Leadership in the Management of Construction

Over the years, management fads have come and gone. Some have been good; some, not so good. None have made major impacts on the construction sector of the economy. Total Quality Management, Deming's 14 Points, and Partnering are a few such approaches that are aimed at making the business of construction a more pleasant and less adversarial business. All of these construction management approaches allude to, but skirt explicit address of, the fundamental element of construction management that is essential to achieving the goals in construction. That fundamental element is leadership. Following basic principles of leadership can eliminate the adversarial nature of the business. Those principles can make the project team a real team filled with emotional intelligence. Moreover, if the leadership starts with the owner, following the principles allow the adoption of new technologies that can make the construction process more successful to all stakeholders in the project process. This paper develops the principles of leadership in construction management, discusses how to apply these principles in a project setting, and discusses how the adoption of technologies is made easier by the application of these principles. This paper involves a case-study project in which these principles were applied, new technologies adopted, and all goals met or exceeded.