: Overcoming challenges. International Journal of Project Management, 31(2), pp.272-284. [online] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bon-Gang_Hwang/publication/257094667_Project_management_knowledge_and_skills_for_green_construction_Overcoming_challenges/links/0c96052f3321e1fa02000000.pdf
McConnell, T.J., Parker, J.M., Eberhardt, J., Koehler, M.J. and Lundeberg, M.A., 2013. Virtual professional learning communities: Teachers’ perceptions of virtual versus face-to-face professional development. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 22(3), pp.267-277. [online] https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/37234299/McConnelletalJoST2012.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1503036269&Signature=XLJo8KOjoqNRzmr9sobZdvm8AHU%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DVirtual_Professional_Learning_Communitie.pdf
Müller, C. ed., 2013. Body-Language-Communication (pp. 310-319). de Gruyter. [online] https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Dance%20in%20India&item_type=topic
Rottmann, C., Sacks, R. and Reeve, D., 2015. Engineering leadership: Grounding leadership theory in engineers’ professional identities. Leadership, 11(3), pp.351-373. [online] https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57b6154a2e69cf98b3fb7031/t/57d3612644024343d18e0222/1473470759895/Engineering+Leadership+-+Grounding+Leadership+Theory.pdf
Saebi, T. and Foss, N.J., 2015. Business models for open innovation: Matching heterogeneous open innovation strategies with business model dimensions. European Management Journal, 33(3), pp.201-213. [online] https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/298636/Saebi_Business.pdf?sequence=3
Szeberenyi, A., 2015. Project Communication Plan (No. AIDA-2020-MS4). [online] https://cds.cern.ch/record/2047412/files/AIDA-2020-MS4.pdf
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