Could you please describe the services you provide?
MDA Leadership empowers organizations to achieve their full leadership potential (and have been doing so for 45 years). We have a long track record of helping construction companies build their current leadership capability and future leadership pipeline. When you align your talent with your strategic aspirations, pinpoint the right leaders to drive success, and develop leaders across levels, you create a high-performance culture that leads to exponential growth and long-term results. We help you ensure you have the right leaders in the right roles ready to perform at the right time. From de-risking the placement of leaders to co-creating meaningful development pathways that close skill gaps faster and accelerate growth, MDA is a trusted partner in the construction industry. We work with construction organizations to align your business and talent strategy, provide executive coaching and team development, identify the right leaders to achieve your goals, and develop leaders through cohort-based journeys tackling real-world challenges for the organization.
As a partner to construction organizations, what workforce trends have you seen most recently in this industry (good or bad)?
The builders we talk with are aligned on the forces impacting construction. On the positive side, there is plenty of opportunity for growth driven by federal and state infrastructure investment, industrial and manufacturing market growth, sustainability and energy transition projects, technology enhancements and innovation, and renovation and adaptive reuse demand. The headwinds facing the industry are impacting builders in different ways, depending on the breadth of the portfolio, sector focus, and organizational adaptability. They include increasing geopolitical uncertainty, the significant labor shortage, technology transformation, mental health, and generational turnover. The growth opportunities have been a boon for builders of all sizes in that we’re seeing large constructors start to say “no” to jobs they would have traditionally pursued, which opens the field up for small to mid-sized builders to compete for bigger, more complex jobs, and in turn, accelerate the growth of their businesses. Several builders we work with are seeing revenue and workforce numbers they had not anticipated reaching for years come to fruition this year. That said, for most builders, the overarching theme we are hearing can be summed up in one premise: significant growth opportunity exists, but builders find themselves lacking enough “ready now” leaders to drive the growth at the pace the market is demanding.
Why is this industry a priority area for you?
In addition to the rapid growth many builders are going through, the talent challenges in the industry are real and more significant than other industries we serve. The “war for talent” cuts across industries, but in construction specifically, the industry is being squeezed on both ends and facing a leadership crisis. A labor shortage on the operational/trades/craft size of the work means a narrower pipeline at the bottom from which to draw leadership talent. Compounding this issue, there’s credible research that makes it clear much of the incoming workforce doesn’t even aspire to people leadership. On the other end of the pipeline, generational turnover is accelerating the loss of senior leadership and seasoned, experienced professionals, which creates a dire need for intentional succession planning, especially in the executive ranks. Over 40% of the construction workforce is expected to exit in the next few years, and there aren’t nearly enough “ready now” leaders to fill the gaps being left. MDA helps organizations and identify and develop the right leaders for the right roles at the right time. That’s been our focus for 45 years.
At the same time, there’s a leadership paradigm shift needed and already underway in the industry. Construction has long been a place where vulnerability wasn’t rewarded—you didn’t get feedback or checked in on or talked to unless you were screwing something up on the job site. Yet the numbers and data are sobering around mental health challenges in construction, and the incoming workforce is dealing with even higher levels of mental health struggles. The implication is that the industry needs leaders who are more human-centered: leaders who are skilled at and intentional in checking in with one another, cultivating psychological safety, and who pay attention to the how, not just what, of performance and teaming.
Who/what types of organizations typically benefit most from working with you?
MDA Leadership serves organizations of all sizes across industries. Our size and scale allow us to work with builders of all sizes – employee-owned or not, national or regional, etc. Great partners of ours are organizations who recognize that leadership matters, are values driven, and who recognize the correlation between strong leadership and strong business performance. Organizations going through significant growth or who are in the midst of needing to define or redefine their talent strategy and approach to development also benefit from our expertise both in the industry and from outside of it. One of our favorite practices is to host a simple “think out loud,” in which we learn about your organization and then toss a grab bag of ideas around the room, sharing stories of what we are seeing others inside/outside of the industry do to answer the challenges your organization is facing.
Could you share a success story of someone you have worked with in the construction industry?
We love seeing the results of the partnerships we’ve built over the years with builders and invite you to explore both the personal impact of our work as well as the organizational impact of more scaled solutions. We are also pleased to share our Construction Resource Hub with conference participants.
What are you most looking forward to at the LEAP TD: Construction event?
It is always a pleasure to be in a room with like minded colleagues who share a sense of purpose—those who value intentional leadership development and who take real joy in serving the leaders and builders making a difference in our communities.
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