NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Department of Electronic Engineering

Engineering Management [TEE 3255]

4: Management Functions:
Leading
Introduction
Introduction

PLANNING
ORGANISING
(& DECISION MAKING)

LEADING
Motivating members of
CONTROLLING the organisation to work
in the best interests of
the organisation
 Introduction

• Leading refers to stimulating people to be high

performers
• Leading involves how manager directs and
motivates employees to perform tasks in order to
achieve the company goals.
• In the new era, managers must be good at
mobilizing people to contribute their ideas
 Introduction

• Leading is the ability to get people to do what they

don’t want to do and like it
• After organising, the engineering manager relies
on communication and motivation to get
employees to act.
 Introduction

• Five specific activities of leading:

1. Deciding
2. Communicating
3. Motivating
4. Selecting People
5. Developing People

• Supervision
 Introduction

• Managers derive their authority from occupying

higher positions within the organization. Leaders,
on the other hand, have the power of influence
over people.
• Their power is attained by earning employees’
respect and admiration (Maxwell 2015).
Styles of Leadership
 Styles of Leadership

• There are five major styles of leadership that are

classified according to the attributes of either a
concern for people or an emphasis on tasks.
• Leadership style can also be identified as
effective or ineffective, flexible or inflexible.
 Styles of Leadership

4 5 1. The nice guy

2. The loser
3 3. The compromiser
Tasks

4. The task master

5. The ideal manager
2 1
People
Deciding
 Deciding

• Making decisions is a key responsibility of

engineering managers while making high-quality
decisions is the hallmark of excellent managers
• The purpose of making decisions is to align the
choices of project priorities, people, financial
resources, technology, and relationships for the
attainment of corporate objectives.
 Deciding

• Managers often make spontaneous decisions

based on intuition, gut or instinct when there is
insufficient information for guidance, or the
future business or market conditions are very
fluid and fuzzy.
• If data is available, they make reasonable
decisions based on systematic studies and logical
analyses of them.
 Deciding

• How can we judge the quality of a given decision?

1. Has the decision achieved the stated purpose; has it
corrected or changed the situation?
2. Is it feasible to implement the decision?
3. Does the decision generate noticeable adverse
consequences or risks to the group or the company?
 Deciding

• Problems/ issues handled by managers only:

1. prioritizing tasks and projects, assigning office spaces,
and defining group composition
2. handling personnel assignments, evaluating performance
3. dispensing budget allocation
4. applying administrative policies, procedures, and
regulations
5. dealing with highly confidential business matters that are
specifically designated by the top management e.g.,
compensation, promotion, corporate strategies, and new
marketing initiatives
 Deciding

• Managers should include their employees when

making decisions on the following problems or
issues:
1. considering staff needs for development e.g.,
attending training courses
2. discussing policies and procedures, involving staff
interactions with other departments; and
3. determining team membership e.g., considering
skills compatibility, balancing workload
 Deciding

• Decision-making authority should be delegated to

staff members for the following matters:
1. techniques to accomplish assigned tasks or projects
2. options to continuously improve current operations
and work processes
3. social events involving staff participation e.g. group
picnics, Christmas parties
 Rational Decision-Making Processes

• A rational decision-making process is generally

useful in facilitating decision-making for
numerous problems or issues in engineering
when an adequate amount of information is
available (Eisenfuehr et al. 2010).
Rational Decision-Making Processes

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 Specific Rational Decision Analysis Tool

• The steps to reach a rational decision:

1. Define a set of decision criteria needed for making the decision. The necessary
criteria are those that must be met. The sufficiency criteria are those that are not
necessary, but are good to have.
2. Rank order the sufficiency criteria by assigning weight factors ranging from 1 to 10
3. Evaluate all options against each of the options identified as necessary decision
criteria.
4. Remove from further consideration those options that fail the necessary criteria
5. Rank all remaining options relatively from 1 to 10, with respect to specific sufficiency
criteria.
6. Repeat this scoring process for each of the remaining sufficiency criteria
7. Compute a weighted score for each option by multiplying its relative score for a
specific sufficiency criterion with its corresponding weight factor. Obtain the overall
weighted score for this option. Repeat the computation for all options.
8. Compare the overall weighted scores and choose the option with the highest score.
 Specific Rational Decision Analysis Tool

