Most Civil Engineers Do Not Receive Leadership Education
Civil engineers will achieve at least moderate success if
they are enthusiastic and technically competent in their
chosen specialties. However, even a cursory review of pay
scales in most professions, including engineering, reveals
that the best paid, and many times most personally
satisfying positions, are those with major leadership
responsibilities.
A look at careers of successful civil engineers today
typically indicates a conscious move earlier in a career
from primarily technical work through project management
and into management and leadership. Increased
remuneration occurs during the process. The unaware civil
engineer, failing to see and seize these leadership
opportunities, may remain longer, perhaps forever, in less
demanding and less challenging work with lower
compensation and maybe lower job satisfaction.
With the competition for desired leadership positions
coming from other engineering disciplines, as well as from
non-engineers, it seems obvious that the best educated civil
engineers in both technical and leadership areas will
succeed the earliest. To help civil engineers compete for
leadership positions, their formal education must include
awareness, knowledge and skills in non-technical, social,
marketing, political, economic, teamwork, and
management areas. Many engineering faculty do not have
these skills or the education needed to teach them— and,
therefore, cannot pass them or their importance on to
students, especially when under pressure to reduce credit
hours required for graduation. Only by increasing the base
education can the civil engineer compete effectively for
these leadership positions.
Faculty composition must be changed. Successful leaders
from engineering industry and government should be
invited into academia at both the undergraduate and
graduate levels to share practical knowledge and skills.
Practicing professionals should not be viewed as
competition or a threat to traditional faculty. These fulltime
and adjunct faculty members must be carefully
selected for their practical experience and their educational,
motivational, and communication skills.
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