Identifying gender differences in leadership competencies in the engineering field

Abstract: Competencies are defined as a person’s underlying characteristics related to effective performance that result in behaviors needed to succeed in a situation (Spencer & Spencer, 1993). Competency models for leadership suggest that both personal and situational variables impact effective leader behaviors (Hollenbeck et al., 2006). Specific to engineering, complex technical problems; riddled with uncertainty; rapidly changing innovations; and the global nature of the workplace, provide challenging situations that impact leadership effectiveness. Leading in the engineering context also requires personal characteristics such as emotional intelligence, communication, and interpersonal skills (Mallette, 2005). These situational and personal variables provide a challenging backdrop to identify competencies relevant for successful leadership performance in the engineering context. Further, engineers reject traditional notions of leadership (Rottmann et al., 2015), which may not reflect effective leadership behavior in the engineering context. Competencies are perceived when behaviors are judged as effective and appropriate within the context of a situation (Spitzberg & Cupach, 1989), therefore leadership competencies identified as important for the engineering context should be explored.
This study identifies leadership competencies in engineering fields as a first step towards validating these competencies. Based on the identified engineering leadership competencies, we aimed to investigate gender differences in them. According to the NSF report (National Science Foundation, 2020), women account for less than 20% of the engineering workforce. Thus, it is important to understand women engineers’ perspectives on leadership competencies to retain them by promoting a diverse and inclusive culture that is created by leadership.
To identify engineering leadership competencies, we conducted an extensive literature review, resulting in 24 engineering leadership competencies. For the face validation purpose, eight engineering professionals (two working engineers and six engineering professors in higher education) discussed those 24 competencies and finalized the following 18 competencies through combination, removal, and modification of some competencies: Adaptiveness, Business Acumen, Communication, Coordination, Creativity, Critical Thinking, Decision-Making, Delegation, Drive, Ethics, Influence, Initiative, Learning Orientation, Mentorship, Problem-Solving, Relationship-Management, Technical Competencies, and Vision.
As a second phase of the study, 1,297 engineers were recruited to an online survey, and 962 participants completed the survey (Males = 641: Females = 274: No gender response = 47). Most participants were White (70%), and the rest were Hispanic (16.9%), Black (8.8%), Asian (5.4%), and others (6.6%). Around 74% of participants had a bachelor’s or higher educational degrees.
The importance of the final 18 competencies on a 7-point Likert scale for effective leadership in engineering were rated by survey participants. For the understanding of the 18 competencies, the definition of each competency based on literature was provided. As for the data preparation and analysis, we utilized pairwise deletion for the mean of the total 962 participants’ answers, which include no gender responses. Listwise deletion (without the answers of no gender responses) was utilized to examine gender difference (Males = 617 and Females = 269). For the data analysis, we conducted a descriptive analysis to show the overall trends between males and females regarding leadership competencies means. Then the t-test was conducted at a p < .05 level of significance to check the mean difference.
From the descriptive analysis, coordination and decision-making were high for the males, while critical thinking was for the females. Further, drive and influence were low for the males, while mentorship and technical competencies were low for the females. For both genders, communication, relationship-management, adaptiveness, and problem-solving were reported high while business acumen, creativity, and learning-orientation were rated low.
The results of the t-test showed that the mean differences were significant at p < .05 for Relationship-Management (male: 5.65, female: 5.88), Adaptiveness (male: 5.62, female: 5.82), Problem-Solving (male: 5.62, female: 5.80), Critical Thinking (male: 5.59, female: 5.81), and Initiation (male: 5.47, female: 5.55), and Communication (male: 5.81, female: 5.98) was significant at marginal levels (p = .052). Since most effect sizes were very small (d < 0.2) except Initiation (0.2< d < 0.5), most mean differences between the male and female engineers can be negligible despite significant p-values. Only initiation has a small effect size.
The results of this study showed that both genders thought interpersonal skills (Communication and Relationship-Management) were more important for effective leadership in the engineering workplace than technical skills (Adaptiveness, Problem-Solving, and Technical Competencies) or skills related to organization development (Business Acumen, Delegation, and Drive). Unclear definitions of the 18 competencies may contribute to the effect sizes of the t-test results which were small or very small. Thus, further study is needed to develop items for the 18 competencies to increase reliability and validity through systematic literature review and focus group discussion with content experts.