Engaging leaders from students’ perspective and the impact of professors as role models

Abstract

Preparing students for the labour market is an essential part of education, and academic personnel usually influence this process. Students’ experiences with leading figures, like supervisors and other professors, can affect their expectations about future leaders. For this reason, our research aims to assess students’ beliefs and expectations and make suggestions for higher education representatives who can serve as a leadership model for them. We conducted focus group interviews mostly with engineering students at a Hungarian technical university in spring 2022. Thirty students participated in our research and were assigned to the focus groups according to their work experiences. After coding interviews, we categorized their answers into three groups: leadership qualities and professional and social expectations. According to them, a leader must be competent, socially active, and have a good personality. His or her behaviour must reflect these qualities to be engaging and a good role model. Our results showed that school and university experiences are a critical starting point and reference when students formulate their expectations towards future leaders. Therefore, it is important to raise professors’ awareness about their leadership roles and develop their leadership skills to be good role models for young people. In our study, we discuss leadership requirements and suggest developmental methods, respectively, to the university’s characteristics. In addition, we recommend integrating leadership development programs into engineering education, from which both professors and students could benefit.