Leadership Skills for Chartered Engineers

Great engineering managers write good code. Top 1% leaders build great engineers. The difference between management and leadership is transformation. Managers ensure work gets done. Leaders ensure people grow while doing it. The best technical leaders I've worked with: Don't just assign tasks - they create growth opportunities tailored to each team member's development needs. Don't just fix problems - they teach problem-solving approaches that make their team more independent. Don't just make decisions - they explain their thinking process, turning each choice into a learning moment. Don't just give feedback - they build cultures where continuous improvement is expected and celebrated. Don't just protect their team from politics - they teach them how to navigate complex organizations effectively. True leadership isn't measured by your technical contributions. It's measured by how many people become better engineers because of you. Your legacy isn't the systems you build. It's the engineers you develop.

A civil engineer became one of history’s most successful generals. That's not supposed to happen, yet Australia’s Sir John Monash proved otherwise. In 1914, Monash was a 49-year-old engineer running a construction business in Melbourne. By 1918, he was commanding the Australian Corps in victories that helped end World War I. The military establishment insisted that engineers could not lead soldiers. They believed tactical brilliance required decades of military tradition and that outsiders couldn’t possibly understand warfare. Monash saw it differently. He approached each battle like an engineering problem, with meticulous planning, precise coordination, and integrated systems. While other generals relied on costly frontal assaults hoping for a breakthrough, Monash synchronized infantry, artillery, tanks, and aircraft like a well-coordinated construction project. At the Battle of Hamel, his forces achieved all objectives in just 93 minutes. His approach at Amiens helped break the German army. Military historians credit him with pioneering modern combined-arms warfare. After the war, Monash returned to civilian life, leading the State Electricity Commission of Victoria and transforming the state's power infrastructure. He was instrumental in extending the electrical grid to cover all of Victoria by 1930, bringing power to many areas for the first time. Same leader. Different fields. Same results. Monash understood what many overlook: Leadership isn't about mastering one domain. It's about mastering principles that transcend domains. Planning. Coordinating. Innovating. Executing. Your industry expertise simply provides context. It’s your leadership capability that creates extraordinary outcomes.

It took me 13+ years to climb the ladder as a college grad to an engineering manager. Here are ten mindset shifts I made that helped me go from junior to senior and manager+ roles in this time (hard-learned lessons that you should remind yourself of from time to time) 1️⃣ From "Doing Everything Myself" To → "Focusing on What Truly Matters" - As responsibilities grow, your time becomes limited. Focus on high-impact work that aligns with your team’s and organization’s goals. - Shift from task completion to prioritization. Ask: "Will this make a meaningful difference?" 2️⃣ From "Relying on Gut Instincts" To → "Documenting Strategies to Scale" - Writing clear engineering strategies helps align teams and provides a long-term vision. - Your ability to scale isn’t about working harder. It’s about making your thinking accessible to others. 3️⃣ From "Fixing Every Bug Personally" To → "Curating Quality Through Standards" - Ensure software quality by setting up frameworks and processes instead of micromanaging every detail. - Empower your team to own technical quality and create scalable systems that evolve with the organization. 4️⃣ From "Going it Alone" To → "Staying Aligned with Authority" - Leadership depends on trust and alignment with the organization’s goals and vision. - You can disagree, but do so constructively and ensure you stay predictable and dependable. 5️⃣ From "Pushing Your Vision" To → "Blending Vision with Others" - Leadership isn’t about imposing your perspective—it’s about integrating the best ideas from peers and leaders. - Collaboration strengthens outcomes and earns you buy-in across the board. 6️⃣ From "Being Right" To → "Focusing on Understanding" - Stop spending energy defending your ideas. Instead, prioritize clear communication and collaboration. - The ability to bring people together with empathy is more valuable than winning arguments. 7️⃣ From "Competing for the Spotlight" To → "Creating Space for Others" - Leadership is about elevating others. When your team succeeds, you succeed. - Share responsibilities, mentor others, and celebrate their wins to build a stronger collective. 8️⃣ From "Relying on My Judgment" To → "Building a Peer Network for Feedback" - Surround yourself with peers who can challenge your decisions and give honest input. - The higher you climb, the harder it gets to receive constructive criticism—actively seek it. 9️⃣ From "Only Mentoring" To → "Sponsoring Talent" - Mentoring is guiding someone. Sponsoring is actively advocating for their growth. - Create opportunities for others to showcase their skills and step into new challenges. Key Takeaway: Technical skills alone aren’t enough to climb higher, you need to shift your mindset. Which of these mindset shifts resonates with you the most? Share your thoughts below! 👇

