Leadership in the Professional Development of Engineers from South America

Abstract

Leadership should be conceived as a natural process that becomes visible within organizations where interactions among individuals occur organically. Culture is one of the factors that influences the understanding and practice of leadership, hence the importance of promoting a culture of leadership since engineering school. The development of leaders should be embedded as a curricular component within the educational system, as leadership constitutes part of the social fabric and depends on various constructs that shape cultural systems. Hence, this research aims to develop a model that defines leadership in the professional development of engineers in South America. Results propose curricular strategies for training engineering students. This study proposes a quantitative, explanatory research design. A non-probabilistic sampling method was used with data from 15 organizations in two South American countries. The sample comprised 234 participants. Findings highlight that most engineers self-identified with transformational leadership styles. No statistically significant differences were found in transformational leadership when it was analyzed by engineering discipline or gender. However, the hierarchical level did present a significant distinction. Regarding transactional leadership, the data indicated meaningful differences across disciplines, particularly in agriculture and civil engineering, where higher mean scores were observed for transactional leadership-related items. Finally, the analysis revealed that transformational leadership contributes significantly to extra effort, and contributes to effectiveness and satisfaction. In contrast, transactional leadership did not show statistically significant contributions to any of the outcome constructs.