To be a construction manager, one must be professional, courteous, diplomatic, caring, shrewd, persuasive, assertive, creative, understanding, responsible, slow to anger, adaptable, a Sherlock Holmes, a motivator, up-to-date, pleasant to look at, have a good memory, acute business judgment, emotional stability and the embodiment of virtue; (but with a good working knowledge of sin and evil in all it’s forms).
A construction manager must understand insurance, chemistry, selling, contracting, claims, law, medicine, travel, warranties, freeway closures and construction delays, Mother Nature and hu-man nature.
In order to be a construction manager, you must be a coordinator, role model expert, resource, an educator, supportive of all workers, subcontractors, an advocate for the employer, the em-ployee’s advocate and intermediary.
The construction manager must be a mind reader, able to predict the future, an optimist, a re-alist, have physical stamina, have a large bladder, must be an expert with machinery of all types, construction processes of every kind. He must know each new product, its application costs including labor and material, and it’s alternative; as well as the next generation of prod-ucts with their release dates.
A construction manager must know the current and future costs of everything from a nail to a floor tile, an asphalt driveway to an articulated shower head, and be able to communicate this information with accuracy and efficiency, as well as know what the low bidder’s profit margin is. He needs to know the groundwater depth everywhere and how to anticipate or regulate the weather.
A construction manager must know all, see all, and tell nothing without the proper inspection sign off. They must know each inspector; their family history, their idiosyncrasies, their knowledge level, and their donuts preference.