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Engineers are a creative bunch that make life easy and more convenient. There are a set of personality traits that make good leaders in the workplace. Anyone can possess those traits if they work hard on themselves.
1- Excellent listener and communicator
Good communication skills are essential to success. Intelligence is not the main indication for success, but it is a huge factor. You can not make your ideas heard well if you can not communicate, and you certainly can not do everything yourself, but you can use your communication skills to leverage other people skills to help you.
Listening is just as important as being able to communicate your thoughts. Understanding the other person point can help you learn something new. If you are the last person to speak, it means you gave everyone the chance to be heard, which makes you learn their perspective, and they feel appreciated because they were heard. So leveraging listening and effective communication to your advantage is key to teamwork productivity. You can boost your communication skills by reading books such as: How to Win Friends and Influence People.
2- Open-minded with vision
People who work in rapidly developing technologies must be open-minded, giving them the chance to adapt to new ideas and goals that make them visionaries. When it comes to being a visionary, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, states that people who are right a lot are the people who listen a lot, change their minds a lot, and seek to disconfirm their convictions.
People always tend to observe the evidence that confirms their pre-existing beliefs, which usually does not make them right a lot. On the other hand, people who are right a lot can change their minds because they tend to disconfirm their views by being open-minded to anything.
People who do not change their minds a lot, dramatically underestimating the complexity of the world we live in
Jeff Bezos
Therefore being a visionary is to be open-minded. Jeff Bezos has other success tips that you can learn more about here.
3- Effective time management skills
Effective time management can do two things. First, ensure that your work is done on time by working smart. Second, be in control of your time by worrying and stressing less. The best way to manage your time is to understand the urgency and importance of your tasks, known as your action priority list.
The best way to sort your task is to break them into three lists. First is the most urgent, which is your priority list or A list. Second is your B list which is important but not urgent tasks that you can afford to postpone for now. Finally, is the C list which is the not urgent and not important tasks.
| A-List | B-List | C-List |
|---|---|---|
| Highly urgent | Not urgent | Not urgent |
| Extremely important | Important | Not important |
| Has the highest priority | Still, a priority but can be postponed | It can be postponed for a long time |
By sorting your work from highest to lowest priority, you ensure that you are working efficiently and not just wasting your time with tasks that can hold you off from other urgent and important ones. Moreover, you ensure that you work smarter, not harder, and are more likely to finish tasks on time and have as little stress as possible.
So what qualifies as a priority action? Simply think of it as the essential thing that needs to be done today. This is how you turn an average day into a productive day. Instead of endlessly wasting time with non-important tasks, action your priorities and make it your mission to finish those tasks today.
4- Solution-focused and learning oriented
Engineering is a complex career requiring you to think for solutions and work in teams to design or deliver a prototype. This is one of the careers that require a lifelong learning process. The people who go for such a career must be learning-oriented, enabling them to increase their knowledge every day to improve their designs.
Being solution-focused is having the ability to analyse things, identify issues or potential failures, and then find a solution. Engineers measure the effectiveness of their work by finding the most sustainable, cost-effective, and safe solution that requires experience and learning new things quickly.
5- Curiosity with attention to details
Attention to detail allows engineers to spot mistakes early. Engineering work is in the details, and you must train yourself to look for those fine details that are not recognised by others.
When people look at engineers creations, they look at them from a consumer perspective, but an engineer looks at them from a functional view. For example, people look at bridges as a means of transport link between two points spanning across an obstacle such as a river (function). However, engineers look at the practical side, such as the bridge level of service, the bridge capacity, bridge type, material used and how loads are transferred from the structure to the foundation.
6- Leadership skills as team player
Leaders are involved in the thick and thin and able to provide a sizable contribution to the job. Engineers, in general, should be good leaders. Even if the person is not in a management position, engineers should still take responsibility for their actions and admit their mistakes if they happen.
Working on any technical project requires teamwork, which means that people will usually be assigned tasks relevant to their skills. You can not do everything by yourself; therefore, engineers need to take charge of their assigned area.
7- Flexibility with positive attitude
Working in a highly technical area where you are in charge of designing or building something requires many hours of work which is not ideal. Engineers are high performers and usually work in a deadline industry, which means the job is complete when you finish your work. That sometimes means that you might have to put crazy hours into your work to meet the deadline.
Therefore, being flexible on the hours and the environment can help you progress a lot in your career. This is usually related to being committed and believing in the value of your work. Moreover, it is likely for a person to tolerate harsh work conditions if they really enjoy what they do, so you should always follow your passion.
Even if you are an extremely flexible person, you should possess the right attitude to stay motivated. By believing in your work mission, you can increase team productivity and help deliver work with fewer errors. A good attitude can help keep you motivated and boost your chances of doing an excellent job.
