edX - Leadership for Engineers

Leadership is hard right. It's really hard for software engineers as well because you move from a tangible output each day (in terms of LOC or user stories or whatever metric you love yourself) to something a lot less tangible. Have I coached well today? Have I lead people down the right path? Is everyone happy and are they growing/developing?

You know what else is hard Leadership training that actually resonates or hits home hard. It can feel like a lot of fluff and buzzwords and lack anything that you feel is directly applicable to your day to day challenges and that's probably because your day to day challenges are now a bit more abstract or 'softer' than they were before and there's no 1 size fits all approach for that. The training normally ends up being focused on trying to draw out your empathy and patience for the most part.

I've done some leadership training before in the company I work for and whilst it was useful (and the guys running the course were very good) it probably didn't lead to that community of people getting together to discuss the challenges and successes they have. I wonder if that was because we all worked together and most of the things we would be talking about may have been directly or indirectly linked to each other

I also was on a course here in Ireland called Fusion which was graduates working on high value projects in conjunction with academia. That was great because it had a residential element and people were from all over. Unfortunately my involvement ended prematurely because the company I was with closed down!

So I was really interested when EdX emailed out their newsletter and included in it was a course by

Delft University of Technology on Leadership for Engineers. So self-paced remote leadership training, god they really are making this hard for themselves! You cannot accuse them of not investing time and effort into the networking aspect. There is an Interactive Map and Teams and Facebook groups etc. It's an interesting concept and I guess they are maybe indicating that the networking quotient of leadership training is as important as the content itself.

This probably sounds weird but I think there's a lot of parallels to be drawn between leadership training and ante-natal classes. You will get an overview of things that are going on but really it's about trying to centre you and give you the confidence to trust your own instincts and get on with it as much as possible.

Possibly naive thing to say but it feels like your own personality and traits will come out in the leadership role so the best thing to do is be self-aware and know what your own bias and what you're good and particularly bad at. That's something they touch a little on here.

In terms of this training itself - it is pretty good. They use case studies such as a mayor who is having issues, it's interesting but maybe a bit cheesy as well. It's a scenario in which a 'analytical' argument is being undermined by political games and how to get around it. I think that's something that will scare a lot of people coming to management/leadership so it is an interesting area to talk about. It then tries to tackle the analytical mind of engineers and how situational management is and how the two may not be compatible often.

They also try to cover some of the traditional coaching/management training that normally happens face to face. They talk a little about it in week 2. You get the impression this is also partly a research project for the university to see if this type of leadership training is possible. It's clear with all the effort they've made to get engagement and interaction between participants that they really are trying something.

A lot is made of the multi-game option. I still find the logic of muddying the waters to be confusing but I'm a bit simple so that's ok.

There is a focus on engineers and the mindset a lot of engineers typically have and how that may impact their leadership abilities. All in all the course is a useful step for people wanting exposure to some leadership training but aren't willing or ready to go all out for a MBA etc. This will never replace or rival that MBA but I think people will find it of some use.

There's a good section on personal management in terms of looking for stress, being optimistic and choosing your response wisely. It's an interesting point and the course evolves from there into being about managing your career and goals.

This course is free to Audit or you can pursue a certificate for $50. Take a look and see, I would definitely recommend checking it out