Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-264) and index.

This book explores a framework of skills and process as a means of maintaining leadership development. The author argues that engineering leadership is the result of the development of four fundamental concepts: personal managerial skills, self-leadership skills, operational leadership skills, and organizational leadership skills. Each of these concepts is explored in turn with examples taken from the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 to show the importance of these processes and skills and highlight what can potentially happen when they are ignored. The book also introduces the Capability Maturity Model which provides organizations with appropriate processes and knowledge guidelines to ensure effective leadership to avoid such disasters. -- Edited summary from book.