AI is considered one of the most significant technological advancements in modern history and one that is having a major impact on every industry around the globe. The ability to understand AI applications and harness them to achieve next-level growth and operational success is key to true business innovation in every field.

Transforming the Face of Modern Business

The use of AI is bringing a new level of speed, efficiency, and productivity to a broad range of industry sectors and business functions.

From a product development perspective, AI accelerates development cycles and speed to market by analyzing market trends and consumer feedback, enabling companies to innovate faster and stay ahead of the competition. Through their ability to help automate tasks, analyze data, and optimize designs, AI tools ultimately support faster time-to-market for products.

In manufacturing and logistics, AI helps automate routine tasks, optimize supply chains, and manage inventory more effectively, allowing businesses to reduce operational costs and improve efficiency and productivity. According to a recent survey of international manufacturers, nearly 70% are already using AI solutions for everything from quality control and demand forecasting to predictive maintenance that enables them to proactively schedule equipment repairs before they result in costly downtime. BMW relies on AI algorithms to automate quality processes along its conveyor belt, while General Electric’s AI software helps the company employ its manufacturing resources more efficiently in order to achieve its sustainability goals.. 

The Future of AI in Business

In the field of enterprise security, AI helps companies protect data privacy and learn, adapt to, and stay ahead of cybersecurity threats. A recent Forbes study revealed that 51% of business owners surveyed are using AI to shore up their cybersecurity and fraud management activities. For example, Mastercard’s use of AI tools to scan payment data from partner banks helped the company avoid more than US$35 million in fraudulent payments over three years. Also, Amazon’s use of AI to analyze the nearly 750 million cyberattack incidents it logs daily enables the company to identify growing threats.

In the customer service arena, AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants provide instant responses and create personalized experiences. Companies like Amazon, Walmart, Netflix, and South Korean video game developer Krafton are already streamlining their service processes and bringing greater depth to their customer interactions by offering personalized product recommendations, custom-optimizing search and browsing, more efficient customer service, and improved supply chain operations.

The significance of AI to business and the job market is clear, and while the debate over the proliferation of AI continues, one thing remains certain:

“AI will not replace humans. But those who use AI will replace those who don’t.”

-Ginni Rometty, former CEO of IBM

Let IEEE Help You Unleash the Power of AI for Yourself and Your Organization

Despite its integration into our daily lives, studies show that AI remains a source of confusion for many people. But given the widespread use of AI applications across so many industries, it’s crucial for business managers and other industry professionals to have a solid understanding of AI principles and their impact on business functions. The real challenge, and the ultimate success, doesn’t come from just learning about this transformative new technology, but from applying it effectively in your business.

Check out AI resources from IEEE to help you get up to speed on what you need to know:

The IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA: Artificial Intelligence Program is designed to demystify AI for business managers and leaders of all levels of understanding and experience with AI, providing them with the strategic insights needed to leverage AI effectively.

The program offers a non-IT view of AI and provides the foundational knowledge to assess AI’s analytical and decision-making capabilities. Learners explore how AI can be used to address business pain points, optimize processes, better serve customer needs, and improve an organization’s bottom line. The specialized 12-week course offers engaging real-world case studies, practical insights, forward-thinking ideas, and an invaluable Capstone Project, where learners will be able to complement their technical skills with a strategic, business view of AI and its real-world applications for themselves and their organizations.

Gain the expertise to navigate the complexities of AI in order to seamlessly integrate it into your operations, transform technological potential into a competitive edge, and innovate with impact. Learn more!

More eLearning courses on AI:

A successful career in engineering isn’t only about having strong technical expertise. It also hinges on your ability to communicate clearly, engage and motivate others, demonstrate business acumen, and lead teams effectively. Deficits in any of these skillsets can significantly impair an engineer’s career trajectory.

Strong leadership skills are key to any manager’s or company’s success. Conversely, weakness in this area can undermine that pursuit. For example, a study found that nearly four out of five employees who recently quit their job attributed their decision to a lack of leadership or recognition in their company. Similarly, a Gallup survey of more than one million employees nationwide revealed that 75% of respondents who had quit their jobs did so because of their manager, not the position. The results confirm the old saying that “people leave managers, not companies.”

This reality is especially hard-felt in the engineering community. Many electrical and electronics engineers confirm that all or most of their academic training focused on mastery of STEM-related technical skills, with little to no time spent on developing their leadership, communication, business, or people skills.

More Than Technical Knowledge Needed to Succeed

The fallout of this skills gap has been felt across many tech-related fields. Based on discussions with dozens of executives in tech companies, a recent report identified the top five reasons why advanced-degree scientists and engineers fail in leadership roles – and they don’t relate to their technical knowledge at all. Rather, their failures were attributed to poor communication skills, lack of people skills, lack of strategic thinking, inability to develop talent, and poor time management.

