Engineering Team Leaders Need Specific Skill Sets

Leading an engineering team presents a number of challenges to the engineer suddenly elevated to a managerial or supervisory post. But team leaders must be sought out if a project calling for several engineering minds is to succeed. Effective engineering leadership requires a slightly different skill set than those acquired in school or as a working engineer. As is often the case, leadership responsibilities must be delegated to project leaders, supervisors, or team leaders to achieve goals set forth by the organization. The key competencies required for effective engineering management include such things as project and design reviews, cross group collaboration, employee performance management, strategic planning, resource allocation, budgeting and forecasting. Also included in this list would be task prioritization and employee development. As an engineering manager or team leader, it's important not to delegate all these responsibilities. Just be sure that you delegate enough to free you from the main project tasks you've been assigned. The key is to know the core strengths and competencies of everyone on your team, and to assign the right job to the best person. Admittedly, a company's financial resources, organizational structure and policies may not allow for managers or supervisor to be assigned to every project. One should always strive to designate certain engineers as project leaders or team leaders, and to assign specific leadership tasks to these individuals. For an additional perspective, check out this video. Alex A. Kecskes has written hundreds of published articles on health/fitness, "green" issues, TV/film entertainment, restaurant reviews and many other topics. As a former Andy/Belding/One Show ad agency copywriter, he also writes web content, ads, brochures, sales letters, mailers and scripts for national B2B and B2C clients. Please see more of his blogs and view additional job postings on Nexxt.