How does an engineer become a business leader? If I take myself as an example, my career path gave me a fascinating and broad experience. I have spent the first 10 years of my career in different manufacturing roles. This gave me the opportunity to apply my engineering training on a deep level. After that, I was offered an HR management development role at headquarters. It gave me a close insight in the roles and responsibilities of many other disciplines, such as marketing and sales and R&D. This really opened my world. My perspective was further expanded when I moved from Europe to Brazil and assumed full responsibility of the company’s country operation. As a leader, I was suddenly involved in maintaining key contacts with governments, legal affairs, clients, etc. My work as a corporate executive has covered broad areas, such as risk-based auditing, safety, and leadership of worldwide operations. As the managing director of the NAP and DACE foundation, my current responsibility is to enhance the knowledge and network within the Dutch process industry chain in general on one side and the development of the profession of cost and value engineers on the other.
This brings me to a subject that is close to my heart: How can engineers accelerate their business careers? This is especially important, since the business field has changed for engineers. We operate within many more boundaries, for example, those set by standard work-processes, corporate rules, and law. Furthermore, business focus has shifted to shorter term results. This means less freedom for engineers who want to develop themselves. At the same time, individual engineers need to take much more personal responsibility for their career path and growth to business leadership. This requires a different mindset. Due to this changed environment, coaching by senior management is under pressure as well. And we can help them with that.
In the past, the path to career advancement was simply to become a more effective engineer, after which you get the opportunity to broaden your skills and experience. Nowadays, it’s no longer enough to climb the engineering ladder, but you need to become aware of which business ladder you are actually climbing. An engineering education, focused on the details of how to become a successful engineer, will not prepare you for this shift in thinking. Control is an essential part of the engineering training, yet the ambitious engineer needs to let go of control and step into the unknown to achieve business success. This requires climbing different ladders, trying different things with the confidence that your engineering skills and abilities will support you to be successful in other parts of a business as well.
I have known Paul Rulkens from my days as a senior operations executive with DSM. The first time we met, he helped my global manufacturing leadership team to set a new vision and especially think out of the box. It’s therefore no surprise to me that he has written this book for leaders with an engineering background who want to continue to do things differently to accelerate their career. We share a common philosophy around leadership for engineers and that’s why we founded Quantum Leap: a master program to accelerate the careers of high potential leaders with an engineering background.
How successful engineers become great business leaders provides a pragmatic approach to find a balance between optimizing your job and preparing for the next step in business leadership. This is recommended reading, not only for every leader with an engineering background who wants to boost his or her career, but also for senior managers that support these leaders as well.
Jan-Willem Sanders
cofounder Quantum Leap Master Program