As engineers progress in their careers, their responsibilities often expand beyond just technical expertise. Successive positions up the ladder will require skillsets such as managing projects, engaging and motivating employees, collaborating with other teams, planning and budgeting, demonstrating vision, and employing a range of other business and leadership skills.

This is confirmed by a Harvard Business School study, which identified “leadership” as one of the top business skills that tech and engineering employers seek in their candidates, along with strengths in communication, management, problem-solving, business operations, research, and critical thinking.

Experts agree that without these foundational skills, technical professionals will only go so far. In a recent study, for example, 73% of companies surveyed felt that business, leadership, and cognitive skills were lacking among prospective candidates. This gap will limit the growth and success of organizations and candidates alike.

The good news in all of this?

A recent study cited in Forbes revealed that only 20-30% of leadership skills are actually innate and that some 70% of leadership qualities can be acquired through experience and education. In other words, tech professionals can learn to be strong and effective leaders.

Let the IEEE Professional Development Suite Help You and Your Team Hone Your Business and Leadership Skills

Invest in your professional development and further your goal of moving up the corporate ladder by exploring the IEEE Professional Development Suite. This collection of training programs is specially designed to suit the needs of professionals at any stage of their career.

  • IEEE Leading Technical Teams offers learners the essential skills and strategies required to help technical teams achieve their goals. The curriculum features live interactive training, engaging case studies, and practical, real-world exercises. Discover the latest trends and best practices in technical leadership and gain the confidence to navigate complex challenges. Learn more and register for a virtual or in-person sessions! 
  • The IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers is specifically designed to help engineers and technology professionals secure the critical business skills that are important for long-term career success. Offered in short, flexible, and engaging modules, learners will receive a foundational overview of key business topics such as accounting, communication, ethics, finance, managerial economics, management, entrepreneurship, marketing, operations, and strategic management as well as practices to help align technical capabilities with business goals. Learn more! 
  • The newly launched IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA: Artificial Intelligence seeks to demystify AI for business managers and leaders. Learn how AI can be used to address business pain points, optimize processes, better serve customer needs, and improve an organization’s bottom line. Get the skills needed to take a strategic, business view of AI and understand its real-world applications within your own department and organization. Learn more!

 

Resources:

Powitzky, Elizabeth. (25 May 2018). Great Leaders Are Made, Not Born: Six Strategies for Becoming a Better Leader. Forbes.

Kizer, Kristin. (29 June 2023). 35+ Powerful Leadership Statistics [2023]: Things All Aspiring Leaders Should Know. Zippia.

Lewis, Greg. (11 August 2022). Industries with the Highest (and Lowest) Turnover Rates. LinkedIn.

Boyles, Michael. (10 January 2023). Leadership in Engineering: What It Is & Why It’s Important. Harvard Business School.

Hyacinth, Brigette. (27 December 2017). Employees Don’t Leave Companies, They Leave Managers. LinkedIn.

Upwork.Adams, Angelique. Top 5 Reasons Advanced-Degree Scientists and Engineers Fail in Leadership Roles. LinkedIn.

Landry, Lauren. (5 January 2023). 6 Business Sills Every Engineer Needs. Harvard Business Review. 

Barnes, Cory. Soft Skills for Engineers: The importance of communication, teamwork, and other non-technical skills in a highly technical field. LinkedIn. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just a buzzword. Its impact touches most of our lives every day.

For organizations, AI is currently being used to achieve a variety of business objectives. Applications include offering customers product recommendations to assisting with internal inventory management, reducing fraud and cybersecurity threats, operating digital personal assistants that save time, streamline processes, and enable businesses to make better use of their data, and more. But whatever its application, a 2024 McKinsey study reveals that AI is currently being employed in one way or another by over 70% of all companies worldwide. And AI’s role in organizations across every sector is only expected to grow in the future.

Despite AI’s growing presence in company operations around the globe, the reality is that AI remains a source of confusion for employees.

A whopping 84% of employees reported being unclear about what generative AI is or how it works, according to a 2024 survey by technology research and advisory firm Valoir. Similarly, 77% of all employees surveyed felt that they didn’t have adequate training in AI tools or that they fully understood how AI related to their jobs, according to the 2024 Digital Work Trends Report. Furthermore, managers didn’t fare much better than their employees. 73% of professionals at the managerial level confessed that they didn’t feel completely educated on, knowledgeable about, or trained in AI.

