Engineers are one of the best assets of a company. Their skills help businesses in the oil & gas, energy, and manufacturing industries thrive in a sea of competitors. This means it might be tempting to promote them to management and leadership roles; however, it’s important to first assess whether the engineer in question has the right skills to take on a managerial position. We’ll discuss the leadership skills that engineers commonly lack and what companies can do about it below.
The Engineer Skill Set
Engineers are smart people — very smart people. These people are good with math, design, physics, or whatever discipline they have been trained in. Thanks to their expertise, many organizations in the energy or manufacturing space see them as competent enough to take on management roles, so it’s no surprise that many qualified engineers move up the ranks every year.
That being said, engineers are not trained to be business people. Many of them don’t have “non-technical skills” — skills that they will need for the next phase of their career. When they take over a position of leadership, they’re usually not equipped with the leadership and business skills they need to succeed in their new role. Many engineers lack:
- People Skills
- Communication Skills
- Business Skills
- Stakeholder Management Skills
- Change Management Skills
Management is essentially a shift in their career path, so we can’t blame them for not having experience in this realm. To address this, businesses must provide training and coaching to help their engineers become better leaders.
What Companies Can Do
Companies should not approach staff development for those with engineering backgrounds the same way they do with people who have a good foundation in business. That’s going to be unfit for the kind of mindset that most engineers have.
Instead, businesses should invest more time to develop soft skills. These can be harder to develop for many engineers, as they tend to favor logic, numbers, and hard data. However, a good leadership development framework can help them learn these soft skills.
Soft Skills to Focus on During Leadership Development
While there are many soft skills that make for a good leader, the following are useful across all industries:
- Communication: Engineers should have the skills to clearly and effectively communicate with other leaders, partners, stakeholders, and employees.
- Delegation: Delegating tasks to the appropriate team members is essential for the success of any project.
- Leadership: Most engineers are used to working on their own or following orders from higher-ranking managers. They must learn to become leaders themselves and learn the managerial skills that the role entails.
- Conflict Resolution: It requires a certain level of empathy and level-headedness to effectively resolve issues between two parties.
- Problem Solving: Engineers should be able to guide the team when it comes to identifying issues and resolving them effectively.
Final Thoughts
The successful transformation of engineers into leaders will require a unique approach. The best way for businesses to train these future managers and C-suite employees is to create a leadership management framework that focuses on soft skills like the ones mentioned above.
If you want to start creating this framework to prepare your company’s next generation of leaders, we at Perluxi offer consulting services for leadership training. Contact us today at info@perluxi.com to learn more!