Criteria Weight Option Option Option …

Factor A B C
Criteria 1 R Go Go Go -
Criteria 2 10 4 8 10 …

Criteria 3 5 6 10 7 …
Criteria 4 8 10 6 8 …
Total weighted score — 150 178 199 ….
 Specific Rational Decision Analysis Tool

Criteria Weight Thabo Chipo Daniel

Factor
B. Eng. degree R Go Go Go
Industrial Attachment 10 4 8 10

Final year project 5 6 10 7

Leadership positions 8 10 6 8
Total weighted score — 150 178 199
 Specific Rational Decision Analysis Tool

• This method is particularly useful in a team

environment where members may needlessly
argue for specific options without externalizing
their decision criteria and the relative ranking
they have assigned to the criteria.
• Oftentimes, the advocates for a specific option
make implicit assumptions that remain hidden
and unknown to others on the team.
 Specific Rational Decision Analysis Tool

• Experience has shown that the personal biases

tend to become minimized when the relative
scores are polled from all teammates during a
meeting.
 Other Support Tools for Decision-Making

• Examples of such tools include

1. Forecasting (exponential smoothing, time series,
and neural network computing)
2. Regression analysis (single variable and
multivariable)
3. Risk analysis and project management
4. What-if solver
5. Simulation modelling
6. Decision trees
7. Optimization (linear programming and integer and
dynamic programming)
8. Artificial intelligence and pattern recognition tools
9. Expert or knowledge-based systems
 Decision-Making by Gut Instinct

• Instincts can at times be wrong. People who

make decisions intuitively are advised to secure
constant feedback in order to minimize the
impact of incorrect decisions and to learn from
these decisions.
• Junior Engineering managers should keenly
observe how top-level leaders make important
decisions in order to update and modify their own
decision-making patterns and rules.
 Decision-Making in Teams

• Engineering managers may also elect to make

decisions by using the inputs generated by teams.
• Under such circumstances, additional factors
come into play, such as personality clashes,
conflicts of interest, and coalitions or alliances
among the team members, which affect the
resulting decisions.
 Decision-Making in Teams

• Group decision-making requires a unique set of

leadership talents different from those demanded
in other situations. These include:
1. active solicitation of divergent viewpoints
2. acceptance of ambiguity
3. the wisdom to end a debate
4. the ability to convince people of the merits of the decision
made
5. the ability to maintain balance to embrace divergence and
unity
Communicating
 Communicating

• The purpose of communicating is to create

understanding and acceptance of the facts,
impressions, and feelings being communicated.
• It is advisable for the engineering managers to
keep the communications channels open.
 Communicating

• Engineering managers must have a clear purpose

in mind and ensure that the message is
understood and retained.
• A proper form of communication needs to be
selected, such as a one-on-one meeting, phone
conversation, written memo, staff meeting, e-
mail, videoconference, web posting, or net
meeting.
 Communicating

• Five key actions to take to achieve effective

communication: asking, telling, listening, writing
and understanding.
 Asking

• Engineering managers should proactively request

information by asking Open-ended questions.
 Telling

• Keep employees informed about matters of

concern to them
• Engineering managers need to exercise judgment
as to what to tell and what not to tell
• Too much information could lead to overload and
confusion and too little information could cause
employee mistrust and poor productivity
 Listening

• Engineering managers need to work on their

listening skills to enhance their understanding of
both the words (spoken and written) and any
possible subtext.
 Writing

• Written communications need to be concise

(using the least number of words to express the
maximum number of concepts), logical (allowing
easy comprehension), and pertinent (focusing on
the impact on the business purpose at hand).
 Understanding