Implementing AI Strategies

Ultimately, strategic use of AI can significantly enhance the efficiency of business functions and processes. When AI takes over automating repetitive, manual tasks, employees have time to work on more productive, revenue-generating activities. It’s estimated that AI’s capabilities have the potential to automate tasks that account for up to 60-70% of the average employee’s time.

Because AI can analyze large amounts of data faster and at a scale beyond human capacity, it can open new doors to data analytics. Business activities that can benefit from the strengths of AI include forecasting revenue, predicting customer attrition, and identifying trends in employee retention. AI can also alerting professionals about the risk of customer fraud, manufacturing equipment breakdowns, and other potential issues in advance.

In the IT field, AI-driven detection models can be trained to boost security monitoring and identify and prevent BOTs and other cyber security threats from infiltrating a company’s enterprise systems.

Within a company’s financial functions, AI can be used to automate tasks, reduce mistakes, and save time and money. For example, payroll that’s manually processed contains an up to 8% level of human error. Properly-deployed AI and machine learning can help correct this issue.

Overall, the effective use of AI can help organizations enjoy more data-driven decision-making, improved resource allocation, more targeted and personalized customer experiences, more streamlined project management, and the delivery of more in-depth insights on market trends that can fuel new product development. As a result, business leaders who have a firm grasp on the benefits AI can deliver, how AI can be applied to their company’s operations, and how to properly deploy it will be better positioned for career success.“

For all the predictive insights AI can deliver, advanced machine learning engines often remain a black box,” acknowledged McKinsey & Company experts. However, it’s a challenge that business leaders are encouraged to face head-on to benefit their organization and their own career trajectory.

Let IEEE Empower You Through Education in AI

IEEE offers a range of educational resources that can help you better understand AI’s expanding role in business today so that your organization can harness and capitalize on its power.

Introducing the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA: Artificial Intelligence Program
Designed to demystify AI for business managers and leaders, the new IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA: Artificial Intelligence program takes a strategic, non-IT view of AI. The program provides the foundational knowledge to assess AI’s analytical and decision-making capabilities. It will help you identify how AI can address business pain points, optimize processes, better serve customer needs, and improve an organization’s bottom line.

The highly specialized, 12-week program covers an introduction to AI as well as topics such as data analytics, process optimization, the benefits and application of AI to marketing and sales, customer service, the supply chain, and finance functions, ethics in AI, and the impact AI will have on careers, colleagues, and competencies in the future. The training features engaging real-world case studies, practical insights, forward-thinking ideas, and actionable strategies designed to help learners integrate AI into their operations. It also incorporates an invaluable capstone project experience, enabling students to take what they learned throughout the Mini-MBA program and apply those concepts to a specific business challenge.

Ideal for senior managers, directors, VP-level professionals, engineers, and young professionals looking to distinguish themselves in the job market, the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA: Artificial Intelligence program delivers competitive advantages to both learners and their organizations by successfully complementing technical skills with a strategic, business overview of AI and its real-world applications. Learn more and save your seat today!

Flexible Online Learning Programs for Semiconductor Companies

IEEE has created several eLearning courses designed to enhance AI knowledge and skills that are key to individuals within the semiconductor industry. These educational resources will help ensure that employees are well-versed in the latest AI advancements and equipped with practical skills to drive innovation and strategically deploy AI for maximum success and efficiency within their organization. Resources include:

These course programs are also available to individuals through the IEEE Learning Network (ILN), providing flexible learning options for professionals at all levels.

Upon successfully completing the programs, participants earn professional development credits, including Professional Development Hours (PDHs) and Continuing Education Units (CEUs). They’ll also receive a shareable digital badge highlighting their proficiency in the technology area which can be showcased across various social media platforms.

If you are interested in obtaining institutional access to any of these programs through your organization, please contact an IEEE Content Specialist today.

 

Resources:

(30 May 2024). The State of AI in Early 2024. McKinsey & Company.

2024 Digital Work Trends Report. Slingshot.

February 2024). Language Matters: AI User Perceptions. Valoir.

Sterling, Terry. (30 January 2024). 11 Reasons Why Leaders Need to Understand Artificial Intelligence (AI). Balanced Scorecard Institute.

June 2023. The Economic Potential of Generative AI. McKinsey & Company.

Kempton, Beth. (22 August 2024). 10 Ways to Use AI in Business in 2025. Upwork.

Grennan, Liz, Kremer, Andreas, Singla, Alex, and Zipparo, Peter. (29 September 2022). Why Businesses Need Explainable AI—and How to Deliver It. McKinsey & Company.

Studies show that strong business management, leadership, and communication skills are as important as technical skills when it comes to success and advancement in the engineering field.

