Core Elements of Engineering Leadership Education: From the Perspective of Modern Organization Theory

Based on modern organization theory, this paper proposes a framework of core elements for the implementation of engineering leadership education to explore how different types of education programs could achieve the common goal of developing engineering leadership. Three elements of organization subject, organization goal and organization environment, are extracted through theoretical analysis, and in combination with practical cases, they are mapped respectively to the design of education object, education model, education goal, education content and education environment to reveal the conditions and mechanisms for their successful application in engineering leadership education. It is suggested that team-based learning should be carried out to enable students to form organizations and experience the process of leadership by assigning the roles of the leading subject and object. Modular teaching should be used to help to focus on learning topics, and to play the leading role of organization goals. In addition, it is essential to develop the education programs on real-world problems and take multi-disciplinary engineering environment as the organization environmentto develop students' composite ability of engineering leadership.