What if I don't want to be a leader?
What if I don't want to be a leader?
(OP)
Is that so bad? I like being an engineer. I like creating stuff and analyzing stuff and generally working on my own. I understand the need for team leaders but I honestly do not feel that my personality is fit for a leadership role. Quite frankly, I don't like to give direction and my people skills aren't my strong suit.
The problem is that as I progress in my career and gain seniority (10 years experience now), I feel more and more pressure to take on the role as a leader. Job postings in my pay range require me to "lead a team" of engineers and designers. My boss is consistently pushing me to develop my leadership skills. I'm asked to take the lead on new projects.
Everything I read online about leadership gives me the vibe that I am "supposed" to WANT leadership. It's apparently EVERYONE's goal in life to be in charge and run the show. Then I read stuff telling me to be true to myself and find the right career fit. So what do I do? Work hard to become leadership material even though it doesn't come naturally? Should I force the square peg in the round hole? Do I need to become a leader to make it as an engineer? Is a leadership role simply an inevitable step in an engineering career? If so, have I chose the wrong field? Will my career be stalled or even derailed if I avoid opportunities that include leadership?
wtf?
I've been wrestling with these questions for days now. Please tell me I'm not the only engineer that feels this way.
The problem is that as I progress in my career and gain seniority (10 years experience now), I feel more and more pressure to take on the role as a leader. Job postings in my pay range require me to "lead a team" of engineers and designers. My boss is consistently pushing me to develop my leadership skills. I'm asked to take the lead on new projects.
Everything I read online about leadership gives me the vibe that I am "supposed" to WANT leadership. It's apparently EVERYONE's goal in life to be in charge and run the show. Then I read stuff telling me to be true to myself and find the right career fit. So what do I do? Work hard to become leadership material even though it doesn't come naturally? Should I force the square peg in the round hole? Do I need to become a leader to make it as an engineer? Is a leadership role simply an inevitable step in an engineering career? If so, have I chose the wrong field? Will my career be stalled or even derailed if I avoid opportunities that include leadership?
wtf?
I've been wrestling with these questions for days now. Please tell me I'm not the only engineer that feels this way.





RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
http://www.answers.com/topic/peter-principle
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Yes there tends to be a general theme/trend that for advancement you need to take on some level of management/leadership... If you think about it, for many jobs/careers it may be the only path to significant advancement. I mean, how far can being a cashier in a store take you?
However, with Engineering if you work it right, and have the right employer you can minimize this and keep it in an area that holds some interest for you.
For instance, while I think it's fallen to the wayside a bit, at one point we had separate technical and management 'streams'. You could in theory reach VP level but in the technical stream. Now you'd still have some kind of management/leadership role but it might be things like leading the IP/Patent review board etc. and in theory only take up a very small amount of your time.
We have a couple of guys in their 50's and more in their 40's that are still in purely technical roles with no significant management responsibilities. They may have to take charge of their own project - or their elements of a larger project - but baring giving advice to junior folk etc. they don't have any real management responsibilities.
Now I will say that some of them may not be getting paid as much as if they'd gone to the dark side, but I suspect they do OK.
There are a few members on this site that have got themselves niches as hardcore analysts/experts etc. and don't seem to have collected management duties along the way. What effect it may have had on their pay compared to if they had become managers I don't know, but at least a couple of them claim to be doing OK.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Don't believe EVERYTHING you read.
If leadership is your thing, someday you'll be a leader, but don't rush it. Do what you enjoy now.
Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Some of those that I have seen obtain their MBA and enter the management ranks couldn't engineer their way out of a paper bag. Not only were they questionable engineers, they were downright aweful managers. One MBA in particular was a micromanaging dimwit who would have been more effective if we made him stand in a pot in the corner and watered him twice a day.
One of the biggest downsides is that in some organizations they will expect you to live the job. Traveling can take up a substantial amount of your time, and may involve weekends. Whenever they decide that they need you, you are expected to drop whatever it is that you're doing and attend to their problems. In some cases they may expect you to tow the company line to the point where you actually trade your own ethics in for the job, which is something that I was never willing to do. This is one of the reasons I no longer work for that particular employer.
You have to choose what suits you, and management is not for everybody. If you're happy where you are, there is no fundamental reason why you should make the jump. It's your life. Live it as you see fit.
Maui
www.EngineeringMetallurgy.com
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Yes be true to your self & the emperor(From Star Wars) will demote you.
You need to work the politics, & stay on the good side of management.
that normally entails more responsibility. if that includes teaching excuse me leading a group so be it.
Mfgenggear
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
When the future's architectured
By a carnival of idiots on show
You'd better lie low
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
TTFN

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RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Sadly our new engineering director is very much project management focused and his solution to not enough staff/too much work has been to make a bunch of new people project managers - myself included.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
I note you don't say "managing" which might be something different.
If you don't lead, who will? Someone less capable than you? And they will be influencing what you do?
Leading usually means doing what you normally do but taking some responsibility for and oversight of what others around you are doing; possibly with more authority to assert your experience, and it is not necessarily the same as "managing" where you may have to put aside what you do and enjoy doing to do something else altogether.
Somewhere along the line you ought to find to be a leader is to be recognised as an authority and as an experienced engineer whose views are officially taken more seriously and having greater scope to apply your skills and influence how others develop and apply their skills.
This ought to be something you can enjoy doing.
In all probability, if you are at this level you probably are already being a leader so some extent.
Take a look at what you do now compared to what you used to do when you started and see to what extent this is true.
Management is something else again. (Unless management are proposing "Leadership" as unpaid "Management". So it depends on just how your duties will change and how expectations will change).
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
"Luck is where preparation meets opportunity"
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Management engineers trust their fellow engineers, focusing on the times that trust has been rewarded. Their motivation is more team oriented and deflecting problems. I'd never want one of them to be responsible for stamping anything, but they keep the process moving forward.
Design engineers don't have this trust, focusing more on the possible situations of failure. Their motivations are more efficiency and process... not anything to do with the customer. These are the stamping engineers, the guys that keep you honest, and normally the ones that stay way too late and mumble to themselves a lot (at-least that's what I do).
Either way, you miss-place one for the other and you get a crappy manager or a bad designer.
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Regards
Pat
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RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
I have been in one of those larger companies with a "dual career path". The higher one goes up the food chain, the more divergent the career path becomes.
In my case I was in a company that was started by engineers and managed by "working" engineers. The technical proficiency of an employee was valued equally or above their "management" capability. It had one primary bean counter who laid a terrific framework within which engineers could be engineers and management was almost a by-product. Absolute genious.
As the company grew, the company diverged from its own "career path". More bean counters came in. They became weeds in a garden of lush grass. The weeds took over...everything still appeared green, but the underlying root stock slowly died away, taking with it the lushness that was the company. Their only interest was in maintaining a green color...not protecting the root stock.
I have almost always been in a "leadership" position. I don't necessarily play well with others and I sure as hell don't enjoy "managing" anything, yet I have held very responsible positions (VP, Sr. VP, Pres.) all without being much of a "manager". I would much rather take one or more young engineers in the field and let them work with me than to tell them to go do the work and bring me some results. Leadership by example still works.
Engineering is a progressive mentorship profession, not a "throw them to wolves and see who survives" management mentality. Take on a "leadership" role of mentoring and passing along your knowledge. You will likely find that you'll achieve a great deal of respect from your charges that will make you successful in that role.
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Agree with Ron "leadership" and "management" are not on in the same and should not be confused. A "team leader" is not definition of a leader but a small manager, a leader needs no title.
http://www.nceng.com.au/
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
To be a manager you must have authority, but it becomes easier if you have both and are both. They are neither mutually inclusive nor mutually exclusive of each other.
Regards
Pat
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RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
I was pushed into management in my late 20's and fled from it as fast as I could, changing departments, divsions and countries (but maintaining the comfort of the same employer).
Then it started to happen again as I was formally managing new graduates with little or no experience in our area.
These days I'm in my mid 40's and almost a solo pilot. I get respect from the team I'm in, both older and younger folk. I think I earn less than those a grade above me, but we don't talk about these things. I do know that the job ads in the trade press all seem to want more management duties and pay less.
- Steve
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
There is a certain sense of inner peace with being left alone to do your own thing, knowing that whatever else is going on around you, at least what *you* are doing is correct and, presumably, enjoyable. It's a darn sight less stressful than being held accountable for the errors or the missed deadlines of the subordinates in your charge. It is also more interesting to be doing the "fun stuff".
Several years ago, I "led" a team of 75 mechanical engineers. My role was to provide them with non-glare monitors, comfortable chairs and mechanical pencils; mediate arguments; as well as to buy them all dinner at the Christmas party (which left me $3,000.00 out of pocket until the new year). I absolutely hated it. It sucked. It wasn't "engineering" at all - it was parenting.
I am a good Project Engineer / Manager, but I *hate* the administration / reporting / client interface that goes with it; all about cost and schedule and billing and nothing about design. If that is what the OP (bradpa77) means by a "leadership" position, then by all means just say no until you actually *want* that in your working life. It's sure not for me, and not for everyone. And it's tough to get out of it if you have the misfortune of being perceived as good at it. Sometimes, even to this day, I still get dragged out of "Project Management Retirement" to actually run a job - usually one that's begun to go sideways and needs to be "fixed".
This is one where you have to stick to your guns, and take advantage of every opportunity to prove your competence and value in the things you actually like to do, thereby deflecting attention away from the skills you have in areas that you don't particularly like.
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Boss vs Leader
A boss drives his men
A leader coaches them
A boss says "I"
A leader says "we"
A boss assigns tasks
A leader sets the pace
A boss says "Get here on time!"
A leader gets there ahead of time
A boss fixes blame for the breakdown
A leader fixes the breakdown
A boss knows how it's done
A leader shows how
A boss makes work a drudgery
A leader makes it a game
A boss says "Go!"
A leader says "Let's go!"
The world needs leaders
Nobody wants a boss
"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge." Ivana Trump
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Lets just say he needs the reminders at times.