Engineers are recognized for their innate analytical skills, problem-solving abilities, curiosity, creativity, and flexibility. What may not come as second nature to them, however, are business management and leadership skills. And studies show that these, along with strong technical skills, are all crucial to a successful career in engineering.

While engineers typically focus their time on product development and the delivery of technical solutions and services, experts at The Engineering & Leadership Project contend that engineers are often “never taught to understand financial statements or other critical markers of organizational health”. Those critical markers are all “business engineering” skills that could help them better understand the organizations they work for and drive improved outcomes by their teams and company.

In-Demand Skills

A recent Harvard Business School analysis of job opportunities for engineers concurred. While strong technical, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills were all among the top capabilities sought by leading employers, the study found that these were only part of the equation. Strengths in communication, management, business operations, and leadership rounded out lists of most critical traits for a job candidate and successful engineer.

Across the various engineering job opportunities featured in their survey, the same Harvard Business School study noted that business and leadership skills were more universally requested and in higher demand than some technical competencies. For instance, while demand for computer science skills appeared in 16% of the engineering job postings they analyzed, communication and management skills were required in 34% and 24%, respectively. This suggests that the ability to connect/work with people and effectively manage operations may be more versatile, applicable, and necessary to all engineering fields as well as predictive of success than any one technical skill.

Engineering, Business, and Leadership: A Powerful Link

Interestingly, studies show that many of the skills that engineers naturally possess position them to be strong business leaders. Among them, their ability to manage highly detailed projects and problem-solve enables them to multi-task and meet deadlines, while their technical literacy and strength with numbers provides a leg up in both the use of modern technology and the ability to prepare business plans and analyze financial and other data. As a result, it comes as no surprise that Harvard Business Review’s recent analysis of 100 top-performing CEOs around the globe found that a full 34% of them possess an undergraduate degree in engineering.

Experts from Indeed agree that training in business and leadership skills can be invaluable to an engineer’s professional advancement and career aspirations. According to Indeed, possession of these skills can not only enhance an engineer’s candidacy for a specific job but can more positively position them for successive roles and leadership positions down the line.  These skills can also provide engineers with a strong foundation should they elect to switch jobs during their career or even start their own business.

The bottom line?

Let IEEE Help You Boost Your Business and Leadership Skills

A wealth of experts confirms that the days of operating in field-specific silos are over and that the best and most empowered engineers are those who bring a combination of technical, business management, and leadership skills to the table.

IEEE is here to help engineers fill the gap with its unique IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers.

Offered by IEEE in conjunction with Rutgers Business School and flexible in format, this course is specially designed to help engineers and technical professionals bridge the gap between business and engineering, prepare for professional growth, and obtain the critical business skills needed for well-rounded and long-term career success

Covering such key topics as Business Strategy, Managing New Product Development, Analyzing Financial Statements, Intellectual Property Strategy, Sales and Marketing, Leadership, and more, the convenient and self-paced 12-week Mini-MBA course involves a combination of expert instruction, peer interaction, self-paced video lessons, interactive assessments, live office hours, and a hands-on capstone project experience. This winning program – currently the only online Mini-MBA curriculum specifically designed for engineers and technical professionals — will help participants make more informed business decisions, better align their technical capabilities with proven business strategy, and prepare to meet the market’s growing demand for well-rounded engineers with demonstrated skills in business management and leadership.

Reserve your spot in the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers course today, either as an individual or as a company! For more information or to explore opportunities to further develop your business management skills, contact us today!

 

Resources

(23 January 2022). Business Engineering: Why Engineers Should Have Business Skills. The Engineering & Leadership Project.

Landry, Lauren. (5 January 2023). 6 Business Skills Every Engineer Needs. Harvard Business School.

Clayton, Ben. (19 March 2023). Why Engineers Make Good Business Leaders. QS Top Universities.

McGregor, Jena. (24 October 2018). More Top CEOs Now Have Engineering Degrees than MBAs. Financial Post.

(26 January 2023). 12 Business Skills for an Engineer Resume. Indeed.

7 Essential Business Skills for Engineers. Canadian Institute of International Business.

leadership-role

Engineers spend much of their time learning technical skills. However, they may not be as invested in learning the communication and business knowledge needed to ascend to leadership positions. These skills are becoming especially important as digital transformation is forcing traditional workforces to evolve.

While technical certifications can certainly make an impressive addition to your resume, a mix of technical and non-technical certifications is even better. Consider these insightful tips from IT leaders on how to obtain and make the most of professional certifications, originally published in CIO (magazine).

