Leadership in the AEC Industry

Damon L. Garrett, PE, has ample knowledge and experience in leading a company, mentoring fellow professionals, and undertaking a public role to assist underserved communities. As a great leader, he excels at empowering and motivating people to achieve the best version of themselves.

The following interview with Damon Garrett is part of a series that expands on ideas from his discussion with Bonnifer Ballard during Michigan’s 2023 American Water Works Association (AWWA) conference on September 14 in Port Huron. Throughout his discussion, Garrett’s ability to lead is an evident piece in continuing to progress leadership in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry.

Q: How would you define leadership?

A: Leadership is the process of gaining the trust of others and bringing people together to achieve a common goal. It’s about inspiring people and helping people achieve the best version of themselves.

I think the true measurement of a good leader is to look at the people who work for you and what they have accomplished. How did their careers progress? Are they successful? How did you put them in the position to be able to accomplish and do those things? To me, someone is considered a good leader if the people they lead are successful.

Q: In terms of leadership, where do you think the industry is currently, and where do you see it going?

A: Overall, I think leadership in the industry is the same as where it’s always been; a lot of the leaders are doing things status quo. The paradigm started shifting about three or four years ago with the Millennial generation. Now, people are being forced to rethink processes and systems in new ways rather than just accepting the status quo of the past. Historically, leadership in the industry was not diverse. Everyone at the leadership table looked the same, thought the same, and acted the same. It had one mind.

Now, since there is so much opportunity in the market, leadership is getting a lot younger. The question now becomes: How do you transition people into leaders earlier in their careers?

Q: How should leadership evolve in the industry?

A: Emphasize creativity and adaptability.

Most of the industry thinks, “This is tried and true. This is just what we do.” I think because of our curriculum, the industry is formula-driven, mathematical, and very calculated, which is the opposite of creativity, and it doesn’t encourage adaptability.

If you’re going to solve problems in our industry and work with all kinds of people from all sorts of disciplines, the ability to create and visualize is critical. Creativity means you’re able to be nimble in your thoughts. It means you’re able to accept others and others’ ideas, and appreciate someone else’s creativity in a way that incorporates other thoughts and ideas, which is incredibly valuable.

Adaptability in the industry is also incredibly valuable. The ability to constantly adapt to situations, people, and challenges has helped me tremendously. You never know what you’re going to get from day to day or project to project. You have to be able to see the desired outcome and adapt to make that outcome happen.

Q: What is something you have had a difficult time learning or accepting as a leader in the industry?

A: The thing I’m still learning now is that you can’t be a people pleaser and a successful high-level executive—they conflict. As a high-level executive leading the company, specific metrics need to be met for a company to achieve a certain level of success.

I think coming up through the ranks and learning different things; sometimes I’ve tried to cater to too many people. That can cause frustration and confusion. You’re never going to satisfy everyone, so you have to have things you believe in, and think are right. You communicate those things clearly and then move forward.

Q: What advice would you give professionals emerging as leaders?

A: “Learn who you are as an individual.” Figure out what makes you happy, what makes you sad, what motivates you, and what demotivates you. The quicker you find out what that is, the easier it is to determine where it is that you’re headed.

Another thing I would say is, please, “Find an environment that is safe to fail in.” Finding somewhere you will not be ridiculed for making a mistake is very important because people don’t try new things or grow because they don’t want to get outside their comfort zone. A safe environment is huge.

I’ve never been afraid to fail. I’m very competitive but never scared to take the risk. The key is to try and avoid making the same mistake twice. Some things work, and some things don’t, but I’ve grown tremendously from failing and succeeding in all those situations. Being willing to take these risks has put me ahead in my career.

Q: How do you foster an environment that welcomes trying new things and failure to pursue growth and success here at MCA?

A: With humility.

That’s another unique characteristic that is important in leadership. If the president or someone high up in the organization claims their failure and says, “I didn’t do this right; I made a mistake. Here’s what I did wrong and what I will do to fix it or what I will do next time.” That establishes the culture for everybody else.

As someone who is a servant leader, I want to hear everyone’s honest feedback. It doesn’t mean I will agree, but creativity and expressing who you are is very important. Employees need to be able to express themselves. We don’t have a strict dress code so people can express themselves here at MCA. I feel like that expression is important because you learn how to accept others, and when you feel like you’re allowed to express who you are as a person, you feel more confident than if you were told to look and talk a certain way in order to be successful.

Q: As MCA’s president, how do you build a culture that empowers and motivates people?

A: The first thing I would say is I talk to people. I learn who they are, where they came from, and what they enjoy. I ask them about the things that have meant the most to them in their life. Once you know who works for you, empowering and motivating people is much easier because you know who they are.

In leadership roles, you put people in positions for success based on what they tell you. Everybody who says they enjoy working with me knows that I listen to what they say and pay attention to their behaviors and patterns. From that, I try to put them in situations that align with the things they are passionate about and align with our corporate goals.

Q: What is your approach as a leader in the AEC industry?

A: My approach to leadership is based on three main things.

1. Do what is required.

There are all kinds of situations that will present themselves, and, as a leader, you’re going to have to adapt to those situations and do what is required of you. That may be something you’re not comfortable doing or something you don’t like doing, but it’s what is required in that situation.

2. Be versatile.

Different situations may need different tactical or technical knowledge. There’s also an enormous amount of emotional intelligence that goes into leadership, which is required when placed in various situations. That is a huge void in the industry, emotional intelligence. The old leadership style was focused on the expertise of your job and the quality of your performance. It really neglected the soft skills required to lead. The versatility of skills, and especially soft skills, is huge as a leader.

3. Be authentic.

Our industry is people and relationship-oriented, so it’s super important to know how to understand people and communicate with them in an authentic way. People want to work with people they respect, who are genuine, and feel they can trust. That’s why authenticity is so important.

Q: What motivates you to keep going?

A: The thing that I found that motivates me the most is seeing people achieve their goals and things they didn’t think they could achieve. I feel like that is what we (as leaders) are here to do.

Sometimes, that involves people leaving the organization. In leadership, you’re leading people, and you want them to stay at your company, of course, but ultimately, you want people to grow. Sometimes, people get to a point where they have to grow outside of the organization, and that’s okay. If you’re leading them and helping them grow professionally and personally, you have established a relationship with those people, and you never know; you can run into those people again later down the line.

My job is to progress our business and to unify our team, but more importantly, it’s to empower people to achieve the best version of themselves. Watching others succeed is what motivates me to keep going.

Being a leader in the AEC industry is very unique. There are a lot of challenges you find from mixing the technical skills and technical experts you work with on projects with the soft skills required to advance the profession and best serve the community. Leaders in the industry need to continue to push the boundaries of what is expected and what we can do to create better projects and better communities.

View all posts in this four-part series:

1. Leadership in the AEC Industry
2. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the AEC Industry
3. Ethics in the AEC Industry
4. The AEC Industry in Underserved Communities