The Risks of Vision and Strong Leadership

The strongest leaders at all levels in construction have a clear vision of where they are headed and are relentlessly focused on achieving their goals. They align their teams tightly around the vision, goals, and strategy. This may introduce risks.

D. Brown Management Profile Picture
Share

 

Leadership Tools: Tunnel Vision and Strong Leadership equals Failure. Example: The 1978 United Flight 173.

This is absolutely the leadership required to bring a project out of the ground, set up a new department such as prefab, enter a new market, launch a new branch office or found a contracting business.  

As a contractor grows the leadership styles must also adapt along with the entire team dynamics. The airline industry has learned this through many failures including United Flight 173.  

It would be too easy to blame the captain, but similar incidents had occurred in the past. Root Cause Analysis pointed to deeper cultural and training issues. There hasn’t be an incident like this since.  

Our mission is to help contractors build stronger businesses for the next generation. We spend a significant amount of our time helping prepare leadership teams for succession and have learned many lessons along the way.  

Every failed succession we have seen has been a failure of talent not being properly aligned and not a failure of available capital or deal structure.  

Learn more




Cash Flow and the 5Cs of Credit - Capacity
The 3rd of the 5Cs of Credit is how much capacity your business has to profitably build the projects, ensuring payback of the loan or minimal risk in the case of insurance or bonding.
Doing What You Don't Want to Do
It is natural for all of us to focus on our strengths and the things we love to do. Things we love to do are usually things that we are good at doing; our strengths. None of us were born with great business acumen or technical competency.
Prepare Your Business - People
Your people are your business. This is especially true for contractors where nearly 100% of competitive differentiators are the experience of your people. Now we are faced with lots of unknowns and yet we must act decisively.