Seven Tips to Help You Grow Professionally

  1. Get certified in areas where your skills are lacking:
    Chief Information Officers (CIOs) at big technology organizations tend to have excellent IT skills but often lack good communications skills. CIOs from customer-facing business to business organizations often have the opposite problem, according to Saurabh Chandra, managing director at Boston Consulting Group. “These technology leaders need to get certified in areas that they lack. While CIOs push their team to get certified, they need to come out of their comfort zones and follow suit,” Chandra said.
  2. Establish your own way of learning:
    Rather than going along with professional learning trends, you should establish a personalized list of certifications that you can finish within 18 months, advises Puneesh Lamba, CIO of Shahi Exports, an apparel manufacturing company. “The courses should be shortlisted, keeping in mind both the individual’s interest and the organization’s need,” Lamba said.
  3. Obtain certifications that expand knowledge of your industry:
    “If I have to remain in the insurance industry, I have to continuously build on my knowledge base,” said Mayank Bhargava, chief technology and data officer at Pramerica Life Insurance.
  4. Make sure the certifications you are obtaining are meaningful:
    Look for certifications that will add real value to your skills, advises Sunil Mehta, senior vice president and area systems director for Central Asia at advertising agency WPP. “Getting certified after attending one to two hours of a local online course doesn’t add true value,” Mehta said.
  5. Implement your knowledge:
    “At the end of the day, it is the content, faculty, and case studies of a course that cumulatively open the mind,” said Sourabh Chatterjee, president and head of technology, digital sales, and travel at Bajaj Allianz General Insurance. “Without implementing the knowledge thus acquired, a certification will only serve the purpose of self-gratification.”
  6. Immerse yourself in projects as if you are a non-manager:
    Sourabh Chatterjee, president and head of technology, digital sales, and travel at Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, said he takes a hands-on approach to projects, whether it is coding, designing, process flow, testing, or architecture. “This not only helps me to put into practice what I learned in a certification course but also enables me to stay relevant by getting insights into crucial aspects of a project such as human behavior, technology, content, and motivation,” said Chatterjee.
  7. Match your technical certifications with business certifications 50:50:
    “For every AI and data science certification, I also undertake a business certification that helps in enhancing my behavioral and influencing skills, enables me to build a business case for technology, and aids me in transforming the IT department,” said Lamba.

As an engineer, growing your leadership skills is essential. Do you have the skills necessary to take on a leadership role and compete in a constantly evolving job market?

Show You Have What It Takes to Become a Leader

Whether you’re looking to grow within your current organization or find opportunities elsewhere, start preparing for your next move with continuing education courses specifically designed for engineers and other technical professionals.

IEEE Leading Technical Teams is a training program which recognizes the unique challenges that come with leading technical groups and is designed for team leaders, managers, and directors of engineering and technology teams who have been in their role for a minimum of six months. The program equips technical leaders with the tools they need to flourish in their roles, unlock their professional growth and success, and inspire and motivate their teams to greater heights of innovation. IEEE Leading Technical Teams consists of two components:

  • A “360° Leadership Practices Inventory” (LPI), which solicits confidential feedback on both the leader’s areas of strength as well as opportunities for improvement from their team members, peers, and managers/supervisors.
  • A 6-hour, in-person training session, where attendees receive the results of their LPI, participate in targeted instructor-led exercises, discuss case studies that highlight the unique challenges faced by technical leaders and subsequent solutions and best practices they can apply to their specific situations, learn the “Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership,” and receive valuable peer coaching.

Learn more about IEEE Leading Technical Teams  and how you can enroll for a future session, with in-person and virtual options available. 

IEEE has partnered with Rutgers Business School to offer the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA. Designed specifically for groups of ten or more within an organization, this program operates entirely online. It features topics including business strategy, managing product development, finance, negotiation, managing human capital, intellectual property strategy, and transformational agility.

To learn more about offering the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for your organization in order to help your staff grow into leadership roles, contact an IEEE Account Manager today.

Resources

Singh, Yashvendra. (17 June 2022). 3 certification tips for IT leaders looking to get ahead. CIO.

improve-leadership-remote-environment

The COVID-19 pandemic has created major disruptions for business leaders, including a sudden shift to digital transformation. This change has forced many to rethink how they lead newly established remote and hybrid teams. While this change has been difficult for some, it’s nothing an effective leader can’t handle. According to Benoni Tagoe, the president of Raedio, an “audio everywhere” company, there are six ways to improve leadership in this new environment. Below is a summary of his tips, originally published in Rolling Stone: 

1. Be transparent and listen: Leaders who are implementing new ways to work should take time to understand how this affects their teams. “Spend a few meetings observing and listening to them,” states Tagoe. “You’ll gain more by letting them speak first, before responding to their ideas and opinions.”

