Chapter 3
Motivating and Leading Technical People
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
3-1. Q: From among the leadership traits suggested in the text and other sources, plus your own
ideas, identify and defend your view of the most important half dozen traits needed by the
engineering manager.
3-2 Q: Describe a manager you have known and characterize his or her leadership style.
3-3. Q: From your analysis of the findings of Harris (Table 7-1), why do you think engineers look for
different qualities in their managers as they (the engineers) grow in experience?
A: As engineers become more experienced they appear to value integrity in their managers more
and more (perhaps from sad experience), but see less need in unusual mental capacity in them.
3-4. Q: Provide an example of the application of Hersey and Blanchard life-cycle theory to
engineering practice.
A: Students have cited the process of teaching a young engineer the skills peculiar to his or her
3-5. Q: Tannenbaum and Schmidt assume that a manager can choose among alternative leadership
styles rather than being confined to a single “inborn” style. Do you agree? Discuss.
A: The majority of students seem to believe a good manager can switch his or her leadership
3.6. Q: Would you regard engineers in an “applied” field such as production management as being
any more or less “professional” than a research scientist? Explain your viewpoint.
3-7. Q: Raudsepp reported on the parameters that motivated engineers in different fields to accept a
position. How, in your view, might their motivations to perform effectively once they were in
that position differ?
A: Note that location, working conditions, and fringe benefits may have a significant effect on
3-8. Q: McCall’s observations on leading small professional groups was based largely on studies of
research scientists. Would you expect any difference in leading a group of design engineers? Of
production or industrial engineers?
A: Certainly design and production engineers, on average, will place less emphasis on autonomy
3-9. Q: Which of the 16 concepts of Utley and Westbrook (Table 7-6, ignoring Drucker) were you
familiar with before reading this book? Which do you now feel would be useful to you as an
engineering manager? Discuss why.
3.10 Q: Would you expect the factors motivating an engineer to change as he or she proceeds through
a career? In what ways? How can the engineering manager make use of these changes?
3-11. Q: Would you expect the factors motivating an engineer to change as he or she proceeds through
a career? In what ways? How can the engineering manager make use of these changes?
A: Many new technical graduates tend to be interested in opportunities for professional growth
3-12. Q: Typical student responses suggest that (1) the classic mass production worker, with little
choice about his or her job and little opportunity for self-expression would behave as a Theory X
worker. Certainly there are many plants where this is so, but also others where some level of
employee participation has been incorporated into the production environment. Other suggested
environments for Theory X treatment were (2) state highway department crews, (3) prisoners, (4)
psychiatric patients, and (5) mule teams.
3-13. Q: If you were structuring Maslow’s need hierarchy specifically for (a) scientists and (b)
engineers, would you do it any differently?
3-14 Q: Herzberg specifically classed salary as a hygiene factor, not a motivator. How would you
classify it? Discuss.
A: Certainly salary is a hygiene factor in the sense that employees who are not paid what they
3-15. Q: Job enrichment seeks to make work more meaningful and give employees more control over
their work. Discuss the negative response of many blue-collar production workers toward this
initiative. Why do you think workers have this attitude?
A: Most job enrichment programs are initiated by management, and unless labor-management
3-16. Q: Would you expect the need for affiliation among managers to be somewhat dependent on the
culture in which they grew up and/or work? If so, give an example.
A: Student examples reported that the need for affiliation (1) with subordinates was not felt by
3-17. Q: Provide another example of the validity of equity theory as a motivator of human
performance at work or elsewhere.
A: The examples in the text were the dissatisfaction of university faculty with their raises
3-18. Q: How might American management increase the “instrumentality” (performance-to-outcome
expectancy) of workers?
3-19. Q: If you employ Skinner’s positive reinforcement to encourage favorable behavior in
employees, should this be done after every instance of proper behavior? At regular intervals? At
increasing intervals?
A: One (Chinese) student quoted Yi-Jin from “an ancient Chinese classic on the principles of the