Impact of Aspirations and Legacies of Leaders in the Construction Industry in Singapore

Abstract

Leadership has been looked at through various lenses, such as behaviors, styles, and skills. More recently, leadership has been viewed from the lens of the legacies leaders want to leave behind. Leaders’ desired legacies not only reflect the impact they want to have on the people and organizations they work with, but also portray the future they hope for. This paper discusses findings from interviews with 49 leaders of professional organizations and architectural, engineering, and construction firms in Singapore. These leaders showed their desire to develop their followers into leaders and to leave successful organizations behind. They also revealed their anxiety about issues in the industry such as lack of professionalism and adversarialism. In line with the results of the interviews, this paper proposes that rather than waiting to think about their legacy in the last stages of their careers, leaders in engineering should try from the start to be clear about what they want to achieve through their leadership and the impact they want to have on their followers and organizations. This awareness can help leaders understand and then live the legacies they want to leave behind.