The Bridge Builders: A Story of True Engineering Leadership !! Early in my career as an engineering leader, I came across a metaphor that stuck with me: Engineering managers are bridge builders. But here’s the twist—these aren’t bridges you can see or touch. They’re invisible connections that align vision, strategy, and execution. Let me tell you about a moment that changed how I thought about leadership. A few years ago, we were working on a high-stakes project. Deadlines were tight, tensions were high, and technical debt felt like a boulder we were rolling uphill. One day, a senior engineer approached me and said, “I don’t think we’re solving the right problem.” He was right. We were so focused on what we were building that we’d lost sight of why we were building it. As a leader, I realized I had two choices: 1. Push the team harder to deliver on time. 2. Pause, realign, and rebuild the bridge between our technical goals and business priorities. I chose the second option. We gathered the team, revisited customer feedback, and refocused on the problem we were trying to solve. The result? We scrapped half the roadmap, doubled down on a single feature, and launched something that not only met the deadline but became one of our most successful rollouts. Here’s what that experience taught me about leadership: • A leader’s job isn’t to have all the answers; it’s to ask the right questions. When you feel like something is off, lean into it. Challenge assumptions. Encourage your team to do the same. • Clarity beats speed. The fastest way to fail is to move quickly in the wrong direction. Slow down to align before you accelerate. • People need purpose, not just tasks. When teams understand the why behind their work, they move mountains. As leaders, it’s our job to connect their work to the bigger picture. Leadership isn’t about being the smartest person in the room. It’s about building bridges—between ideas, people, and outcomes. And when those bridges are strong, they carry teams to places they never thought they could go. What bridges are you building today? #EngineeringLeadership #Storytelling #TeamAlignment #LessonsInLeadership

Servant leadership still makes sense to me when it treats care, empathy, and transparency as real work, not decoration. In complex project environments, serving the team also needs some firm edges. The leaders I trust most listen deeply, notice who is under strain, then turn what they hear into clear priorities, honest status checks, and firm calls on what must move this week. They remove obstacles, shield and fiercely defend their teams when blame starts to fly, and still hold the line on safety, quality, schedule, and budget. They also make it safe for the quietest engineer or coordinator to raise bad news early. When leaders drift too far toward comfort or too far toward pressure, trust erodes fast. The balance in this article points to something better, where service and delivery strengthen each other instead of competing. #ServantLeadership #EngineeringLeadership #ProjectManagement #PeopleAndPerformance -Sean W. Ross, P.E./Burns & McDonnell https://lnkd.in/ei9JvFit

9 out of 10 engineering leaders reverse their emotional intelligence at the worst possible moment. They micromanage when teams need space. They vanish when teams need technical leadership. The pattern shows up everywhere: The VP who rewrites code during sprint planning but goes silent when production burns. The engineering director who can't let teams architect solutions but disappears during crisis calls. This costs you everything: Your best engineers leave because they can't grow, then watch you vanish when things break. Your team's trust erodes. Your credibility becomes situational incompetence. Here's what changed my understanding completely: 3 AM. Huge retail client's entire payment system crashes during their biggest sales day. $50K bleeding per hour. Team paralyzed. Junior developer hyperventilating. Senior architect stuck in analysis paralysis for 2 hours. As Solutions Architect, I had a choice: Stay in my "leadership lane" and coach from the sidelines. Or violate every management book and dive into the code myself. I grabbed my laptop. Found the database deadlock in 20 minutes that they'd missed for hours. System restored. Revenue bleeding stopped. Client saved their biggest sales day. But the real impact wasn't the fix. The team watched a leader step in without blame during the moment that mattered most. That night taught me the framework that separates adaptive leaders from rigid ones: Your emotional intelligence requirements flip based on the situation. Same leader. Completely different EQ skills. CRISIS MODE - Lead from the front: ↳ Self-awareness: Recognize when your technical skills matter more than your title ↳ Humility: Code-level problem-solving regardless of organizational chart ↳ Ego management: Solution over status, every single time ↳ Calm under pressure: Your stress becomes their panic - manage it ↳ Technical empathy: Feel the weight of what your engineers are carrying NORMAL OPERATIONS - Lead from the back: ↳ Trust: Your team solves it better when you're not hovering ↳ Patience: Growth happens slower than your impatience wants ↳ Restraint: Keep your hands off the keyboard when fingers itch ↳ Active listening: Hear the problems they're not saying out loud ↳ Psychological safety: Failure becomes learning when you're not judging ↳ Empowerment: Autonomy with availability, not abandonment Get this right: teams innovate fearlessly and execute flawlessly under pressure. Get this wrong: teams stagnate during calm and collapse during crisis. Your comfort zone isn't what your situation requires. Crisis demands technical courage. Innovation demands emotional maturity. Before you step in today, ask yourself: Does this situation need my technical skills or my restraint? ♻️ Share this to your network. 🔔 Follow Dan Tudorache for leadership insights that match what your technical team actually needs right now.

I remember my first transition to being an engineering manager and leader. It was tough. Like many other engineers, I struggled to adapt. Why? - Because these roles require a different skillset. - Because we deal more with ambiguity than certainty. - Because being a great engineer doesn't make you a great leader. Here are the 12 leadership key insights I wish I knew from day one: 1. Show, don't tell 2. Think in first principles 3. Write more, improvise less 4. Prioritize your wellbeing first 5. Always do right by the people 6. Overcommunicate for alignment 7. Lead with empathy, not authority 8. Ditch buzzwords, embrace literature 9. Be in the trenches, not an ivory tower 10. Business outcomes over technical outcomes 11. Foster psychological safety and blameless culture 12. Create systems, grow people, make yourself redundant Leadership isn't about knowing all the answers. It's about taking care of your people, creating systems, And being the role model others can look up to. What's your biggest leadership lesson? Share in the comments below.