2. Establish policies that encourage staff “to protect their space”: To help your employees work better from home, consider budgeting for work-from-home office setups.

3. Check-in with your employees: Take time to get to know your team members and form connections with them beyond the office. This can be done through virtual lunches or other gatherings. “With my team, I sent everyone a gift card for Goldbelly that allowed them to order food from restaurants around the country,” writes Tagoe. “My note was simple: Since we all can’t visit our favorite restaurants, we’re bringing your favorite menu items to you. Then I followed up on a team meeting and asked them what they ordered, which allowed the entire team to bond over their favorite meals.”

4. Establish “rules of engagement” for video calls: You don’t always need to conduct team meetings over video but you should probably use video for client meetings, writes Tagoe. Leaders should also make sure calls on the calendar are absolutely necessary. This will help prevent unneeded calls that could have been emails. 

5. Regularly update your employees on remote policies: Leaders planning a return to physical offices should keep their employees informed with a general timeline. 

6. Keep in mind that most employees want the ability to choose: Staff value being able to choose who they work with, what projects they work on, and how they perform their tasks. “As a leader, your mandate is to make sure you engineer events that create camaraderie and allow fellow team members to create a bond around the work,” Tagoe writes. One way to accomplish this would be to restate company goals, explain decisions made that impact them directly, and make sure they are up-to date with financials and business challenges so that they feel a sense of transparency and can also make informed decisions.  

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rattle global markets, leaders will continue to face challenges. However, you may find it easier to navigate this new world of remote/hybrid work by following these simple tips. 

Create Leaders in Organization

IEEE has partnered with Rutgers Business School to offer the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA. Designed specifically for groups of ten or more within an organization, this program operates entirely online. It features topics including business strategy, managing product development, finance, negotiation, managing human capital, intellectual property strategy, and transformational agility.

Participants will learn how to make organizational decisions with both technical and operational considerations. After developing an understanding of how different functional groups interact to achieve overall goals, they will learn to apply their newly developed business skills to better align their technical capabilities with business strategy.

The program offers the option of a customized capstone project, completely aligned to the needs of your organization. As part of the project, you’ll receive feedback from program professors who have worked as engineering leaders themselves.

To learn more about the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for your organization, contact an IEEE Account Manager today.

Resources

Tagoe, Benoni. (15 November 2021). 6 Tips for Effective Leadership in Uncertain Times. Rolling Stone.

Managers promoted for their technical knowledge sometimes lack the soft skills vital for them to be effective leaders who inspire and foster commitment among their teams. With the right training, these managers can grow to become strong, well rounded leaders.

How Can You Become A Better Leader?

The difference between an effective leader and one who simply holds a management title is that an effective leader is self-reflective and proactively embraces opportunities for growth. According to executive coach Monique Valcour, there are three simple steps you can take to become a better leader.

1) Determine a new leadership skill you want to achieve:

Is there a particular problem you need to solve? Before looking for solutions, figure out how you can improve your performance as a leader to tackle the problem. This will require you to focus on yourself instead of what’s worrying you. To be an effective leader, you need to understand that you cannot “fix” people the same way you would fix a technical issue, and you need to learn to recognize how your own behavior and thinking affects those around you. When things go wrong, do you have a tendency to overreact or criticize others? If so, you could be contributing to the problem in ways you don’t realize. To avoid this, identify what is important to you about achieving your goals and why you want to achieve them. This can help motivate you to learn and grow self-reflectively as a leader.

2) Ask for feedback to improve your understanding of the problem, just as you would if you were attempting to solve a technical issue:

A great way to expand your understanding of a problem is to ask others for their feedback and perspectives. For instance, if you feel as though an employee is acting out or struggling, talk to them about the situation before jumping to conclusions. Understand that criticizing a team member or giving them a poor performance evaluation without understanding the situation from their perspective can be demoralizing and may cause them to mistrust you.

3) Once you’ve developed insight into the situation and how your own behavior may have played a role, take steps to effective change:

Just as leaders give feedback to their employees, they should also seek feedback from their teams about how they can improve their own leadership moving forward (what executive coach Marshall Goldsmith dubs “feedforward”). This process can help build communication, accountability, and trust between yourself and your team.

How Can Organizations Improve Leadership?

Organizations that do not take responsibility for ineffective leadership in their ranks often suffer from low employee morale and performance. Training programs can help new managers understand what actually represents good leadership, as well as what they need to do to become effective leaders. By creating opportunities for growth, organizations can create a culture of effective leadership that benefits everyone.

