Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Página 400 de 957
nurtured, trained, and learned via various means including professional development but
more so by practice. Hence, almost all agreed that life experience with interacting and
managing people are key ingredient for nurturing leadership skills. The other finding of
note is that the participants were quite sensitive to “authority” even though most have
practiced as leaders in their professional careers. There was a strong and definite theme
that leadership is a skill that can be learned and nurtured. According to the participants,
the best way to learn such skills is to practice it. However, opportunities to practice though
important should be accompanied by appropriate “on-the-job” professional development.
Almost all agreed that this combination is needed for effective leadership capacity
building. One non-engineer participant believes that leaders are “born”. The participant
based this perception of leadership on past experiences where many colleagues who
“exhibited” leadership were “promoted”. His belief is that “you either have it or you
don‟t!”, and that he believes that he is one of those individuals who do not possess any
traits for leadership. The other non-engineer contradicted this mind-set and very much
believes that leadership is learned, though the “ways” that one practice leadership may be
dependent on one‟s traits. The engineers were of the perception that you need a
combination of both skills and traits to be effective in leadership. All participants believe
that life experiences play a significant role in structuring one‟s trait profile. Though
contradictory at first, this seems to indicate that natural traits can be developed during
maturation stages. Though important, the participants agreed that professional practice
does play a minor role in developing one‟s traits. In this, the authors believe that some
participants were referring to visible behaviours. After all, individuals can learn “ethics”
but how can one learn to be “ethical”. Most participants agreed that the life journey a
person undertakes does mould one‟s traits. There were strong indications that there are
major differences in how leadership are developed and practiced in academia versus
industry. The participants believe that in academia, academics in general, do not have to
exhibit or practice leadership in order to be recognized or promoted. Previous studies
indicated that bureaucratic or administrative duties are preventing leading or learning to
lead effectively. This is consistent with our findings and is regarded as a major hurdle and
disincentive. The participants believe that opportunities to practice leadership were not
available as most were struggling with week-to-week priorities. There are also major
disincentive to take risks and lead. Though the research has indicated that the best way to
develop leadership is to practice it, the opportunities were not available. All agreed that
the lack of opportunities to practice while they learn is a major barrier for developing
leadership capacity. This finding does suggest the value system in academia may have to
be changed to get the “right” context. This may require evaluating and changing human
resource, reward, and promotion policies. The participants seem to indicate their
sensitivity to authority (organizational management, university structure, executive
support). This is quite surprising since most of the participant came from nonbureaucratic
organizations when compared to academia (perceived as highly hierarchal
and bureaucratic). Their perception is that practicing leadership within the academic
context requires formalization of authority, with appropriate delegation and executive
support. In addition, a formal structure for practicing leadership was also desirable. Most
participants believe that practicing leadership in industry did not require formalization or
structure but is a key requirement when practicing within an academic context. This
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011