Top 12 Personality Traits of Ultra-Successful Engineers

Most of us are familiar with the common technical and management skills an engineer should acquire. So in this article, let us focus only on the people-related skills that are mostly developed throughout our lives.

Ultra-Successful Engineers Commonly Share These Top 12 Personality Traits

1. Trustworthy

This is one of the personality traits built over time with the organization's members, including your boss and team members. If the organization is built by trust, then projects will most likely have a positive outcome because the team members work better together. It is also one of the most common causes of disputes in a team, which leads to people leaving or even betraying each other.

2. Honest / Speaking the Truth

As an engineer, you should be honest even if the situation will not favor you, even if it is painful to deal and even if it contradicts the organization's needs, desires, beliefs, and intentions. This is one of the key personality traits and the most basic job of a good engineer. Projects tend to fail with dishonesty as the problems that arise may not be addressed properly.

3. Clear Communication Skills

Engineers deal with a lot of people, including those who are in the organization and the clients. It is vital to have clear communication skills as it is needed to explain instructions and present solutions and problems to both the clients and the team members. Without clear communication, the possibility of failing a project is very high. This involves both written and oral communication. It is also important to provide information in detailed, clear, and concise language that people would understand. This is one of the personality traits that engineers can actively work on improving over time.

4. Team Player / Good Working Relationships / Teamwork

No one can finish a project by themselves alone. You need team members to work on it to make it a success. Becoming the head of the project, one must be able to encourage, empower, and improve team members. It also includes acting as a role model to everyone, including the bosses. This is done by doing well in the leadership role, using the resources of the company effectively and spending the budgets wisely, keeping the necessary people well informed involving budget reviews and milestones, communicating well with everyone in the organization, supporting the people around you and presenting an accurate message with your bosses and clients. This is the number one personality trait that will contribute to your success as you go from being an engineer to a manager.

5. Open-Minded / Seeing the Big Picture

One of the top personality traits of a true leader is his or her outlook toward life. An engineer must not just focus on the small problems or immediate needs; it is important to see the big picture, like how the project is going to impact the organization in terms of manufacturing, facilities, the use of components, budgets, use of currently available products and resources, and the earnings that will be brought to the company. Part of this is presenting project plans and schedule forecasting for manufacturing. This is why it is important to have an open mind in cases of adjustments and changes in the project plans.

6. Thinking Ahead / Being Ready for the Unexpected

This is one of the personality traits that separate a few from many. It is important for an engineer to think ahead and identify the possible problems that might arise so that when it happens, it would be easier for the issue to be addressed. One must be able also to see and take advantage of the opportunities that come in. Thinking about the long-term effect of it and how it can benefit the company. If you always think about more than one solution, then if the first fails, you’ll be ready to implement the second.

7. Effectively Managing Risks

Project plans are not always perfect; problems may arise anytime, and something could go wrong. This involves the steps you have foreseen and didn’t anticipate. One of the rare personality traits of a successful engineer is to effectively manage these risks and prevent them from happening again. Building a team of experts who have complementary skills will be quite helpful.

8. Setting Realistic yet Challenging Goals

It is normal for one person to impress everyone especially if you have plans of gaining a higher position, but developing plans that are too ambitious to achieve will not make it any better. Projects like that would eventually result in poor or incomplete results. It’s something that will not benefit both the company or the engineer. Projects’ goals must be specific, achievable, and detailed while being challenging enough to encourage and push team members to pursue them. It must also be measurable, attainable, tangible, and following a time frame.

9. Minimizing Complexity

It takes time to familiarize someone with the complexities of a project as they differ from each other. One must understand thoroughly the plans, schedules, and budgets that will be part of the project, as well as the risks involved in it. A great engineer will be able to explain a task, project, or set of goals in simple terms so that it can be understood smoothly. This is one of the personality traits that are tough to have as our work becomes more complicated.

10. Assuming / Taking Ownership / Taking Action

Assumptions are always part of every plan; an example is assuming the number of new products that will be sold (forecasting), profitability, competitor’s action, availability of products, and the demands of the products. Also, there are times that you are on your own, running out of time, and must make a decision; you must take control of the situation and take action to stop a disaster from happening. What will you do? This is one of the personality traits that are tough to find, but when found, it is invested heavily.

11. Team Building Characteristics

This is one of the most crucial personality traits if you aim to continue your career in a leadership or management position. As every part of the team will play an important role in every project and most team members require guidance and a direction to be given to. It is vital that the team leader knows the strengths and weaknesses of each member to maximize their roles in a project and to improve those weaknesses over time, hence building a stronger team.

12. Knowledge Utilization

Knowledge is power, but it is not always what you know, it’s how you use it, which makes this one of the personality traits that are extremely hard to master. Although most engineers within the same discipline share the same knowledge, not everyone uses that knowledge in the same way. This is primarily because it’s a special skill to organize and implement our thoughts properly. This is a huge advantage during the planning and execution process of every project as one can share information that can be vital in ensuring that a project will succeed.