When must a contractor grow beyond being an entrepreneur and become a leader? What is the difference? What are the circumstances that require this evolution? Why does this need to happen? What are the consequences if this transformation does not take place?
The Entrepreneur
Most contracting concerns are privately owned businesses founded by an entrepreneur. Some are second and third generation construction companies that have evolved beyond the sole practitioner stage of the original founder. These founders were all energetic, independent, risk takers who set off on their own to build a business. They usually started small in one trade or another and either expanded into a large sub-contractor or into a general contractor who put teams of sub-contractors together to complete large more complex projects. Research has revealed that these entrepreneurs and company founders had one thing in common. They were all Type A personalities.
Type A Personality
Many contractors refer to themselves as Type A personalities. When they say this, they likely mean they are ambitious, organized, perfectionistic, and high achieving. Psychologists define Type A as characterized by ambition, competitiveness, drive, and urgency–a commitment to duty, attention to detail, love for practicality, independence, principled nature, and pursuit of stability and consistency. Industrial psychologists list the attributes found in most construction company CEOs as: Achievement-oriented, Competitive, Fast-paced, and Impatient.
These characteristics often exhibit the following behavior patterns:
- People with Type A behavior feel the need to win at everything, from work to relationships, even if the activities aren’t inherently competitive.
- Type A people tend to get their feelings of self-worth from what they achieve.
- Many Type A people try to show dominance in business and personal interactions, disregarding the wishes and needs of others in favor of their own.
- They tend to take on leadership roles where they can take control of the group and ensure that things are done the way they want them to be done.
Most agree that without these qualities it is unlikely that one could start and build a business in the highly complex and competitive construction industry. To this day, 99% of construction companies in the US are privately owned (often by the family of the original founder) and operated by Type A personalities.
As the World Turns
To start and build a construction business takes a Type A personality. There is no doubt about that. Our industry is too tough to compete in without the bluff and bluster of a true go-getter. But, as construction concerns grow to a certain size, the organization gradually handles the work, and the founder becomes the organization’s leader. Although this transformation may appear academic at first glance, research reveals that it is critical to a construction organization’s success over time. Once a contractor takes on multiple complex jobs across wider geography or partners with multiple subs to build ever complex structures, the founder must step away from day-to-day production and begin to guide, inspire, discipline, and preach an inclusive message to bind the organization into an organic whole. My research revealed that: founders who failed to grow into leaders failed as their company outgrew their entrepreneurial zeal.
The Leader
Entrepreneurs must become leaders when their company gets to a size where they need help to get the job done and achieve their goals. When they are still in founder/entrepreneur” mode they believe they can discipline, cajole, and badger their “help” into doing what they want them to do. But that kind of “boss” leadership can only work if all details of the work are still under their personal purview. Once the company grows beyond their ability to not only see but also to solve all problems that arise, they can no longer rely on their personal skills to complete all the tasks. They must let key members of their team oversee all the remote details of a complex construction company.
The very nature of the contractor’s function changes:
- They now must teach, motivate, and trust crafts people, foremen, supervisors, and project managers to complete tasks as they would complete them.
- They must leave accounting, estimating, and marketing to other team members.
- They must communicate their goals to all parts of the organization.
- They must motivate team members to accomplish a common goal.
- They also must discipline team members who refuse to cooperate.
- They must continuously guide all team members along the path to the goal.
- They also must track progress along this path to success.
- And finally, they must not fail to reward the entire team when their individual efforts achieve the common goal.
The person described above is a “boss” of a different sort. He or she is a leader.
Next week, “How to implement leadership”.
For more information on the evolution of founders to leaders, read more here: EVOLUTION
For a broader view on contractor’s characteristics, read more here: CHARACTERISTICS
To receive the free weekly Construction Messages, ask questions, or make comments contact me at research@simplarfoundation.org. Please circulate this widely. It will benefit your constituents. This research is continuous and includes new information weekly as it becomes available. Thank you.
