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Dr Bigg, Chartered Engineer, PhD, Leader with 25 years experience talks about her career.

Skills

Dr Bigg. You are a highly skilled and accomplished Leader, scientist and Engineer. What would you tell a young engineer aspiring to a successful career?

 I have never had a job that did not impart a new skill to me.

Cleaning toilets, flipping burgers, cold calling. I have done all of these jobs while working my way through university.

I have studied long enough hard enough and diligently enough to obtain a degree, a PhD, and two further university certificates.

I have gained sufficient competencies as an engineer to become a chartered engineer, and to be accepted as a member of the Institute of chemical engineers.

I have excelled in my field of process engineering sufficiently to be awarded the IChemE water award.

I have published peer reviewed papers and been honoured to have had articles and leadership pieces that I have written published.

I’ve appeared in Podcasts and I have mentored And lead the most amazing talented individuals, both one-to-one and in teams.

Together, we have achieved countless successes of which I am very proud.

Sometimes it surprises people to know of the large number of menial jobs that I have done. Although I know, no other way of keeping myself fed and housed in order to obtain the education, and arrive at my career.

And each of these jobs having themselves given a new skill to me. Fast food requires a great deal of teamwork and personal coordination. It requires you to work with both hands independently to get more done. I also learned about business management, food hygiene, and personal motivation.

Largely it has been the people I’ve worked with that I have gained the most from in the many different jobs. I have applied myself to.

It may be, this is where people skills are truly gained, not in your academic studies, not in your engineering or hard skills competency, not in the awards and accolades and publications, but in the relationships you build with people. It is application of these, I believe, that makes you a leader.

You have been where your team have been, and you are happy to be there again. you can lead By example. you can step in, muck in, do the job. It isn’t just having the qualifications, the experience, the attitude, the ability it is being prepared to give of yourself to use your learning, share it.

I’m not interested in having a manager whose skill is managing. I respect a manager who has put in the graft and respect that I have put in the graft.

Values

It is tempting at the beginning of a career to do anything to get on. It’s tempting to compromise your values in order to please. On the one hand, it is important to maintain your valus, to stick to your principles. But you are very young and you are growing, and you are developing as a person. One of the things you will do is develop your values and principles further. You will learn  which of your values and principles are nonnegotiable, and where the hard wall is. Which of your values and to what extent are you not prepared to bend?. And that will tell you a lot about yourself, and that will tell you who you are.

So you must stick to those values at the end of the day you have to live with yourself. So a lot about your career will teach you your values your principles, what’s important to you. It will test those values and principles will grow and develop and mature as a person in terms of those values and principles and you will learn which of them are truly meaningful to you. And this is all good. as a chartered member of a professional institution Ethical behaviour is paramount. And as a professional in individual, ethical behaviour is paramount. So I say, discover your principles and values, your moral compass, and absolutely never do something that goes against it. In the short term, you might find yourself losing out, as it might seem at that time. In the long term, you will have a career you are proud of.