Developing Leadership Skills of Undergraduate Engineering Students: Perspectives from Engineering Faculty.

The engineering education community (motivated by internal and external factors) has begun to focus on leadership abilities of college students in engineering fields via reports from ABET, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Research Council. These reports have directed criticism toward higher education institutions for their lack of success in instilling leadership abilities within recent engineering graduates. Recognizing the importance of leadership development among undergraduate engineering students, researchers in the current study interviewed twelve engineering faculty at a Midwestern university about ways that leadership might be incorporated into engineering curricula given the current environment of engineering and engineering faculty’s roles and responsibilities. An idea emerging from the interviews includes an integration of leadership topics into current courses and in capstone courses. Faculty also noted the importance of real-life experiences and extracurricular activities in students’ leadership development. Additional barriers to incorporating leadership into undergraduate engineering experiences are discussed. Introduction In addition to technical competencies, professional skills (e.g., communication and teamwork) have been identified to be important in the development of well-rounded engineering students who will be drivers of innovation in a changing global society. One of the skills being recognized formally in a variety of programs at both undergraduate and graduate levels is leadership, a skill that allows an individual to cope effectively with change in systems or organizations (Kotter, 1990). Promoted in the form of minors, formal undergraduate degree programs, formal graduate degree programs, and graduate courses, leadership has been identified as a skill that needs to be included in the curricula for future engineers (Cox et al., 2009). Studies of leaders and their abilities to lead date back several centuries. However, leadership as a science has been studied in most social science fields and extensively in business (Schein, 1992; Bolman and Deal, 2003; Northouse, 2007; Kouzes & Posner, 1998) and higher education (Cohen and March, 1986; Birnbaum, 1992). Recently the engineering education community (motivated by internal and external factors) has begun to focus on leadership abilities of college students in engineering fields via reports from ABET (2001), the National Academy of Engineering (NAE, 2004) and the National Research Council (NRC, 2006). Across these reports, a criticism has been directed toward higher education institutions for their lack of success in instilling leadership abilities within recent engineering graduates. While there is a dire need to be informed of engineering students’ abilities to lead, three very important impediments in looking at and incorporating leadership in engineering curriculum remain. The first obstacle is the need for standardized surveys specifically designed to explore the leadership attributes of college students across various institution types. The second is related to engineering education specifically. There are no empirical studies targeting leadership attributes of college students in engineering fields. Thus, the literature lacks any survey instrument or an operational definition of leadership as an observable and measureable attribute within the context of engineering. Finally, most engineering faculty have not been trained formally to teach leadership and have not explored ways to include leadership in their courses. Understanding their views about leadership is essential, if leadership is to be incorporated effectively into engineering plans of study. Recognizing the importance of leadership development among undergraduate engineering students, researchers in the current study interviewed twelve engineering faculty at a Midwestern university about ways that leadership might be incorporated into engineering curricula given the current environment of engineering and engineering faculty’s roles and responsibilities. Authors synthesize responses from the sample of faculty and suggest ways that leadership might be incorporated into engineering curricula formally and informally. Literature Review and Background Engineering Undergraduates and Leadership Although limited empirical studies of leadership in engineering education have been conducted, leadership abilities of engineering undergraduates have been the focus of studies in the last two decades. The main focus of such studies has been on the definition of leadership (Farr, Walesh, & Forsythe, 1997), the differentiating elements between leadership and management (Torr & Ofori, 2008), and the incorporation of leadership into the curriculum (Bogus & Rounds, 2006; Bowman & Farr, 2000; Riley, Horman, & Messner, 2008). Farr and his colleagues (1997) rightfully claimed that “developing a concise definition of leadership for people involved in technical engineering management is difficult” (p. 38). Thus, there are many definitions of leadership and many ways to incorporate the development of these skills into the undergraduate engineering education curriculum.