Developing Engineering Leadership Identity Within a Community of Practice: A Theoretical Approach

• In Event: Poster Session 16
  In Poster Session: Education and Assessment in the Professions Poster Session

Abstract

The greatest challenges facing society require technological solutions developed through interdisciplinary collaborations. To be successful, these collaborations will require engineers who act as leaders and self-initiate. Unfortunately, engineers tend to eschew leadership development during their professional formation due to the emphasis on mastery of technical knowledge.
Our approach argues that integrating leadership identity development into the professional formation process will lead to practicing engineers who view themselves as engineering leaders. We conceptualize engineering formation as a process of situated learning within communities of practice, and incorporate a leadership identity development model (Komives, Owen, Longerbeam, Mainella, & Osteen, 2005) to advance a model of engineering leadership identity development.

Authors

• Bryce Edward Hughes, Montana State University

• William J. Schell, Montana State University

• Brett Tallman, Montana State University