Engineers solve problems. But to lead, innovate, and thrive in today’s world, technical skills are only part of the equation. These 7 skills will define your career in 2025 – and set you apart: 1/ Safety Mindset ↳ Safety isn’t just compliance; it’s culture. ↳ Understand the impact of your work on people and the planet. Build trust through accountability. 2/ Systems Thinking ↳ Engineering isn’t about isolated solutions. ↳ See the bigger picture – how components interact, and how your decisions shape outcomes. 3/ Emotional Intelligence ↳ Listen. Learn. Empathise. ↳ Your ability to connect with people will make you a better leader and collaborator. 4/ Innovation ↳ Be the engineer who asks, “What’s next?” ↳ Embrace emerging tech. Challenge conventional thinking. Find new ways to solve old problems. 5/ Diversity Awareness ↳ Inclusion fuels creativity. ↳ Seek out diverse perspectives to build better solutions – and stronger teams. 6/ Communication ↳ It’s not just what you design – it’s how you explain it. ↳ Break down complex ideas into clear, compelling messages for technical and non-technical audiences alike. 7/ Adaptability ↳ The future is uncertain – but that’s exciting. ↳ Be ready to learn, unlearn, and pivot as industries evolve. Here’s the truth: 🔧 Your technical talent might open doors. 🌟 These skills will keep you growing, thriving, and leading in the engineering world of 2025. What skills are YOU focusing on next year? Let me know in the comments! ♻ Share this to inspire your network. 🔔 And follow me (Dr. Mark McBride-Wright MBE, CEng, FIChemE, FEI) for insights on engineering, inclusion, and leadership. #Engineering #Safety #Skills #2025

10 tips from my book "Leading Effective Engineering Teams" I recently announced my new book "Leading Effective Engineering Teams"! After leading engineering teams at scale and seeing what works, I wanted to share just a few of the ideas from the book that could help others. Build psychological safety - Our research in Google's "Project Aristotle" revealed this as the #1 predictor of team success. I share specific techniques to build environments where engineers feel safe to take risks and innovate. Empower without micromanaging - I've seen firsthand how trust and autonomy drive 3x better outcomes. I outline my framework for setting clear guardrails while giving teams the space to own solutions. Scale your effectiveness systematically - I present my 3 E's model (Enable, Empower, Expand) for scaling team effectiveness from the ground up, based on proven patterns from Google. Foster clear communication - Drawing from thousands of 1:1s and team meetings, I provide strategies that have consistently improved team alignment and execution. Define clear success metrics in terms of outcomes (e.g. how does the work help users and the business) vs. outputs - I share the OKR frameworks we used at Google to measurably boost team effectiveness by 23%. Prioritize career development - I share more about a GROW model I've refined over years of mentoring engineers into successful tech leaders. Structure for innovation - Learn the specific organizational patterns that enabled my teams at Google to consistently ship breakthrough features. Lead with data - I reveal the key metrics and dashboards I've found most valuable for making better decisions and driving continuous improvement. Balance technical and leadership skills - Based on my journey from engineer to leader, I provide a roadmap for developing both technical depth and leadership breadth. Proactively feed opportunities and starve the problems - I share my framework for identifying and nurturing high-impact opportunities while preventing issues before they arise. The book includes real case studies, practical templates, and concrete techniques from my experience leading teams at Google. I wrote this to help engineering leaders at all levels build more effective, impactful teams. I hope the tips and book are helpful in some way! 🔗 Available now: https://lnkd.in/gVVQSwZr #programming #softwarenengineering #leadership

The best engineering leaders don’t save the day. They build teams that don’t need saving. Tech leads who fall into the Heroic Engineer Trap when they: Jump in to save a release at the last minute. Debug production issues because "no one else can." Bottleneck learnings to whatever critical PR they happen to have time for. At first, it feels useful, necessary—even rewarding. But over time, it becomes a leadership failure in disguise. 🚨 Your team stays dependent on you. They don’t grow if you keep being the last line of defense. 🚨 You mask deeper problems. Poor automation? Gaps in team knowledge? Heroics hide systemic failures. 🚨 You burn out. And when that happens, the team falls apart. Real tech leadership isn’t about fixing problems—it’s about creating a system where problems get solved without you. ✅ Shift from hero to coach. Guide your team while handling production issues before they escalate. Stop being a doer and become a facilitator. ✅ Pair, post-mortem, and distribute knowledge until you’re not the only expert. ✅ Automate away the chaos. CI/CD, strong testing, and clear ownership reduce the need for “saviors.” Automate what "done" means and don't let humans gatekeep on everyday processes If you're fixing bugs at midnight you’re compensating for a broken engineering process. Have you ever fallen into the Senior Engineer Trap? How did you escape it? 👇