Develop Effective Leaders Within Your Organization

IEEE has partnered with Rutgers Business School to offer the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers. Ranked as one of the three best Mini-MBAs by Forbes, the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers helps corporate employees bridge the gap between business and engineering as they prepare for growth into leadership roles. The program operates entirely online and is designed specifically for groups of ten or more within an organization. It features topics, such as business strategy, managing product development, finance, negotiation, managing human capital, intellectual property strategy, and transformational agility.

Participants learn how to make organizational decisions with both technical and operational considerations. After developing an understanding of how different functional groups interact to achieve overall goals, they learn to apply their newly developed business skills to better align their technical capabilities with business strategy.

The program offers the option of a customized capstone project, completely aligned to the needs of your organization. As part of the project, participants receive feedback from program professors who have worked as engineering leaders themselves.

To learn more about the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers for your organization, contact an IEEE Account Manager today.

Resources

Valcour, Monique. (24 May 2021). Transform Your Technical Expertise into Leadership. Harvard Business Review. 

digitally-savvy-leaders

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many organizations around the world to digitize their workforces. As the pandemic continues and remote work becomes the new norm for many organizations, leaders who fail to effectively transition into the digital realm may struggle. However, there are steps they can take to adopt the increasingly digital workspace and become digitally savvy leaders.

Employees Want Digitally Savvy Leaders

According to a newly released report from MIT Sloan Management Review, 93% of employees across regions and industries think digital savviness is necessary to succeed. Having a sense of purpose is also important. 72% of workers surveyed stated that they “strongly agree that it is very important to them to work for an organization with a purpose they believe in,” according to the Leadership’s Digital Transformation report. Additionally, 88% of workers surveyed reported that having leaders who are digitally savvy is critical to their company’s ability to achieve that purpose. 

However, less than half of those surveyed said their organizations have created project teams that are intentionally diverse when it comes to digital savviness. Furthermore, only 31% thought their companies were assessing the digital skills of their managers. Less than 20% thought their companies were ensuring digital know-how among their high ranking managers. 

Focus on Purpose

Your workers can often sense if you aren’t passionate about the organization and its purpose. If you want them to feel more confident in your leadership, you need to regularly communicate the organization’s strategic purposes to your team. It can help to specify how the organization’s purposes align with their productivity and goals.

“Having a compelling mission statement isn’t enough,” the report states. “Serious leaders must appear as genuinely passionate about enterprise purpose as they are about strategy, agility, and customer centricity. The key is to authentically embed and enable purpose as part of the organization’s digital transformation trajectory. Purpose thus has an operational as well as an aspirational rationale that invites new leadership accountability.”

Develop “Digital Situational Awareness”

Since the pandemic began, remote work has blurred the traditional boundaries between work and home. Even when the work day is over, many workers still find themselves fielding emails. Often, they have to choose between work and family obligations. 

Just 28% of workers surveyed said their company had policies on how and when to contact them beyond work hours. Furthermore, only 24% said their company stuck to these policies if they had them. 

For many, gone are the days when workers could simply knock on their manager’s door. Remote employees need clarity around when and how to reach out to their bosses. This means leaders need to establish boundaries and make an effort to respect these guidelines.

“The key to being measurably more effective is becoming measurably more affective,” the report states. “Leaders who want to succeed have no choice but to digitally transform themselves. Leaders who are unwilling or unable to proactively use data and analytics to understand how their leadership is experienced will underperform.”

Take Advantage of “Mutual Mentoring”

One way leaders can digitally transform themselves is through “mutual” or “reverse” mentoring, in which younger employees mentor those who are older. Although 71% of survey respondents thought younger workers were more successful at obtaining value from digital tools at their organizations, just 19% said their organizations engaged in this kind of mentorship.

The pandemic will eventually end, but remote work is here to stay for many people. If leaders want to be successful, they need to adjust to a new way of managing employees, and for many, digital transformation will be key to their success.

Create Leaders in Your Organization

IEEE has partnered with Rutgers Business School to offer the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers. Designed specifically for groups of ten or more within an organization, this program operates entirely online. It features topics including business strategy, managing product development, finance, negotiation, managing human capital, intellectual property strategy, and transformational agility.

Participants will learn how to make organizational decisions with both technical and operational considerations. After developing an understanding of how different functional groups interact to achieve overall goals, they will learn to apply their newly developed business skills to better align their technical capabilities with business strategy.

The program offers the option of a customized capstone project, completely aligned to the needs of your organization. As part of the project, you’ll receive feedback from program professors who have worked as engineering leaders themselves.

To learn more about the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers for your organization, contact an IEEE Account Manager today.

Resources

(26 January 2021). Leadership’s Digital Transformation: Leading Purposely in an Era of Context Collapse. MIT Sloan Management Review.

