Technical Leadership in Systems Engineering SEBoK
Leadership is an important but often overlooked component of technical projects and programs. It addresses the performance of people: their behaviors, their ability to think individually and collectively, and their motivation and energy. Technical leadership in systems engineering creates the environmental conditions conducive to good performance: support of shared understanding, innovation, problem solving, resilience and learning. Leadership is thus complementary to management, which directs specific activities to deliver outputs. A systems engineering leader may lead a team of systems engineers for a project or program, or may be the only systems engineer in a team of diverse members involved in project or program (e.g. other engineers, IT personnel, service providers) There are various models and styles of leadership and key to success is matching leadership to the needs of a situation. 'Models' of leadership describe the mechanisms by which leadership arises and operates (e.g. situationally driven or caused by a charismatic individual) 'Styles' of leadership describe the manner in which a leader (or a leadership team) leads (e.g. task focused or people focused; autocratic, democratic or "laissez faire" (Lewin et al. 1939)