Culture, Leadership, and Communication in the Construction Environment - Article Example

Culture, Leadership, and Communication in the Construction Environment In construction people work in a hands-on environment. These individuals knowhow to use tools and assemble structures effectively. People of diverse backgrounds are grouped together by their skills in a variety of fields, such as electric work, carpentry, plumbing, and bricklaying—among many others—in order to accomplish a common goal by working together on complex projects. Because of the broad variety of workers and the diverse amount of activities that need to be coordinated in order to ensure a successful construction project, there are numerous behavioral implications that may be explored in the field’s culture, leadership of activities, and communication between individuals. Construction is different than many other industries, and it has its own unique culture. For many construction organizations, every project is different, and constructions workers often face strict time and budget restraints. Working with tools and heavy machinery under these high-pressure situations, it is easy to see how hazardous conditions can arise, so safety is an important issue and part of the construction culture. Following safety rules while working is not only procedural, but also serves as part of a behavioral culture that trickles down from higher-up members of an organization, and is adapted by all others in the working environment. Individuals that are more experienced generally exercise safety precautions without having to deliberately think about these procedures, and their actions influence less experienced workers that may observe these behaviors. Planning is the key to avoiding safety issues and the high-pressure situations that can increase safety risks. In organizations where the culture is one that encourages interaction between project directors, managers, and before and during the completion of construction projects, a higher level of safety is attained with fewer accidents (Levitt and Samelson 86). When safety has long been enforced and is an expected standard, the culture allows newer workers to quickly assimilate safety information. In this manner, the overall culture of the organization is influenced, and different construction organizations may be seen to have drastically different safety performances due to cultural differences in the workplace. At a construction site, the individual behaviors of workers will be influenced by the attitudes and behaviors of those in management as well as those with more experience, contributing to the overall culture of the working environment in many areas. Construction environments, like many workplaces, have a set of cultural norms that are nowhere written in policy that contribute to the overall culture (Colter 1). Many of these standards are essentially handed down from older workers to newer ones, and become part of the organization’s overall culture. Such standards appear in the distribution of labor by seniority and experience that appear in some jobsites. They are also exemplified by the expectation that commonly exists for managers and foremen to work longer hours than scheduled, or for newer and younger workers to be given the more arduous manual tasks to complete. A more negative aspect of this is the distribution of labor that sometimes occurs based on ethnicity in some organizations. Construction workers often come from many different backgrounds of age, gender, and ethnicity. The values of the individuals, particularly those in management positions will also influence the culture of the workplace affecting factors such as how workers feel about one another, what hours they prefer to keep, and how they feel about breaks and scheduled down-time. In addition, temporary or consultant workers are often brought in for specialized jobs, and these individuals will contribute an outside influence to the culture of the organization that may have either negative or positive aspects on the current organization’s culture. The ethnic background of workers may also play a role in scheduling holidays and events. Differences in gender and age can change expectations of working hours or necessary time away from work, as in the case of women in child-bearing years of their lives that may need additional time away from work. Increasing quantities of minorities and women entering the field has made the heterogeneous working environment much more common than it was several decades ago, increasing the pluralism or multiculturalism of the construction workplace culture (Mosley 38-42). The modern construction workplace has become a melting pot of many genders, ages, and ethnicities that all contribute towards the culture of the organization. Each of these must be carefully considered when attempting to modify workplace culture to attain results in human behavior, such as increased productivity or raised job satisfaction. Leadership is a process that involves common goals between a group where some party, such as a manager or project director, has influence over other members of an organization (Northouse 3). Leaders and followers are linked together by having a common goal, so it is simple to see how good leadership is integral in a construction environment where numerous processes must be coordinated in a sequential manner in order to ensure job completion. On a construction site, the overall goal is completion of the construction project, and it is the manager, director, or foreman’s job to ensure that each subgroup of skilled laborers interacts at the right time and place to ensure behaviors that complete the job. If a person in a leadership role is late or negligent, this may not only delay work, but also allow groups to interact in the wrong manner—such as hanging dry-wall in a house prior to running plumbing pipes or electrical wires. The leader is responsible for organizing the interactions of various groups in the best interest of the construction project. Most construction project, especially those of large or complex architectural structures, are far from being simple, linear activities. They are huge feats of multitasking that normally require not one, but several levels of leadership. The entire job is usually managed by a project manager, who does the initial planning and coordination before the construction project begins and then supervises it as the work is completed. There are also a number of managers, design engineers, project architects, and construction engineers that oversee