Systems Engineer: the ultimate phronetic leader?

Abstract

Leadership is charged with the expectation of providing guidance to decision making under conditions of uncertainty, incomplete information and high complexity; to that end, wisdom is needed. The pertinence of wisdom to leadership has been outlined by ancient philosophers (Aristotle “phronesis”, Thomas Aquina “prudentia”), and continues to be the subject of study today. This has resulted in the identification of the traits that, mainly, characterize wise leaders. The purpose of benefiting humankind is a deep rooted trait of engineering. This trait, conjoined with the fast growing interdependence between technological and societal issues, increasingly forces Engineering to deal with problems that exceed its traditional (technical) boundaries. As a consequence, engineers have to perform, ever more frequently, a decision making of the unstructured kind, that requires wise judgment. When comparing the traits of wise leaders with those deemed as characteristic of Engineering Leaders, and with those traditionally considered typical of effective Systems Engineers, a large overlapping becomes apparent. Thus Systems Engineering appears to be in a vantage position to respond to the demand of phronetic leadership. The Systems Approach, and its inherent Systems Thinking, can be reasonably seen as a solid foundations for an Engineering Leadership able to help mankind in meeting its present and future needs.