Most engineers enter the workforce as individual contributors. And the job is fairly straightforward—you rely on data and individual efforts to impact outcomes. Your technical knowledge is your most important skill set as you work with others to achieve the team’s goals.

 

Moving Into Engineering Management

But what happens when you start to work your way up to management? While your technical skills are still important to help you make decisions, you can no longer rely on your technical knowledge alone to help you succeed. As an engineering leader, the technical knowledge you possess in your field will be only one of many elements needed to develop people and projects.

 

Engineering Leadership Skills

Fortunately, you do not have to be born with leadership skills to become an engineering leader. This set of skills can be developed over time. If you want to transition into a leadership position, there are a variety of skills you should develop including:

  • Finance: Individual contributors have the luxury of only considering the technology when it comes to making recommendations. However, leaders also need to consider the business objectives and goals of the organization, including the finances. It’s vital that managers possess the ability to find balance between their organization’s financial and technical needs.
  • People Skills: Professionals who enter engineering management can no longer base their projects solely on technical requirements. It is enormously important to develop the ability to sell ideas, influence people, and understand the impact of your words and actions. In order to achieve organizational objectives while negotiating with other business leaders, you must be able to translate technical needs into laymen’s terms. As an engineering leader, you also need to be able to motivate and support the individual contributors who you manage. Learning to understand what drives the people on your team, as well as how to clear the roadblocks they may face, requires good listening and communication skills. Leaders with these traits are more successful at creating environments that help people do their best work.
  • Networking: An extension of people skills, engineering leaders must be able to collaborate across a wide range of departments. This means building trust with people in your organization that you may not work with on a regular basis. In order to build consensus and achieve business goals, the most effective engineering leaders are those who seek to understand the needs of each group at the table.
  • Strategic Planning: A major component of engineering leadership is the ability to see the big picture. When planning and leading projects, there are many areas of strategy that need to be considered, including business strategy, product roadmap, financial strategy, intellectual property strategy, and human capital constraints. By developing your strategic planning ability, you are able to make decisions with the long-view in mind. This type of thinking can completely transform your organization as well as help you lead effectively.

 

Prepare Promising Individual Contributors for Engineering Management

For engineering leaders who want to help promising individuals on their teams develop the skills necessary for leadership roles, IEEE has partnered with Rutgers Business School to offer the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers. Designed specifically for organizations, this program operates entirely online. It features topics including business strategy, managing product development, finance, negotiation, managing human capital, intellectual property strategy, and transformational agility.

Designed for groups of ten or more within an organization, participants learn how organizational decisions are made with both technical and operational considerations. After developing an understanding of how different functional groups interact to achieve overall goals, they will learn to apply their newly developed business skills to better align their technical capabilities with business strategy.

The program offers the option of a customized capstone project, completely aligned to the needs of your organization. As part of the project, you’ll receive feedback from program professors who have worked as engineering leaders themselves.

To learn more about the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers for your organization, contact an IEEE Account Manager today.

 

Resources:

Pop, Jake Bennett. (31 Jul 2016). When Engineers Become Managers: How to Be a Great Technical Leader. VentureBeat.

Hsu, Jean. The Curious Transition to Becoming an Engineering Manager. GitPrime Blog.

mini-mba for engineers

If engineers in your organization are moving into management roles for which they could be better prepared, consider offering enrollment in a mini-MBA program.

Developed by IEEE science and technology experts along with Rutgers University faculty, the IEEE | Rutgers Mini-MBA for Engineers is a flexible online program designed for engineers and technical professionals.

This fast-paced, instructor-led program is based on real-world business and engineering practices. Because it bridges the gap between engineering and business, the curriculum is particularly valuable for employees transitioning into management roles. It also teaches engineers fundamental business theories and best practices that are applicable to the engineering sector.

Why offer this program to your engineers?

  1. It’s the only Mini-MBA program specifically designed for engineers.
  2. Featuring highly-specialized, interactive content relevant to current employee roles, it offers immediate return on investment at a lower cost compared to traditional graduate degree programs.
  3. Taught by top-rated Rutgers Business School faculty members and experienced practitioners, this program will help employees keep their skills relevant.
  4. Convenient, on-demand classes allow learning anytime, anywhere. The self-paced video lessons and interactive assessments enable busy employees to maintain work-life balance.
  5. Participants receive ongoing access to online materials for future reference.

Offering professional development opportunities can serve as a tool to raise overall staff expertise. It can also prepare employees to enter leadership roles.

The IEEE | Rutgers Mini-MBA is intended for multiple engineers within an organization. Connect with an IEEE Content Specialist today to learn more about this program and how it can fit your organization’s needs.