Modern businesses, big and small, operate in an environment where Industry 4.0 technology, sustainability, and innovation are crucial for success. Integration of these three elements creates opportunities for technical leaders to help businesses navigate this complexity by playing a crucial role in decisions. To make effective decisions, leaders with high IQ, EQ, and AI competencies are needed both on teams and in management roles.

The main goal of this seminar is to share evidence-based approaches to accelerate the leadership development of modern technical managers.

During the 20th century, many general leadership theories were developed and studied, including the Great Man theory, Trait theory, Transactional, and Transformational leadership theory.  These leadership and associated management theories evolved to be more inclusive and adaptive to meet the demands of the 20^th century industrial revolutions and society.  As society became more complex so did leadership.

To help address growing complexity, a key step in leadership theory was the transition from personal traits to learned competency-based models. Competencies are observable behaviors that lead to effectiveness in the workplace and include social and emotional (EQ), and cognitive skills and knowledge (IQ).  Yet, as technology pushed on, society and the business world became even more complicated.

The 21st century brought the fourth industrial revolution and the need for expanded leadership theories and competencies that incorporated Industry 4.0 technologies, such as data science and  artificial intelligence (AI).  This inclusion of technology into leadership training also brought forth the importance of technical experts as leaders, ones that need to integrate IQ, EQ, and AI to be effective.

Join RCEL and register to attend and enjoy refreshments, along with an opportunity for networking and discussion following this insightful seminar on developing your leadership skills for new technology applications.

Leading Engineering and Technology Innovation in the Digital Revolution Series

This seminar is part of the continuing series from Rice University Leading Engineering and Technology Innovation in the Digital Revolution. Two additional seminars and a networking event are planned for Fall 2024.

The series is designed to expose engineers at corporations and scaling startups to skills needed to lead engineering without leaving engineering. It is brought to you by Rice University’s engineering faculty in collaboration with Ion. Rice faculty will provide introductions to concepts to help engineers take leadership roles in producing the best products and services for the market.

About the Speaker

Steve Gomez is a professor in the practice in the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership at Rice University.  He teaches engineering leadership and management courses in the School of Engineering and the School of Sciences. His research interests include the acceleration of expert leadership in engineering contexts.

In addition to teaching and research, Steve has over 20 years of product and people management experience in the energy industry, where one his designs generated over $1 Billion dollars in revenue and several of his mentees have become industry leaders. He is a strong advocate for K-12 STEM education with recognition from the White House and is on the Board of Collaborative for Children.  He is also an expert in program and digital project management consulting, recently leading a Houston-based nonprofit to land a $140 million dollar contract for modern head start services.

He married his high school debate partner, now a prominent Houston attorney and together have raised two children. He played baseball in college and third base on his High School two-time state champion team. He holds a B.S and M.S. in mechanical engineering from M.I.T and Stanford University, respectively  and is completing his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania.