Characteristics of Successful CEO in Engineering Field - Term Paper Example

Introduction The engineering field has its challenges which the CEOs in that field have to deal with each and every day. However many of these problems are common to other CEOs in companies in other fields as well. There are several mature companies that are run by Chief Executive Officers that are engineers by profession (Lance, Gibbin, and National Academy of Engineering 2002). These people may also have some artistic and creative background. For one to succeed as a CEO in the engineering field there are several qualities that he or she should have. These are the very things that will help the person to unite the management and rest of the employees in a company as well as the other stake holders. This paper discusses what a good CEO in the engineering field should have in order to succeed. Challenges to the CEO CEOs in the field of engineering are faced with various challenges which require them to have certain very important qualities to overcome these challenges. Among the challenges are ensuring continuous growth in the midst of uncertainties in the economy. In this the CEO needs to boost talent, profits, loyalty and trust in an environment where growth is almost invisible. Another challenge is to reduce the number of employees leaving the company because of high turn over. When the economy grows, turn over increases (Doh, Stumpf 2005). The CEO should be able to appreciate employees to increase their motivation. The CEO has the challenge of retaining top performers, creating and communicating the plans to progress them professionally, and also increase their salaries above the standard. The CEO must also be in a position to acknowledge that his customers are the boss, surrender to social media and maintain pace with regulation. CEOs must protect their companies from increased risks, go global, watch the company reputation and keep up with new technology (Lance, Gibbin, and National Academy of Engineering 2002). Characteristics of the successful CEO One lady CEO engineer defines success as the three Cs standing for Communication, Confidence and commitment. She advices that a CEO in the field of engineering should never give up if even if critics come up against him (Doh, Stumpf 2005). Communication Indeed a good CEO should be able to communicate well. He must be excellent in speaking for the services, products and public policy positions of the company. Communication is most important in running the company. The CEO must be able to pass important information across to the board and the management team without obvious mistakes. Communication is very important since it is the medium through which motivation is build, clients are won, appreciation for employees is done and instructions are given. A CEO with poor communication skills can cause misunderstanding between various groups within the company. The vision of the company and the expectations of the CEO are things that must be communicated clearly. The CEO must establish a communications system that is solid and has the ability to unite the entire organization and create a sense of community in it (Doh, Stumpf 2005). Commitment Commitment is another important characteristic of the CEO that wants to succeed. Commitment ensures that the CEO maintains focus and gets results. A CEO with a good display of commitment is able to provide the juniors with a good example to follow. With commitment a CEO is able to pursue goals without tiring even if there are huge obstacles in the way. Commitment will enable him to conquer these obstacles without fail (Horenstein 2009). Courage and Confidence The engineering field presents unique challenges which require confidence in any CEO. Confidence helps a person not to give up or shrink in the face of difficulties. Challenges can be overcome easily if the CEO is confident. He can also be in a position to instill confidence in the team especially when things are not working. The CEO must show the way and confidence will help him to convince the team to follow his leadership in times of disaster. Together with confidence the CEO also needs courage. The job of the CEO is one of the toughest. Starting the company may have been tough but the tougher part is to maintain its growth and existence. The CEO should be able to decide what he stands for. This will help him to do the right things all the time (Lance, Gibbin, and National Academy of Engineering 2002). It needs a lot of courage to lay off a salesperson that has brought huge sales to the company when he causes an accident while driving the company car because of drunk driving. Times arise when the CEO must engage in decisive decision making due to potential consequences or the challenges at hand. With courage and confidence through, the CEO must observe moral judgment in order to succeed in his career. Courage helps the CEO to stand in the times of scandals and shame. Courage is also important if he has to try new ideas. Change can attract opposition from within and from without. Courage is therefore needed to maintain the focus of the CEO and the company as a whole (Doh, Stumpf 2005). Technological knowledge The CEO should have a pool of technological knowledge the fast pace of change in technology has already brought out the difference existing between corporate