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




Construction Benchmarks, Trends, Forecasts, and Predictions
Two of the most highly leveraged choices that leaders of contractors make are about market strategy and major resource allocations. Robust information systems about the external market are a critical part of this decision-making process.
The Truth About Leading Change
Few things are more important for a growing contractor than leadership and management being effective in how they make decisions about change, communicate those decisions, and help their teams navigate the process.
Cranes and a Construction Business
There is a lot of intentionality around all aspects of every crane lift, including systems for double-checking and approvals. There is far less intentionality around the business equivalents for contractors and that dramatically impacts performance.