The people who will run construction firms over the next decade are inheriting a job that looks very different from the one their mentors held. Deep build knowledge still counts, but today’s leaders also must develop scarce talent, read project data, judge new technology, protect crews, and keep jobs profitable as conditions shift.
That broader role changes what firms need to cultivate in emerging leaders. No company can rely indefinitely on a handful of veterans to carry its institutional knowledge. As a result, the next generation will need technical credibility alongside stronger people, business, safety, and decision-making skills.
Leading and Developing People
The sharpest pressure on tomorrow’s leaders comes from the workforce itself. In the 2026 AGC/NCCER Workforce Survey, 87% of firms reported openings for hourly craft workers, and half said available candidates lacked the skills, certificates, or licenses needed for the work.
The consequences reach past hiring. The same survey found that 42% of firms had experienced project delays because of shortages among their own workers or their subcontractors’ workers, turning workforce development into a scheduling and revenue issue for the business.
“The leaders who win over the next ten years won’t be the ones who can swing every hammer themselves,” says Rami Tawasha. “They’ll be the ones who can take a green crew, make them genuinely good, and then give them a reason to stay.”
That reframes the whole role. A future leader is increasingly responsible for developing the people around them. Coaching, structured onboarding, and helping newer workers learn from more experienced crews become core duties. That helps explain why the AGC/NCCER survey found that 35% of contractors had initiated or increased spending on training and professional development.
Retention sits right alongside development. When skilled workers can choose their employer, keeping them depends on whether a leader spots strengths, delegates well, and works comfortably across trades, ages, and backgrounds.
Pairing Technology With Human Judgment
Developing people now includes helping them work alongside tools that barely existed a few years ago. Adoption is climbing quickly. In AGC and Sage’s 2026 Construction Hiring and Business Outlook, 61% of contractors said they use AI or plan to spend more on it, up from 44% the year before, across estimating, scheduling, documentation, and back-office work.
For emerging leaders, the key skill is knowing what a tool does well, where it fits into a workflow, and where human review still matters.
“Buying the software is the easy part,” Rami Tawasha says. “The hard part is getting a field team to actually use it, and being clear about which decisions you should never hand to a machine.”
His point captures why technology leadership is mostly change management. Model literacy, cloud project management, and dashboard reading all help, but a clean-looking number built on bad data can do real damage if no one questions it.
The same shift raises the stakes around information. Cybersecurity has become a leading IT concern for construction firms, so handling project data responsibly is now part of the leadership job.
Managing Projects as Businesses
Technology choices eventually land on the balance sheet, which is where the next competency lives. A project can be built beautifully and still lose money. The manager’s role involves planning, coordinating, budgeting, and keeping work inside both its schedule and its cost. Current conditions make that discipline unforgiving.
Material prices are the clearest example. BLS data compiled by AGC show that prices for inputs to new nonresidential construction rose 8.9% between August 2025 and August 2026.
Leaders need to forecast, track margins, understand change-order terms, and plan for long material lead times before a thin margin disappears. Strong leaders increasingly see the whole business at once, weighing subcontractor risk, cash flow, and labor productivity together.
Building a Strong Safety Culture
Seeing the whole business also means seeing the people doing the work. Safety, therefore, belongs alongside financial judgment as a leadership responsibility.
BLS recorded 1,034 fatal injuries in private construction in 2024, more than any other private-industry sector. Falls, slips, and trips accounted for 389 of those deaths.
Safety leadership goes beyond knowing the OSHA rulebook. OSHA describes effective management leadership as visible commitment: building safety into planning and budget decisions, assigning clear responsibility, and creating a workplace where people report hazards without fear of blame.
In practice, that means identifying risk before work starts, taking near misses seriously, and coordinating safety across every subcontractor on site. Strong leaders create conditions where crews speak up early enough to prevent an incident.
Staying Adaptable as Construction Evolves
Every skill above rests on a habit of learning because construction conditions will keep changing. Methods, materials, and delivery systems continue to evolve, while the buildings themselves are becoming more complex.
According to the Department of Energy, buildings account for about 74% of U.S. electricity use, and energy-efficiency retrofits are one reason BLS expects steady demand for construction managers well into the next decade.
Keeping up requires enough technical breadth to coordinate the specialists behind modern HVAC, controls, and building envelopes. It also takes the curiosity to learn unfamiliar systems quickly and help a team do the same.
The lasting advantage is adaptability. Today’s software, materials, and project systems will change, but leaders who know how to learn can change with them.
Final Thoughts
Rami Tawasha also agrees that the construction leader taking shape now is still a credible builder at heart, but the advantage comes from everything layered on top: developing people, reading information honestly, managing risk, and staying willing to relearn the job.
Firms that begin growing those leaders now will be better prepared when experienced veterans step aside, and the next generation is asked to take the lead.
