FROM HARD HATS TO HIGH RISKS

There's no shortage of leadership books out there covering various occupations and fields, but finding a guide specifically tailored to the construction industry can be a challenge. In the construction field, valuable leadership lessons often come from real-world experiences and the guidance of knowledgeable mentors.

Unfortunately, when issues arise with the people you're responsible for, you may find yourself without much support. 

Too often, leadership in construction is based on factors like work experience, education, or connections, rather than genuine leadership qualities. If you're reading this, chances are you're already in a leadership role. The aim of this book is to shed light on the soft skills and traits necessary for success in construction leadership, as well as the abilities needed to develop strong, healthy, and valuable relationships.

The aim of this book is to offer you a straightforward and easily accessible playbook, empowering you to feel confident and uplift those around you, even when you lack other resources.

Charles had a strong start; he seemed like a real go-getter at first. However, as time wore on and the cracks started to show, I realized that Charles was not the version of himself that he had portrayed in the beginning. 

My relationship with Charles was short, lasting only a few months, and took some turns that I did not see coming. Frequently in ironwork, you will find yourself working with quirky people. Charles was quirky—his interests held him back from fully meshing with the rest of the crew, and over time it became apparent that his construction experience wasn’t exactly what he had let on. 

I have worked with many people who have spent a great deal of time in prison, and often you will find that their internal timeline does not match. Charles seemed to have spent a long time as a high-level drug dealer and exotic animal connoisseur, a long time in prison, and a long time doing ironwork. However, Charles was not old enough to have done those things sequentially, and the mix of activities does not work in parallel. 

Charles was the type of guy who put on a good show when the boss was around, but when you were away, he was a real problem. He also had a bad habit of claiming he was capable of something that he was not and then trying to wing it. When questioned afterwards, he would then have a plethora of excuses about why things didn’t work, such as “that’s not how we did it at x place, on y job” or “the tools you guys use are junk”. 

I started to keep a closer eye on Charles when I came back from picking up some materials and he was gone. He had decided my absence was a good time to take an impromptu break for an indiscernible amount of time, leaving the rest of the crew to work on their own. Many tasks in ironwork require multiple people to be safe. You have to be able to rely on your teammates so that everyone can go home safely. It’s pretty hard to rely on someone who isn’t there, so you can see the problem here. 

Another issue you’ll run into in ironwork is the labor pool—there simply aren’t very many people who want to do this job. So during certain years, a less than desirable employee will get more opportunities to correct their behavior than they should. Charles landed in one of these years. 

My response to Charles leaving the site was a stern talking-to, explaining that the entire team relies on each other. Following this, I only assigned Charles to the same tasks as the most senior team member I had. This was a mistake. 

Our relationship took another turn when I once again had to leave the site. Before leaving, I assigned Charles and my most senior team member the task of welding deck. I asked if Charles had ever welded deck before, and he told me he had. I had been working with Charles for a while, so I decided to give a demonstration of deck welding before I left, confident that nothing could go wrong. 

Upon returning, I walked through the jobsite and under the area where Charles had been welding deck—it looked like the roof of a Rolls Royce Phantom with the Starlight Headliner option. Charles had burnt holes through the deck and the bar joist below in every spot that he had tried to weld while I was gone. 

I called Charles down to where I was and pointed out that this was unacceptable. Charles lost it; he let loose on me. He claimed I hadn’t trained him well enough, the employee I assigned him to didn’t help him, and he had explained to me he wasn’t qualified to do this task. All of these were lies, but the real test of leadership was yet to come. 

Charles informed me that he was going to ‘beat my ass’ and then ‘beat the fuck out of <the employee I had assigned to work with him>’. 

As a man, in the trades, or in any position where you have to convince other men to do the things you ask, I firmly believe that you have a higher chance of finding yourself in this position. The way you handle it can either be a testament to your leadership skills or a stain on your resume. Here we’ll walk through how I handled it and how I would approach it now: