Dennis W. Hess, Thomas C. DeLoach Jr. Professor Emeritus, Georgia Tech's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
"Building Blocks for Leadership and Career Development"
When technically trained individuals undertake a leadership role, frustration and anxiety are frequent outcomes despite technical competency and good intentions. This situation largely occurs because our technical education and training have developed within us a mindset wherein we approach problems in a particular way that is based solely on logic, facts, and data. People are not facts or data, and in many cases, their approach to problems does not appear logical. The leader must recognize that decisions, even by engineers or scientists, may be driven by biases, priorities, emotions, and previous experiences; the complex interplay of personal attitudes with technical issues has been referred to as sociotechnical problems. Career advancement involves similar issues wherein interactions with bosses, peers, and subordinates are critical factors in success. This seminar will discuss reasons why engineers and scientists often find evolution into leadership roles frustrating and management of career advancement puzzling. Approaches that facilitate the transition from a purely technical mindset to a technical leader mindset will be described and related methods to promote career advancement discussed.
Bio:
Dennis W. Hess is the Thomas C. DeLoach Jr. Emeritus Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests include thin films, surfaces, interfaces, and plasma processing. He has a B.S. in Chemistry (Albright College), and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Physical Chemistry (Lehigh University). After four years at Fairchild Semiconductor, he served on the faculty in Chemical Engineering at the University of California Berkeley (1977-1991), Lehigh University (1991-1996), and the Georgia Institute of Technology (1996-2020). At Berkeley, he served as Assistant Dean in the College of Chemistry and Vice Chair in ChE, and at Lehigh he served as Department Chair. He was Associate Editor of ACS Chemistry of Materials from 1988-1996, Editor-in Chief of ECS Electrochemical and Solid State Letters from 2004-2012, and Editor-in-Chief of ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology from 2012 to 2018. He is past President of The Electrochemical Society (1996-97 term). He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the Electrochemical Society. He developed and offers courses and workshops in technical leadership and published Leadership by Engineers and Scientists through Wiley and AIChE in 2018. He served as AIChE Management Division Director 2020-2022.