The Tortoise on the Post: What a Construction Project Taught Me About Leadership

A few years ago, I was involved in a dam construction project that taught me a lesson I have remembered ever since.

We had an engineer on the project who arrived with considerable confidence.

He spoke loudly, gave instructions freely and seemed to have an answer for almost everything. He carried himself like a man who had personally designed every dam from here to Timbuktu.

At first, I thought perhaps I had simply met one of those naturally confident engineers.

Then the problems started.

There were questionable decisions, unnecessary disputes, strange requisitions and an increasing sense that the project was costing more than it should.

There were also incidents of theft and what I would describe as rent-seeking behaviour. Materials seemed to disappear with surprising creativity, and some people appeared to have discovered that a construction project could be treated as a small personal economy.

The engineer was always confident.

Unfortunately, the results were less convincing.

He eventually left the project.

A few weeks later, we brought in another engineer.

She was young, quiet and, at first glance, looked rather out of place on a busy construction site.

She usually arrived in a long pleated dress and a headscarf.

Among the boots, overalls, dust, machinery and general chaos of construction, she stood out.

She was also rather timid.

At least initially.

She did not walk onto the site shouting instructions. She didn't try to demonstrate that she was the smartest person there. Sometimes she would simply stand quietly, study the drawings and observe what was happening.

Compared with her predecessor, she appeared almost invisible.

But there was something underneath that scarf that became increasingly difficult to ignore.

She knew her work.

She asked questions.

She checked measurements.

She studied the drawings.

She listened.

And when she didn't know something, she had no problem saying:

"I'm not sure. Let me confirm with the client."

I have always liked that sentence.

There is something reassuring about a professional who is comfortable admitting that they don't know everything.

Then Something Interesting Happened

Within a surprisingly short time, the atmosphere on the project began to change.

The incidents of theft virtually disappeared.

Over-requisitioning reduced dramatically.

The strange little opportunities for rent-seeking seemed to dry up.

Materials began arriving in quantities that actually made sense.

People became more accountable.

The project started running with considerably less drama.

It was not because she came in making grand speeches about integrity.

She simply paid attention.

She checked things.

She asked where materials were going.

She questioned figures that didn't make sense.

She followed up.

And people gradually realised that the new engineer was actually watching.

That was enough.

The Tortoise on the Post

It reminded me of the old story about a tortoise sitting on top of a post.

If you found a tortoise sitting on a post somewhere around our region, you would probably stop and wonder.

A tortoise cannot climb a post.

So somebody must have put it there.

And once you establish that, the obvious question is:

Why?

That is sometimes how I think about people in positions of responsibility.

Some are there because they genuinely earned the position.

Others appear to have been placed there by circumstances, connections, confidence or simply somebody else's poor judgment.

The difference eventually becomes obvious.

Confidence Can Be Noisy

The loud engineer taught me something I have seen repeatedly in life:

Confidence and competence are not the same thing.

Some people enter a room and immediately convince everyone that they belong there.

Others quietly earn their place.

The first can be impressive.

The second can be invaluable.

On a construction site, eventually the work becomes the referee.

Concrete doesn't care how confidently you gave the instruction.

Steel doesn't care about your title.

And water certainly doesn't care about your CV.

A dam will eventually expose weaknesses.

Water is a very honest auditor.

The Quiet Engineer

Years later, what I remember most is the contrast.

The loud engineer had occupied the position with enormous confidence.

The young woman beneath the scarf initially seemed unsure of herself.

Yet when given the opportunity, she quietly demonstrated something much more valuable than confidence.

Competence.

She became more confident with time.

She delivered.

She controlled costs.

She protected the project.

And she created an environment where people understood that someone was paying attention.

Perhaps that is the lesson I took from that dam.

We sometimes look for leadership in the person who speaks the loudest.

We should perhaps look instead for the person who notices what everyone else has stopped seeing.

Because leadership isn't always about commanding the room.

Sometimes it is simply about quietly doing the job properly.

And perhaps that is the real lesson of the tortoise on the post.

Don't be too impressed by who is sitting on top.

Ask who put them there.

Then look at what happens when they leave.

Sometimes the person we almost overlooked is the one who was quietly holding everything together.