Conference Session

Literature and Research Perspectives on Engineering Leadership Development

Collection

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

William J. Schell IV P.E., Montana State University; Bryce E. Hughes, Montana State University; Brett Tallman P.E., Montana State University

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Leadership Development

of 90 engineering students to better understand what experiences made the greatestimpact. These experiences are also present in the literature on leadership development [5], and arecommon practice in existing engineering leadership programs [4, 6, 7].Leadership and EngineeringLeadership has been studied for almost as long as human history, with the ancient works of theGreeks, Romans, and Chinese all exploring the topic [8]. Despite this long history and an evergrowing research base [9], there is little evidence of a commonly accepted definition of the topic.This sentiment has led to the conclusion stated in The Nature of Leadership that “given thecomplex nature of leadership, a specific and widely accepted definition of leadership does not

Conference Session

Creating Impactful Learning Experiences for Engineering Leaders

Collection

2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

B. Michael Aucoin, Leading Edge Management, LLC; Dennis Arthur Conners

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Leadership Development

faculty achieve valuable leadershipcompetencies in a reasonable amount of time. The purpose of this paper is to explore theapplication of one foundational engineering competency, systems thinking, to the developmentof leadership skills for students in an engineering program. Specifically, this paper presentsexperiences and outcomes of teaching systems thinking in an Organizational Leadership courseto help investigate whether its pedagogical approach may be worthwhile for engineeringstudents. This paper includes a review of relevant literature, background and experiences withthe subject course, a qualitative analysis of student comments on the systems thinking content ofthe course, discussion, implications and recommendations for future research