• Several barriers to understanding exist and these

barriers should be taken into account by
engineering managers:
1. Interpretations of words and terms
2. Selective seeing
3. Selective listening
4. Emotional barriers
Motivating
 Motivating

• The engineering manager secures results by

motivating people.
• Examples of motivators include:
1. opportunities to do challenging, interesting,
and important work;
2. exercising leadership and position power;
3. gaining prestige and recognition.
 Motivating

• Engineering managers have several methods of

motivation at their disposal:
1. Inspire: Infuse a spirit of willingness into people to
perform most effectually
2. Encourage: Stimulate people to do what has to be done
through praise, approval, and help.
3. Impel: Force and incite action by any necessary means
 Motivating

• Engineering managers may implement these

techniques to motivate (inspire and encourage)
professionals to act:
1. Participation
2. Communication
3. Recognition
4. Delegate authority
5. Reciprocate interest - Show interest in the desired
results
 Innovative Strategies of Motivation

• Self Actualization - Self-

development and realization
of own potential S
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• Esteem - Ego, recognition E

s
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• Social - Peer acceptance,
group affiliation S
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• Safety - Job security S

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• Physiological Needs -
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Food & shelter
Innovative Strategies of Motivation

Motivators or Growth Factors

Hygiene or Maintenance Factors

Selecting Engineering Employees
 Selecting Engineering Employees

• The employee selection process includes:

1. Defining needs
2. Specifying jobs
3. Acquiring applicants
4. Reviewing and pre-screening
5. Conducting interviews
6. Deciding on job candidates: those of the company.
• Its easy to assess candidates’ technical
capabilities and more difficult to assess their soft
skills.
Developing People
 Developing People

• The objective of developing employees is to shape

their knowledge, attitudes, and skills in order to
enhance their contributions to the company and
to foster their personal growth.
• Developing for:
• Productivity
• Personal Growth
• Succession
 Developing People

• Employees may be prompted to follow the

managers’ personal examples of continuous
improvement in knowledge, attitude, and skills.
• Managers may coach inexperienced employees
on the job by demonstrating preferred ways of
performing specific tasks.
 Developing People

• Managers could enrich employees’ work

experience by institutionalizing a job rotation.
• Funds permitting, specific employees may be sent
to attend professional meetings, technical
conferences, training seminars, and study
programs at universities.
Special Topics on Leading
 Special Topics on Leading

• Corporate change needs strong leadership.

• Leaders promoted into new positions will need to
apply special strategies to succeed
 Leading Changes

• Changes will usually require the company to

modify its ways of conducting business.
• Changes are difficult to introduce because people
like to stay in their comfort zones.
• After changes are introduced, they need to be
sustained beyond a transformational period.
 Leading Changes
Unfreezing Changing Refreezing

 Give reasons.  Explain the benefits.  Show top

 Be empathetic.  Identify a champion. management’s support.
 Communicate clearly.  Get input from  Publicize successes.
employees.  Make midcourse
 Watch timing. corrections.
 Maintain job security.  Help employees deal
 Provide training. with stress.
 Proceed at a manageable
pace.
Leading Changes
 Advice for Newly Promoted Leaders

• Seven rules for an engineering manager to

become effective in a new organization:
1. Leverage time before entry
2. Organize to learn
3. Secure early wins
4. Lay a foundation for major improvements
5. Create a personal vision
6. Build winning coalitions
7. Manage one’s self.
 Guidelines for Superior Leadership

• Engineering managers can be superior leaders, if

they focus on these eight attributes:
1. Maintain absolute integrity
2. Be knowledgeable
3. Declare expectations
4. Display unwavering commitment
5. Get out in front
6. Expect positive results
7. Take care of people
8. Put duty before self-interests
Conclusion
 Conclusion

• Leading encompasses decision making and

selecting, developing, motivating and
communicating with people.
• Engineering managers must be better prepared
for the special cases of:
1. Introducing major corporate changes
2. Working as a new leader in engineering
3. Achieving superior leadership
End of Management Functions: Leading