Leadership On The Line Summary

Using the lessons and framework from the book Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading I will explain how it has contributed to my understanding of Leadership and draw parallels to how it applies to my work as the Deputy Flight Chief of Engineering for the Utah Test and Training Range or in my previous position as the Chief Engineer of the Surveillance and Reconnaissance Division at the Naval Surface Warfare Center: Crane. The first chapter Heart of Danger explains that being the leader is dangerous. As an engineer there is an overwhelming bias against shifting into a management position as the added headaches aren’t balanced with the reduction in technical workload and the slight pay raise. The first key takeaway

While leading the efforts to revise the Systems Engineering Plan, I wish I knew of the four patterns that rise up to counter the efforts. The first effort I faced was being marginalized by the Department Chief Engineer. Originally this task was his but he failed to develop a workable solution and I inherited the task when he was promoted. He led efforts to marginalize and minimize my efforts. The second effort was being diverted. Unfortunately I did this to myself. The completion of the System’s Engineering Plan was important but it was not the only instruction that needed to be developed or revised. I worked with a team of folks and aggressively broaden the scope of the effort by tackling the revisions of the Division’s Quality Plan, Configuration Management Plan, Training Plan, and Program Management Plan first. I felt that this approach was more comprehensive and had more merit but in the end it looked like I diverted myself from the primary task at hand. The third face were the attacks. The department Chief Engineer openly and unabashedly attacked the Division Chief Engineers and our qualifications as we did not report to him but he felt that our loyalties should align to him. I worked to transfer his prior failure to complete this task to me as I was assisting with the document in order to extend the time schedule and he further argued that I was not qualified due to my age not because of my education or experience which did qualify me. The final face was seduction. The position of Chief Engineer afforded me nearly unlimited opportunities to develop new and exciting projects and forge new partnerships to complete them. These engineering efforts seemed more important than the completion of a single document especially since we had been operating without it for