I found this interesting article recently. For many in the construction industry, empathy does not come naturally as construction leaders are often driven by tangible results such as black and white items such as schedule, KPIs (key performance indicators), safety metrics and overall performance of the employees using these metrics on a day-to-day basis. Oftentimes, the construction industry workforce is comprised of shorter-term employees and not ones that spend enough time in an organization to be engrained in the "culture" that is supported corporately.
Although empathy may be demonstrated by the CEO, Executive Vice Presidents and department managers, this quality is often not driven down to the project level in the site leadership. Site leaders are generally focused on the items mentioned above as a measurement of their success. They are managing the day-to-day activities and tasks on the project and not necessarily on building supportive, empathetic teams that can improve performance. often, leaders "react" to specific situations and aim to correct them at the moment. Construction projects and leadership are reactionary.
As a leader, take the time to practice empathy in your decision-making processes. Empower your leadership team to do the same. For many, this will not be natural and you will need to step out of your "comfort zone" but the results, in time, will be seen in the overall performance of not only the leaders within your project team but also amongst the people performing the work, at the tools level.
Next time that you find yourself in a "coaching moment" with an employee, take a few seconds and ask yourself "If I was ____ how would I feel about this conversation? How would I want my manager to speak to me about this concern? How would I want to be spoken to in order to gain the resolve that I am seeking with respect to my performance?"
The culture of a project is driven by the leadership of the project team and being an empathetic leader will lead to better overall performance by all project contributors.
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