some aspects of planning, development, and implementation of the project and ultimately report back to the project manager. Together they are responsible for a wide range of issues from environmental impact to budgeting, safety, materials availability, tendering documents, and many other tasks essential to completion of a construction project. Because so many different disciplines are required to complete a project, modern construction benefits from applying the concept of value management, in which organization into teams or small groups is encouraged. In this system individual groups are given the authority to make major decisions about their area of the project, instead of being strictly managed by a leader (McGeorge et al. 30). For large scale projects, where it would not be feasible or perhaps even possible for one manager to oversee all activities, subdividing leadership activities and assigning small groups can help to increase the confidence level and job satisfaction of workers, resulting in human behaviors that are beneficial to an organization. Most problems that occur at all levels of a construction project can be traced back to a failure in communication. Particularly in large projects that may use many engineers or architects during development and many teams of specialists during construction, it is easy to see the many areas where miscommunication could result in delays and even disaster on the construction site. Bidding contractors, subcontractors, and quantity surveyors often tender thousands of pages of documents for a single construction project, which can sometimes result in mix-ups or confusion between parties. In modern construction, many businesses are switching to electronic management systems that help to improve communications by reducing paperwork and synchronizing communications on a computer (Cole70-71). In one particular example, electronic tendering was used to reduce the overall time investment by a total of eighty-five percent all while significantly reducing errors in communication (Cole 76). Accurately and efficiently communicating project details between different team members is crucial to project completion on time and within budget requirements. Clear communication is essential to building a successful culture for a construction project, and, though the merits of leadership are largely debated in the literature, one thing that all can agree upon is that the project manager must provide clear, strong, and consistent leadership to all levels and be responsive to their feedback in order to ensure project success (Emmitt and Gorse 102). The project manager is ultimately responsible for ensuring that lines of communications between groups of laborers, contractors, subcontractors, engineers, architects, and other parties involves with the construction project, such as public works and utilities personnel, are coordinated. In order to accomplish this, the project manager must arrange meetings, facilitate communication between groups that must interact during construction, reinforce project goals, enforce safety standards, and establish the level of risk or innovation to be used in the project (Emmitt and Gorse 103-105). The project manager is important as he or she must ultimately be responsible for overseeing all communications and making certain that groups involved in the construction project are interacting effectively. Culture, leadership, and communication cannot exist independently of each other, as each serves to reinforce and build upon the other characteristics. The leadership of an organization and that leader’s values often play a large role in the organization’s culture and also in encouraging communication between different groups involved in the construction project. A friendly and approachable manager can result in an atmosphere of higher innovation and greater job satisfaction among workers. Because feedback is given freely and in a constructive manner, this encourages construction certain behaviors in workers at all levels. It encourages them to take responsibility for their work and to admit their mistakes, allowing for improvement in procedure and often less overall mistakes on a job-site. Conversely, poor management, in which the manager is often curt, giving negatively charged feedback or none at all, workers can feel intimidated, and innovation and productivity will decline. The culture can also impact the leadership style of the leader, causing that individual to act in certain patterns and adopt a communication style that he or she believes will encourage project goals. Construction is a multidisplinary environment in which leadership, culture, and communication intertwine to produce human behaviors that benefit to organization’s goal of completing the project. Construction work has many hazards and is characterized by the hard work of hands-on people that are often extremely dedicated to their particular professions. The communication of leaders, such as project managers and directors, with workers, contractors, and subcontractors influences the overall culture of the organization—and can also be the determining factor in whether a company succeeds or fails when presented with large or complex construction projects. Unique variables, such as diverse ethnic, gender, and age groups, as well as the changing demographic from historical trends in the industry serve to create an environment that makes workers react in order to complete the project. Workers and managers in the construction industry often take great pride in their work, knowing that their contribution has made something complex and impressive possible through the work that they completed on the job. References Cole, Tim. Electronic communication in construction: Achieving commercial advantage. Reston, VA: Thomas-Telford Books, 2000. Colter, C. “Transforming Workplace Culture.” Cooperative Grocer for Retailers and Cooperators, January 1998. Web. 19 August 2010. Emmitt, S and Gorse, C. Construction Communication. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2003. Levitt, R and Samelson, N. Construction Safety Management. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons, 1993. McGeorge, W D; Palmer, A; and London, K. Construction management: New directions. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002 Mosley, A. “A Behavioral Approach to Leadership: Implications for Diversity in Todays Organizations.” Journal of Leadership Studies Volume 5.1 (1998): 38-50. Northouse, P. Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication, Inc, 2010. Read More