5 Leadership Lessons for Tradies from Willmann Electrical’s Dave Willmann

Guest: Dave Willmann

Episode: Season 2, Episode 18

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Dave Willmann is a licensed electrician and owner of Willmann Electrical, with a reputation built across industrial and commercial work, breakdowns, ground-up construction, compliance audits and installation testing. He's led crews on some of the toughest sites in the trade and built a strong online following of sparkies who trust his no-nonsense tool reviews and practical tips. Away from the tools, he's a husband and dad of two young kids.

Here's what he's learned about leadership as a mature-aged apprentice, sparky, supervisor and now business owner:

Lesson 1: Mentorship is leadership

Asked what leadership means to him, Dave doesn't hesitate: it's mentorship, specifically pulling up anyone in the industry with less experience than him, whether that's an apprentice or just a younger tradie finding their feet.

"Through my platforms I definitely like sharing the information and trying to pull the trade up by its bootstraps," he says. "I liked the mentorship aspect of this a lot more than I'd realised when I started."

Lesson 2: Take responsibility for your team’s outcomes (good or bad)

Stepping up from being "one of the boys" to a supervisor responsible to the boss above him taught Dave a distinction he still holds to: a good leader shields their team from unnecessary blame while still taking full ownership when something goes wrong.

"Passing on the good and maybe hiding a bit of the bad, a good manager will do that, a bad manager will be like, 'oh, I fixed all this stuff that my team messed up,'" he says. "You're in charge, the quality of the outcomes is really on your shoulders as the foreman on site."

Lesson 3: How to start hard conversations as a leader

Dave doesn't pretend to enjoy conflict, but he's found the fix isn't a script or a “feedback sandwich”, it's just making yourself start talking before you've fully talked yourself out of it.

"If you're nervous about making the phone call, you just put the number in and hit dial, and then, like a podcast, you just gotta start talking," he says. Every hard conversation he's dreaded, he's found, feels better once it's actually happened, even the ones that get a little fiery first.

The hardest part, he's found, is just getting the words started. Everything after that gets easier.

Lesson 4: You need to manage perception as a leader onsite

On one of his most intense early projects, a tight-deadline office fit-out, Dave was so consumed by the pressure that he didn't notice how surly he'd become until years later, when he found out a new apprentice had been quietly avoiding him and asking other tradesmen for work instead, genuinely scared of him.

"Your perception of yourself and how others perceive you, there's always a disconnect there as well," he says. It's a gap he's since made a point of checking, rather than assuming his intentions were obvious to everyone else.

Lesson 5: Why you need to teach apprentices the business side from day one

Dave makes a point of showing his apprentices exactly what things cost, from wasted materials to time lost hunting for gear that wasn't organised properly, so they understand their impact on the business, not just their own task list.

"If we quote a job for two guys for four hours and it takes a whole day, like that is a disaster, right? If you do it in less time, that's an absolute win for the business," he says. Understanding that, he's found, gives apprentices a stake in the outcome most were never taught to see.

Dave’s advice on everyday leadership

Dave's advice comes down to restraint and relationship.

"Not yelling, I think is probably the biggest one. Like not getting angry. Like I do get angry, but I won't yell at someone," he says, alongside letting his crew work at their own solid pace rather than pushing them to flog themselves all day.

His bigger point is about the people underneath that: "Take the people that are under you, under your wing, look after them, look out for them," he says. "It's important to be a leader, but also you've gotta be able to be friends with people as well."

Catch the full conversation with Dave Willmann on Tradies Who Lead for more leadership lessons for tradies, out now wherever you listen to podcasts.