Does leadership in Construction need to be deconstructed?
Part 3: The uncompromising change: economic, talent, and mental health sustainability.
It is a known fact in civil engineering that building new structures on the old foundations comes with its challenges and can have a lasting impact on the finished product. Much like adopting technology and innovation into the environment governed by in-built inequalities and narratives that have no place in modern leadership, can compromise the integrity and the future of the whole industry.
This research began with deconstructing and bringing to light the old ways in order to provide a new foundation for more integrated and sustainable organisational structures, where women and men are considered equal, away from masculine and feminine binaries. Moreover, the recent global pandemic, illustrated that the societal and organisational structures cannot be decoupled from the human experience. Indeed, pointing towards the cognitive and behavioural understanding of humans allows for effective leadership and leads to sustainable, long-term success of organisations. In the process of this research the economic, talent acquisition and retention, and mental health risks that Construction is facing by lacking diversity, have been identified and assessed. True innovation comes as a byproduct of addressing these risks in a brave and vulnerable way, bringing both men and women to the table. Only when the above is addressed, can the industry experience a true transformation.
Diversity, Talent and Economy
73% of questionnaire participants agreed that gender imbalance has a negative impact on sustainability in Construction. The participants intentionally were not given the definition of sustainability to capture the perspectives relevant to Construction. Outside of environmental sustainability (that is too great a subject to cover in this research), there were three distinctive themes that arose from the thematic analysis of both primary and secondary data. These were: talent, economic and mental health sustainability.
The UK gender diversity landscape, although capturing the media’s attention and being included as part of companies governance and diversity and inclusion policies, is in fact in decline, according to the latest figures. The most recent Women Count 2020 report, shows that not only the number of females at the board level has decreased, but that it had a direct, negative impact on the British economy- resulting in £47bn in pre-taxed loss in 2019. Conversely, the report states that companies with only a third of females in the membership exceeded their net profit margins over 10 fold, against companies with no women at the board level. McKinsey’s report (2018) on diversity, further outlines the correlation between gender diversity and profitability, as well as long-term value creation. Turban et. al (2019) study on 1069 companies in 35 countries, across 24 industries, adds to the gender diversity conversation by confirming that organisations with more gender-balanced leadership are also more productive and more competent. While the research points towards the gender-diverse blueprint for success, the recent leadership appointing trends seem counterintuitive. The diversity disparity at the Macro level appears also true in Construction. The latest Statista figures (2020) also show that female numbers are on a decline.
The majority of participants recognised that the gender imbalance in leadership has a profound impact on attracting new talent, especially females. The lack of female role models makes the industry “invisible” for women (Nora). Conversely, the graduates that participated in the interviews agreed that they consciously chose to work for companies with female senior leadership. One shared: “presence of other females helps to feel like I belong, I am ‘safe’”(QP). The economic sustainability issue, has also been identified in the primary data from unsustainable procurement approach, low margins, to unnecessary processes and bureaucracy.
Leena, an interview participant shares her take on qualifying decisions as a solution to a more sustainable Construction “ currently the better decision is the one that’s the fastest and the cheapest. Once you change that mindset, I think Construction will become more sustainable.”
Mental Health Sustainability
The majority of the interviewees shared their concern on the impact of mental health in Construction as a real threat to the sustainability of the industry. The mental health crisis affecting predominantly men in Construction has been identified to have social, financial and safety implications. The participants shared their concerns about the toxic masculinity culture in Construction and its impact on men. “I do see young lads here not wanting to say there’s anything wrong, and it gets to a breaking point when you find out. I actually think having more women on a site helps with that”, shared project director Alex. Shift engineer Ruth described her experience of dealing with mental health issues on site, “ I became a Mental Health First Aider because I was finding that some of the guys were coming to talk to me, I didn’t really know what to do about this.” A number of participants also shared how the toxic masculinity environment has become a deterring factor for a younger generation of males choosing not to pursue a career in Construction unless they fit into that very old stereotype.
Modeling a more feminine approach to leadership and having a more diverse workforce where these behaviours can be denormalized, opens up a new chapter for a more sustainable and healthy industry.
If you would like to read the whole research report: “Does leadership in Construction need to be deconstructed? A study of gender imbalance in leadership and its impact on innovation and sustainability in the UK construction industry.” please contact the author.
