5 Leadership Lessons for Construction Managers from Constructing Mindsets’ Vincent Saunders

Guest: Vincent Saunders

Episode: Season 2, Episode 6

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Vincent Saunders is a qualified builder, quantity surveyor and construction manager with more than 17 years navigating the diverse challenges that come with a construction site every day. He also hosts the Constructing Mindsets podcast, built around real stories from the industry.

Here’s what he’s learned about getting the best out of tradies through leadership as a construction manager:

Lesson 1: Listening as a Leadership Skill in Construction

Asked what leadership means to him, Vincent lands on two things that shaped his whole career:

• Not getting swept up in someone else’s way of doing things, and

• Listening more than he talks.

He traces both back to a leader he watched closely early in his corporate career, someone who stayed calm, heard everyone out, and made thoughtful decisions rather than the loudest ones.

“Being authentically yourself… and just listening more than talking,” is how he sums up leadership.

That's the model he still returns to under pressure: slow down, hear people out, decide second.

Lesson 2: Coordinating Between Different Trades Onsite

When a drainage problem popped up on one of Vincent’s sites, and he had no expertise in laying pipe, his job wasn’t to have the answer; it was to get the drainer and the designer talking to each other and translate between them.

He describes his role as taking a workable, onsite solution to an architect or engineer rather than just handing over a problem: “This is what we have onsite, this is a problem, we’ve worked with the trades on site and said this is a feasible design, can you help us get this compliant,” he says.

The principle holds beyond drainage, he says: bring the expert a workable option, not just a problem to hand off.

Lesson 3: How a Positive Mindset Changes Construction Site Outcomes

Vincent is candid that walking into a disagreement already assuming it’s “another problem from a builder or a plumber” guarantees a worse result before the conversation even starts.

Going in with an open mind and using open questions, “tell me more about this,” rather than yes/no prompts, shifts what people are willing to offer.

“Positivity kind of breeds positivity,” he says, arguing the energy a leader brings into a room is contagious either way. The tone Vincent brings into a room, he's found, is usually the tone he gets back.

Lesson 4: Managing Stress in Construction

Construction is high-pressure by nature, and Vincent has learned that knowing exactly what recharges him, a run, a bike ride, even just switching off in the car on the drive home, matters more than pushing through every day.

He’s equally clear that some days the answer is simply closing the curtains and doing nothing, and that’s fine too.

“Just doing something to move your body and move your mind… to wash out the day,” is his simplest version of the practice, one he doesn’t pretend to do perfectly every time.

Lesson 5: Being Authentic in a Trade Industry

Vincent’s own apprenticeship was delayed six months, he believes, after he admitted to his assessor he didn’t enjoy fishing, a small moment that stuck with him about the cost of not fitting the mould.

These days, if the team’s heading for after-work drinks and he needs a jog and quiet time first, he takes it, then joins for dinner later.

“Just knowing what works for you and what you need at the end of the day is probably the most important thing to keeping your mindset right,” Vincent says. He's found that when one person does their own thing without apology, it tends to give everyone else on the team a bit more room to do the same.

Vincent’s Advice on Everyday Leadership

Treat every workday, even the hundredth version of the same meeting, as a chance to learn or improve something about how you show up.

He points to self-awareness as a key driver, noticing whether you’re being authentically yourself in a moment, or just repeating a habit picked up from whoever was leading you at the time, good or bad.

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