A survey-based tool for engineering leaders to assess and reflect on their capabilities
A way to gauge where you are in your life as an engineering leader and means of discovering what you would like to improve. This is not an ‘assessment’ or a ‘benchmarking’ tool to be used as a comparison to others. The intention is to provoke curiosity, dialogue, and reflection in order to make a more significant and meaningful impact as an engineering leader.
The following question statements are intended to draw out our strengths and weaknesses relative to our highest aspirations.
This quadrant focuses on the internal, subjective experiences of an engineering leader, including thoughts, feelings, and personal beliefs. This quadrant encourages leaders to reflect on their leadership philosophy and emotional intelligence, their ethics and integrity. By reflecting on and cultivating self-awareness, leaders can improve their sensemaking, make better decisions, improve their relationships and how they support their teams.
- Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence
- Personal Growth and Learning
- Resilience and Adaptability
- Personal Values and Leadership Philosophy
The Skills and Behaviours quadrant examines observable behaviours and measurable competencies, emphasising the importance of technical and observable leadership skills in achieving organisational goals. For engineering leaders, this perspective explores one’s depth of experience in bringing about tangible outcomes and achievements.
- Technical Leadership
- Problem Solving and Decision Making
- Communication and Influence
- Performance and Delivery
The Culture and Interpersonal quadrant addresses social dynamics and relationships within teams and organisations. Engineering leaders play a pivotal role in shaping a psychologically safe environment that fosters collaboration, trust, and open communication. By understanding interpersonal relationships and team cohesion, leaders can cultivate a healthy and generative engineering environment where individuals feel valued and empowered to make their deepest contributions.
- Psychological Safety and Trust
- Team Dynamics and Contribution
- Empathy and Understanding
- Motivation and Engagement
The Organisational and Strategic quadrant focuses on the external structures and systems that influence organisational and team effectiveness. For engineering leaders, this perspective underscores the importance of strategic thinking, systems thinking, and navigating organisational politics. Leaders must align the engineering capacity with broader business objectives and effectively manage resources to optimise performance. By understanding the organisational context and fostering strategic partnerships, engineering leaders can cultivate a healthy and generative engineering environment where individuals feel valued and empowered to make their deepest contributions.
- Systems Thinking and Organisational Dynamics
- Strategic Thinking and Alignment
- Process Optimisation and Efficiency
- Uncertainty and Organisational Change
Respondents are asked to score themselves on each capability according to their confidence or competency levels:
| Score | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | No capability, awareness or experience. |
| 1 | Some capability or awareness, but may need external advice or support. |
| 2 | Adequate capability or awareness, improving with experience. |
| 3 | Confident in my capability or awareness and able to apply this to work situations where appropriate. |
| 4 | Strong capability or awareness, and confidence in offering ad-hoc guidance to others. |
| 5 | Comprehensive capability or awareness. Experience in formally coaching/mentoring others in this area. |
People in engineering leadership roles from Tech Leads and Principals, to Engineering Managers and Heads of Engineering, to Engineering VPs, Directors and CTOs.
Also for individual contributor engineers who are aspiring to take on leadership roles.
The survey questions are intended for self-reflection, but may also be used to form the basis of 1:1 dialogues with line managers or external specialists in coaching or personal development.
Leadership in Software Engineering encompasses the responsibilities and challenges inherent in any field, compounded by the intricacies of a highly complex and rapidly evolving technical domain. The maturity of an engineering leader is demonstrated through their ability to develop and integrate a range of capabilities, adopting a holistic approach to the diverse situations they will encounter.
An engineering leader’s capabilities can be categorised into four distinct dimensions.
The ability to critically assess and articulate our thoughts and emotions, and understand their impact on our behaviour and interactions with others.
The leader’s track record and experiences of applying their skills to achieve discernable outcomes. Observable actions in the objective external world.
The leader’s interpersonal sophistication and their approach to cultivating thriving engineering environments and high-performing teams. The shared intersubjective experience of culture.
The leader’s understanding of organisational structures, processes, and systems, strategic thinking and execution. The world of organisational politics and commercial considerations.
These four dimensions align with the Four Quadrant Model of Integral Theory, a comprehensive framework rooted in psychological development theory and complexity science. Integral Theory seeks to integrate diverse perspectives on human consciousness, behaviour, and culture, positing that reality can be understood through four interconnected quadrants relating to the developmental stages of individuals, organisations, and societies.
This model provides a more holistic understanding of human experience and development, applicable to fields ranging from psychology and sociology to business, science, technology, and spirituality.
This Four Quadrant integral approach will be used to help engineering leaders assess and reflect on their own level of development while providing insights into where there are opportunities for further development. It will also help them cultivate a comprehensive, nuanced, and emergent view of complex issues and phenomena, enabling them to be more effective in navigating the multifaceted challenges of software engineering leadership.
- I - Subjective: Internal thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and personal experience
- It - Objective: External, measurable skills and achievements
- We - Intersubjective: Collective, social, teams, culture and shared experience
- Its - Interobjective: Organisational, structural, systems and strategy
Comments and contributions are welcome. See Contributing for details.
The materials herein are all © Human-Centric Engineering.
This work is licensed under a GNU General Public License v3.0.
The survey questions may be used within the conditions of the License and it is requested that Human-Centric Engineering is credited for authorship.