HPCwire: Technology Leadership Begins With the Individual

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August 04, 2006

Technology Leadership Begins With the Individual

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Leadership is not one of the traits most often associated with the typical scientist or engineer. We expect technology professionals to have a firm grasp on the hard sciences, while leadership skills are often considered expendable. But a lack of leadership can create a vacuum in technology organizations. So says John E. West, who directs the Major Shared Resource Center at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center. West has written a book on this subject called "The Only Trait of a Leader, a field guide to success for new scientists, engineers and technologists" (http://onlytraitofaleader.com/book) and maintains a related blog site (http://onlytraitofaleader.com).

West, who was selected by HPCwire as one of "People to Watch" for 2006, is spreading the word about the importance of cultivating leadership skills throughout organizations. We recently interviewed him about his book and why he believes these skills are so necessary for those in the technology fields.

HPCwire: What was your motivation in writing the book, "The Only Trait of a Leader?"

West: At the most basic level I wanted to address the individual gap in education and training that technology professionals face in trying to move from school to a career. The education that we get in school is mostly technical. This is starting to change at a handful of schools, but most science, engineering and technical majors finish with only perfunctory general education classes in writing and speaking.

Yet these are bedrock skills for any technology professional and it can take years of training and practice to develop competent performance in them. Virtually no time is spent learning about making good career decisions, managing teams, leadership or seeing the broader business and social context of your contributions. As a result most careers are filled with lots of unpleasant surprises and crisis-learning as people are suddenly thrown into situations for which they are completely unprepared.

So the first thing I wanted to do was just spend some time trying to tell other people the things I had learned and save them some pain. Even if they don't begin mastering the skills they'll need after they read the book or the blog, at least they will have been exposed to the issues and have some conscious awareness of how to move forward when they do find themselves in a crisis-learning experience.

My second goal is a lot bigger. The technologies that engineers and scientists create solve problems for people. You can think all the way back to the wheel and then move forward to cars, airplanes, CAT scanners, computers, cell phones, light bulbs and thousands of other ideas. We scientists and engineers create technology that changes the way people live, that (hopefully) increases our quality of life, and that catalyzes further social development. Yet most of us are never in a situation that causes us to stop and think about the larger context in which our individual contributions fit. I want to provide that opportunity to as many people as I can. I believe that in understanding that our role as technologists is important, we can get people to be more excited about whatever they are doing and to be more serious about doing it "on purpose." If you are excited about what you are doing, you'll tell others; and we certainly need more technical professionals. You'll also likely try to do it better, which is ultimately of benefit to everyone.

HPCwire: Let's get right to the central theme. What is the only trait of a leader?

West: Followers.

The point is that with all this power to shape the future of society in the things we create and in the ways in which we create them comes a responsibility to think about the big picture, at least sometimes. This can be an overwhelming message, and our tendency would be to say "That's all well and good, but there's nothing that I can do about it. That's for the CEO to worry about, not me. I'm just a cog in the corporate machine."

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