5 Leadership Lessons for Tradies in Construction from Macro3D Founder Tom Macrokanis

Guest: Tom Macrokanis

Episode: Season 2, Episode 8

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Tom Macrokanis is a qualified boilermaker who started his first business at 17 and has since founded Macro3D, a concrete 3D printing company tackling housing affordability, while directing Macro Constructions Group across steel, concrete and light-gauge framing.

Here’s what Tom’s learned about leadership in construction:

Lesson 1: Extreme Ownership in Business Leadership

When something goes wrong on a job or in the business, Tom’s instinct isn’t to work out whose fault it was; it’s to ask what system should have been in place to stop it happening at all.

He treats the business like a machine that needs constant tuning rather than a collection of individual mistakes to punish.

“It’s not necessarily about who’s whose mistake it is… It’s like, what is the system that has not been put in place that allows this to work efficiently,” Tom says.

The payoff, he's found: teams stop hiding mistakes and start reporting them, since the conversation is never about who's to blame.

Lesson 2: How to Demonstrate Leadership Through Action

Tom’s leadership style formed early, through sport rather than any formal training, and he’s candid that being articulate or well-spoken has never really been his strength. What he leans on instead is showing the way something should be done and letting his team follow the example rather than the instruction.

“My leadership style has always been less about talking and more about doing… lead through action,” Tom says.

It's a reminder that you don't need to be the most persuasive person in the room to lead it, sometimes just doing the job well is argument enough.

Lesson 3: Picking the Right Business Mentor

Across a decade in business, Tom has had different mentors come and go, and says the mistake most people make is expecting one mentor to last the whole journey.

The value of a mentor, in his experience, is entirely tied to whether they’re still helping you move forward right now, and the same logic applies when he’s the one mentoring someone else.

“It’s sort of making sure that it is fitting that person’s period in their life and able to help them move forward,” Tom says.

It's a useful permission slip, whether you're the one who's outgrown a mentor, or the one who's realised you're no longer the right fit for someone you're mentoring.

Lesson 4: Handling Setbacks When Building a New Business

Building something that’s never existed before, like commercialising concrete 3D printing in Australia, means constant setbacks, and Tom admits he used to let them get to him early on.

What changed as the business grew was learning to separate the outcome from his own worth, and focus energy only on what’s actually controllable.

“It will be what it will be, and it’ll work out if it’s meant to be,” Tom says, comparing the constant problem-solving of a build to planning a wedding, on repeat, every single day.

Lesson 5: How to Communicate To Keep Every Stakeholder on Side

Running businesses that touch multiple parts of a build, 3D printing, structural steel, concrete, means Tom is constantly relying on developers, builders and engineers to trust his team with a large chunk of the project. He’s found that being easy to reach and upfront about delays matters more than being perfect.

“Over-communicating is really the key to making sure you’ve got good relationships in the industry,” Tom says.

Tom’s Advice on Everyday Leadership

Communicate more than feels necessary.

He points out that most mistakes and friction stem from a lack of clarity rather than a lack of skill, and that over-communicating, even when it’s uncomfortable, consistently leads to better results for everyone involved.

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