I'm inclined to think that anyone that needs constant reminders of that stuff doesn't need to be either a boss or a leader - reminds me of Barney's motivational posters from 'how I met your mother'.
However, I'll give Cass a pass (assuming she wants her manager to read it, and not that it applies to her) and buy her a Shirley Temple over in the pub in case I've caused offense.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
a leader directs
I have a memo written by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
Please see attached.
I am too like the OP I too have a hard time leading a group.
I do like to help & teach new employees, but I hate the politics.
Mfgenggear
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Mfgenggear
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
I have always felt that the position of Chief Engineer is something which you don't see enough of anymore in our industry. My first job had someone in the position of Chief Engineer and was a well respected, well deserved position of honor for this individual. They were the technical experts of the company and had the CEO approaching them with technical related matters. They weren't expected to deal with contracts, estimating, or other PM type of tasks but were expected to know their stuff inside and out!
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
If the Team of engineers are season Engineers, then less micro managing & more of directing, giving estimated schedule requirements, budgets bla bla, & leading by example.
There fore morphs to more a managing position.
I like to work on my own, but it is very help full to have a group of Engineers that I can bounce issues with. That would normally be an other associate Engineer of equal or more experience. or just smarter person than I am.
Mfgenggear
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Some leaders become managers, unfortunately not as often as I'd like to see, but somebody has to go to the meetings and get out of the way while the work is done. A good manager gets out of the way.
old field guy
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
and it is worth the repetition.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
(And since I knew it wasn't plagiarism it was obviously a case of great minds thinking alike).
I'd rather try my hand at leading and see where it leads than not try and never know.
Ducking challenges isn't a good trait. Some things you try may work out even if you are the one most surprised by it.
Take the task on the right terms and be sure you have a place to go back to if either you or management decide to give some one else a try.
The trouble is, if you duck and someone else tries and does OK, you've lost your chance to do as well or better.
But I'd rather be a bad leader than work for one.
At one company management told me they wanted me to work for a back stabbing brown noser.
There is often one lurking somewhere in most companies and you may not recognise them until some event or other tips you off. It is never good to find out only after you have been assigned to work under their direction. But I had already taken this guy's measure when he presented my work to management as his own.
So I went to HR and HR told me that if I didn't want to work for him to just say so.
So I said no to management's kind offer to work for Brown Noser and they accepted that.
I find it hard to judge the impact on me for refusing to work for him (not good), but I suspect it was way better than the alternative.
I think he had thought he would get by relying on people like me or maybe he actually believed his own hype and thought he was capable of doing the job.
Whatever.
I don't know, but maybe his underlings were not exactly playing the game. The description of him as a back stabbing brown noser is not original with me, it is a cleaned up version of how one of his "underlings" chose to describe him.
It wasn't long before he was asking for his old job back (no danger of management sending him packing).
But unless there is someone better (and if management want you they don't see it though they may not be best placed, so if you really think some one else is better say so), take your best shot.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
We may be but I'd prefer to see us as great minds.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
and
Maui
www.EngineeringMetallurgy.com
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
The natural progression to this is to start mentoring others and passing on to them what you know. The way to do this is to work them into your plan. You tell them to check this or that, and then you check their work. As they get more proficient, you help them decide what needs to be checked and the best methods to go about it. You can do this with larger and larger teams and, voila, you are a leader.
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
It's tough to provide good directions if you don't know the way. It's even tougher from the back seat. Hence it's tough for a person without technical training and experience to lead others with technical training and experience. Not impossible, but tough.
Every engineer manages something, even if it's merely the expectations of their boss or customers.
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
Leading, to me, has an implicit assumption that the leader can do all that is asked of those being lead.
Managing is where a different set of skills are brought to facilitate the work of the team (if the manager is good. If she/he is bad then the opposite is true.) It should not be expected that a manager has the specific engineering skills the team delivers. The leader may not know all the skills necessarily but would have a far more complete knowledge of the coal face than a manager.
My point about it being better to be a bad leader than lead by a bad leader, I think, a natural aspect of people's character.
But when untried, I would rather be the one to try and fail and revert to my old position or transfer to something else than not have the opportunity.
I suspect (with no real grounds; hope might be better) that a bad leader is more easily found out and replaced than has proven the case with a bad manager.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
As Bruce Willis said...
In Live Free or Die Hard: "Do you know what you get for being a hero? Nothing! You get shot at. Pat on the back, blah blah blah. That a boy! You get divorced... Your wife can't remember your last name, kids don't want to talk to you... You get to eat a lot of meals by yourself. Trust me kid, nobody wants to be that guy. [I do this] because there is nobody else to do it right now. Believe me if there was somebody else to do it, I would let them do it. There's not, so [I'm] doing it. That's what makes you that guy."
RE: What if I don't want to be a leader?
If people are already looking to you for guidance...or at team meetings, the other engineers wait for you to agree with something, before they agree with your current leader/supervisor... that's a problem. A good manager will utilize you, and convince you of things first, so others will follow. An ordinary manager will be spiteful of your influence and sooner or later take it out on you.