Engineering leadership as a field of study has grown rapidly in the last two decades (Handley et al., 2018; Klassen et al., 2016), but there is limited understanding of how engineering students view the importance of leadership skills generally and how they appraise their confidence in their own leadership skills in comparison to other skills. This paper addresses these gaps by investigating how a nation-wide sample of 2,485 final year Canadian undergraduate engineering students perceive the importance of leadership ability; how confident they are in their own leadership ability, and how these two measures interact in comparison to other professional and technical skills across demographic (gender, race, and residential status) and academic (discipline and academic standing) variables. Our findings show that towards the end of their undergraduate studies the students overall viewed leadership ability as important to becoming a successful engineer and were relatively confident in their ability; that they rated their proficiency in leadership ability slightly higher than the importance of it; and that students’ importance and confidence ratings of leadership ability were associated with particular demographic and academic variables. Our findings also demonstrate that the students rated the importance of leadership ability substantially lower than other professional skills such as teamwork and communication; that they viewed leadership ability and math and science skills as almost equally important to becoming a successful engineer; and that they considered themselves to be slightly more competent in leadership than other professional skills and math and science skills. Drawing on the expectancy-value theory (Eccles et al., 1983, 2000, 2002), we argue that even though the students overall valued leadership, they ascribed a lower utility value to it than to other professional skills such as teamwork and communication and thus may be less likely to be motivated to practice it than these other skills, at least at the early stage of their career.
Serhiy Kovalchuk is a research associate at the Troost Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, University of Toronto.
Dr. Qin Liu is a research associate at the Troost Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, University of Toronto.
Cindy Rottmann is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Leadership Education at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include engineering ethics, equity, and leadership in university and workplace settings.
Mike Klassen is PhD Candidate in Higher Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He was a long-time team member at the Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (ILead). Mike has an MA in Higher Education and a BASc in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto.
Jamie Ricci is currently a researcher at Indspire, Canada's largest charity supporting Indigenous peoples' access to education. Prior to joining Indspire in 2018, Jamie worked at Engineers Canada as the Manager of Research. Here, she examined enrolment and graduation trends of engineering students, their school-to-work transitions and labour market outcomes. Jamie also focused on increasing Indigenous peoples' access to and representation in engineering in Canada. While at Engineers Canada, she collaborated with ILead at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Reeve was the founding Director (Emeritus) of the Troost Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (ILead) (2010-2018) at the University of Toronto and is now Professor Emeritus.
Professor Emily Moore is the Director of Troost Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (ILead) at the University of Toronto. She leads research and teaches on topics such as how engineers lead and learn to lead both as students and in practice. She has published on engineering leadership, equity in engineering, and incorporating systems thinking into complex decision making.
Emily was appointed as Director of ILead in October, 2018 after more than twenty years in industry. Emily started her career at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada scaling up new materials and processes from the lab to manufacturing. In her 11 years at Xerox, Emily learned a great deal about leading teams and developing new products, becoming a manager and Principal Engineer. Emily then spent 10 years at Hatch, a global engineering firm serving the mining, energy and infrastructure sectors. Emily led international teams to develop new product and service offerings and to deliver major projects, first as the Director of Technology Development and then as Managing Director, Water. Emily was also the inaugural chair of Hatch’s Global Diversity and Inclusion efforts. Emily holds a Bachelor Degree in Engineering Chemistry from Queen’s University and completed a Doctorate in Physical Chemistry from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. In 2016 Emily was recognized as one of 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining and received the SCI Canada Kalev Pugi Award.
Emily continues her involvement with industry by serving on boards, including Metrolinx (2019-2024), Chemtrade Logistics, International Petroleum, and the Canadian Mining Innovation Council.
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