7 Best Practices for Leading a Team of Engineers
Understand Your Team | Understand Project Details | Have Confidence Not to Micromanage | Be Flexible | Keep an Eye on the Big Picture | Communicate Well | Manage Up, Down, and Through the Finish
7 Best Practices of Leading a Team of Engineers
Working as an engineer requires attention to detail and excellent technical and analytical skills. Not every great engineer, though, makes a great leader. To lead a team of engineers, you must maintain understanding of a project's details while developing a keen focus on the larger picture. Leadership is more than management; it means getting the best out of each team member to move toward the goals you and your organization have set. Your teams will work well if you can develop and demonstrate the following traits.
1. Understand Your Team
When you take on a leadership role, you need to get to know your team members. These are the people on whom you will rely to complete a project effectively and on time. They are not mere cogs in a machine; they are individuals, and each has his or her own strengths and weaknesses. A person may be suited well for one part of the process, but flounder in another area. Part of your job is to direct the right people to the right work in order to best advance a project to completion. Leading engineers requires you to advance beyond the mechanics of a product or the processes of assessing quality and functionality. A leader understands what each team member contributes, and learns how best to motivate them to deliver peak results.
2. Understand Project Details
Your engineering knowledge should remain your base. Before you can lead, your team members need to know that you understand their jobs. Good engineers are detail-oriented; you need to master the details to earn their respect. As their leader, you not only need to know everyone’s area of expertise, but also know how each one contributes to the overall picture.
Be ready to ask the right questions of team members and to answer questions on the finer points of the project. If team questions appear to be taking someone in a different direction than you need, be ready to bring them back on target. Some engineers have a tendency to work in silos. This isn't always a negative, but you do need to redirect them if the work they do starts to veer away from connections to the overall project goals. Your ability to understand how and why individual tasks work will be a key to your ability to direct everyone toward the right common purpose.
3. Have Confidence Not to Micromanage
The flip-side of knowing details is to trust your team to navigate those details. This is one of the most difficult aspects of moving into a position of leadership: moving away from doing everything and moving into managing the processes and workflows. When you delegate tasks, you give a sense of ownership to your team members. If you try to control every aspect of what they do, you set yourself up for failure. Engineering projects require collaboration and coordination; trying to keep your fingers in everything defeats the purpose.
When you place your team members on tasks that maximize their strengths, you shouldn't have to check up constantly. A true leader will develop reporting for the team and check in periodically, while giving team members the freedom to work independently. They will be more effective for it, and you can focus on the overall goals rather than each minute detail. To lead teams effectively, learn to put your engineers in a position to succeed--and then get out of their way.
4. Be Flexible
Sometimes not every project goes smoothly. In addition, timelines and project details often change from beginning to end. No matter how carefully you plan and schedule the way you will run a project, you must be ready to adjust your course.
A good leader manages change well. Your greatest value comes not in the planning itself, but in helping a project succeed when things do not go according to plan. Build in time for contingencies, and be ready to shift resources to ensure your timeline and end product remain feasible in the face of disruption.
5. Keep an Eye on the Big Picture
The endpoint should remain at the forefront of your mind on every project. Engineers often do task-oriented work. As a leader, you need to see how each task affects the overall project, and how the project fits into your company's overall goals. When team members' work moves in the wrong direction, it is up to you to bring it back. You will experience hiccups and delays along the way; focusing on the end goal helps you move past those to right the ship and lead your team to success.
6. Communicate Well
When you lead an engineering team, you need to communicate clearly. Your team members need to know what you expect of them. Company management also must understand what you are doing and why. You will deliver oral instructions and written reports, and must learn to clearly and concisely deliver the information everyone in your organization needs to know. People are generally able to adjust to almost anything. To do so, though, they must understand and appreciate what is happening and why. Your effective communication serves your team and everyone in your organization.
7. Manage Up, Down, and Through the Finish
Understanding how to succeed begins with defining what outcomes represent success for your project. You need to set reasonable expectations for your managers to hold, and then identify those expectations for your team. Each engineer focuses on individual tasks, but to lead them through to the project's conclusion, you need them to understand not only what each task entails, but for what they are working.
MORE ABOUT EARNING A MASTER’S DEGREE IN ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
Your leadership does not end with a project. Afterward, you should meet with your managers and with your team. Discuss what worked and what didn't, and learn how you can improve over time. Projects run point to point, but your leadership should maintain continuity across time. Learn more about how earning a graduate degree in Engineering Management can help you develop the skills you need to navigate not only your projects, but an effective career.