Establishing a Protocol to Observe Leadership Behaviors Within Engineering Design Teams

The purpose of this study is to establish a protocol capable of identifying functional leadership behaviors in engineering design teams. The protocol is developed from a literature review that includes general leadership theory and research performed on collaborative design teams. Three different raters applied the leadership protocol to a video recording of a graduate student team performing a function structure modeling activity. The results of the study demonstrate that the protocol has a high amount of intra-rater agreement and an acceptable level of interrater reliability. Additionally, the pilot study revealed that clarification and refinement of the protocol with respect to leader/follower behaviors can improve rater agreement. Finally, changes to the protocol are proposed to map leadership behaviors to the design space the team is working in and the design activities that the team is performing.