failure and failure. The losers and winners are separated from each other by the increase of computing. The level at which a CEO will embrace technology tells a lot about how that CEO can be able to steer a company in the field of engineering to success. In such a field, technology is key to many of the operations. Competitors are always incorporating new technology for them to stay a head of the pack. Lack of technological knowledge spells the doom of a CEO (Collins 2011). Personal insight A successful CEO should be a great leader. He knows himself and understands what he stands for. The CEO is known as a solver of problems and people know him as impartial and fair. Other people respect his opinion and seek for guidance from him. The successful CEO should be mature to the point that when he suffers disappointment he is more graceful than the others and can be able to give credit to others for what they have achieved. The CEOs should not be the persons yelling for anything they want. They should not be obsessed with power or titles like anybody else employed in the same company (Collins 2011). Trustworthiness is a must because this CEO has been practicing honesty and has been able to earn trust from people. The CEO should be able to realize that people are not like the machines they deal with in the company. The CEO should have a humane face and this should also be shown through action. He should also be able to get feedback. He should know what other people are saying concerning his leadership and the comments of other people about the progress of the company especially from the perspective of the employees. This feedback is then used in creating dialogue between relevant groups (Horenstein 2009). Resourcefulness Successful CEOs need to have energy that has no boundaries. They should have a high level of enthusiasm even at times when they are not feeling like it. They should discover ways of getting re-energized and always be ready to perform. They should attend to their emotional and physical needs so that they are always ready for the needs of the company and the employees. They should be willing to give more compared to what they take away (Horenstein 2009). Willingness to look at risk The CEO must be willing to look at the risks and answer those difficult questions that he hopes won’t turn into realities. The CEO must look at a back up plan designed by observing the worst scenarios in a company. The risks that a company can be involved in include a slump in the industry, government regulations affecting the company, losing an important client among other occurrences. The CEO should prepare himself for such eventualities and be ready to take immediate action so that the loss can be reduced. There is no CEO that will not take risks. The CEO must have the wisdom to weigh every risks and cost with the outcomes and benefits expected. He should develop a sense of which things are worthy it and which ones are not (Doh, Stumpf 2005). Foresight A CEO should also have the ability to see into the future. He should have insights into specific markets. He should be able to see opportunities a head of time and make deals that can change an opportunity into a reality. Certain things that appear as amazing fore sight come from discipline and hard work that is needed to build a company. A CEO should be able to develop new products that can help retain and build a customer base. Fore sight also gives the CEO the ability to hire and maintain the right people for the company considering future growth. A company should be able to develop a source of business that is steady in both good and bad economic times (Collins 2011). Involvement: A CEO should be involved in what the people he is leading are doing. Employees will always be inspired if the leader is setting a good example for them. The CEO should be a kind of person that can have his hands dirty since this motivates employees to do their job without being pushed. To go with involvement, the CEO should be friendly since for employees it is hard to work with somebody that looks like an oppressive tyrant. Friendliness encourages employees to be loyal and to work harder and better (Horenstein 2009). The CEO should also be assertive. Assertiveness should not be confused with unfriendliness. Being assertive will make the employees to know what the CEO expects from them. Even though employees by right should work in a place where there is respect, the CEO must be a person that lets them know that he expects them to work hard and that failure for this to happen could lead to dire consequences (Canals 2010). Creativity is another important characteristic of the CEO in an engineering field. Creativity ensures that the CEO makes the company a unique brand and sets it apart from the rest. Development of unique products is one of the things that bring success to a company since it gives it an identity. The CEO must be very creative and hard working. He should be the kind of person that is able and ever willing to think out of the box. The success of a business is hinged on the ability of the company to offer quality services and products and to give proof of why the service or product is better and different from what the competitors are offering. The CEO must have curiosity that will help him to look for and start exploiting new ideas in the company (Collins 2011). Learning from mistakes should be one of the important characteristics of the CEO. CEOs do make mistakes and the difference between a successful leader and one who fails in their ability to draw important lessons from their mistakes. It is not possible or a leader to eliminate his humanity from the company but the same humanity can be used to make the future performance better (Lance, Gibbin, and National Academy of Engineering 2002). Consistency helps the CEO to hold the organization together in the face of the many changes that might be taking place. A consistent person will not shrink when contradicted, criticized or opposed. This is the secret of successful CEOs Canals J. (2010) Accountability is another quality of the CEO. He or she must be able to own up to mistakes. There may not be seniors or superiors to the CEO in the company, but the leader has the responsibility to the ones he is working for. He should show accountability for company mistakes that are his fault (Arguden 2011).Setting high expectations should be the quality of the CEO as well. He should set the goals of the company and set them high enough to be achieved. This helps to give direction to the company. These goals should be communicated well so that the employees are aware of what the leader expects of them. Visionary leadership: The CEO should have a vision for the company, focus on it and communicate it well to stakeholders. Letting the staff understand the vision is critical to inspiring the investors, customers and staff. As the flag bearer of the company everybody looks to the CEO to give an example and the much needed direction. Macro Management It is important that a CEO should be able to understand the activities of the company on day to day basis. However the CEO should have restraint so that he does not involve himself in trying to manage granular details. He should have the ability to maintain a management team that is highly trained and has the capability of handling such tasks. This gives the CEO time to focus on primary duties of meting goals and increasing revenue (Doh, Stumpf 2005). Leveraging Trends in the Industry The CEO should stay at the top of industry trends by reading, taking part in trade associations, attending conferences. This ensures that the vision and direction the company is taking is not lost. The ability of predicting the future is important for avoiding potential threats so that the company capitalizes on opportunities coming in the future. This is necessary in the engineering field since technology is evolving day and night and the CEO must judge which change can bring a long term impact and which one is a fad with no or little value (Arguden 2011). Developing a Strong foundation The CEO must have the knowledge and ability to bring together performing people in the management team. The CEO cannot succeed if the management team is not strong. Each of the members should have leadership skills and can be accountable for the responsibilities given to him or her at the work place. Bringing together such a hard working team requires the CEO to be a people person and a good team player (Horenstein 2009). Values customers A successful CEO must be one that looks beyond his raw technology and focuses on getting ways through which customers can solve the problems affecting them. The CEO should describe his products in terms of the challenges and needs of the customers that they are going to solve instead of just listing the capabilities of the company products. He should use the verbiage and words of the customers of his company. By meeting the customers every week the CEO has many anecdotal situations that he can share with the stakeholders who can help to make a product that is better and create a clearer understanding of the requirements of the customer a victorious business relationship (Vell 2009). Conclusion In conclusion this paper was a discussion of the characteristics of a successful Chief Executive Officer in the Field of engineering. The CEO in such a field is faced with challenges some of which are unique but others are common since the job involves dealing with people at all aspects. Therefore communication has been cited as being among the most important characteristics for the CEO. Ability to embrace changing technology, courage, creativity, fore sight and insight, confidence, commitment, taking risks among many others have been discussed. The CEO should therefore be experienced and have a majority of these characteristics so that anything lacking can be complemented by the management team. References Vell D. (2009) Qualities of successful Technology CEOs, Entrepreneurial boards Lance D., Gibbin R., National Academy of Engineering (2002), Raising public awareness of engineering, The National Academics Press. Horenstein M.N. (2009) Design Concepts for engineers, Prentice Hall. Arguden Y. (2011), Keys to governance: Strategic leadership for quality of life, Palgrave Macmillan Collins J. (2011), Good to Great: Why some Companies make the Leap and others Don’t, Harper Collins Doh P. J., Stumpf A. S. (2005), Handbook on Responsible Leadership and Governance in Global Business, Edward Elgar Publishing Canals J. (2010) Building Respected Companies: Rethinking Business Leadership and the Purpose of the Firm, Cambridge University Press. Read More