Beyond technical expertise: Why emotional intelligence in project management matters

In the construction industry, many factors are easily measurable. What a project costs, the number of days it takes to complete, the number of windows on a south-facing wall; all of these are quantities that can be recorded and assessed. 

Yet we must always remember the aspects of the sector that are difficult to quantify. No project has ever been delivered without a distinct group of staff and stakeholders, each of whom has their own opinions, expertise and emotional outlook. 

In other words, a programme in which the figures do not add up is just as risky as one where the lines of communication are ineffective, or where people are demotivated – although this is harder to demonstrate in a bar chart. Developing personal relationships and maintaining them is skill that every project manager must have in order to be effective. 

In a recent episode of the podcast Make Planning Make Sense, Pulse's project manager Jay Marway took this topic as her focus, sharing her insight into the role that emotional intelligence plays within the built environment. 

As Jay observed during the conversation: 

“Bricks don’t make decisions. Policy doesn’t build relationships. You don’t see drawings negotiating or contracts building trust. People do.” 

The podcast itself, hosted by accomplished town planner Aaron Zimmerman, is itself an example of the significance of building personal trust in order to share information. 

In a way, that is what any good project manager is doing: synthesising information from a range of experts into an overall structure and schedule. As the construction industry gains access to data that is ever more granular and detailed, it may be tempting to believe that project management is something that can occur entirely on software like Trello.  

As Jay highlights, this will never be the whole story. The importance of ‘soft’ skills -communicating in the right tone, being able to de-escalate conflicts, being assertive and warm at the same time - is increasingly being noticed. Soft skills training has grown massively in the last few years: in the UK this industry was worth £15.7 billion in 2020, and just four years later had grown to £25.7 billion, according to IMARC. 

At Pulse, we believe in bringing emotional intelligence to all of our project management work. That’s why we have deeply embedded inclusion and collaboration into our company culture. 

It is easy to see emotional intelligence as a pleasant personal quality to have. In the context of project management it is also a practical diagnostic skill. If a stakeholder takes issue with what seems to be an inessential element of a design, for example, it could be more indicative of their wider attitude, or to the misalignment of goals at an earlier stage; it takes emotional intelligence on behalf of your team to make that connection, and to establish a shared project vision from the beginning. 

When gaining the trust of a working partner, your company's record, accomplished though it may be, is just one half of the equation – the other is that partners feel they're in an environment that is receptive to input, in which problems can be raised and solved with a minimal amount of personal friction.

One of the strongest themes to emerge from the podcast discussion was the importance of understanding objectives. Large construction projects require large teams to be assembled, and naturally these will consist of people whose obligations and interests may differ.  

Those differences cannot simply be glossed over, and nor should they be. Good governance relies on people fulfilling their professional and contractual obligations. 

Successful project management involves finding the overlap between these responsibilities, and setting objectives that are mutually beneficial and clear to all parties. 
 

Contracts and governance structures offer formal scaffolds that set the parameters of working relationships. They can establish responsibilities, allocate risks and provide documented clarity when problems arise. 

When these relationships stop working, the losses are difficult to count, but the wider category of construction adjudication is closely tracked. King's College London and the Adjudication Society count every statutory adjudication referred in the UK - the year to April 2024 set a record at 2,264, up 9% from the previous year.  

When asked what those disputes were about, respondents put "inadequate contract administration" as the cause in 50% of cases, while "inappropriate contractor selection" accounted for just 1%. Formal disagreements, then, seem to stem less from who is working together, and more about how their working relationship develops. 

Not every disagreement needs to become a contractual dispute. Frank, early conversations can often pre-empt issues like these long before positions become entrenched. In other words, emotionally intelligent project management can make all the difference.  

If you were to hold a meeting with an architect, a structural engineer and a cost consultant, you would be bringing a great deal of personal and professional experience in the room.  

Yet just because your organisation has access to those people does not always mean you are getting access to their most critical insights; expertise is only valuable when it’s allowed and encouraged to surface.  

"We’re proud to have an open-door policy," as Pulse director Daryl Woolley says, "where everyone can bring ideas to the table, ask for support and have their voice heard." 

An engineer's early reservation, to use one example, is worth little to anyone while it remains a private reservation. A project manager's task is often to make sure that people with the answers are talking to each other with a clarity that the rest of the table can act upon. 

Emotional intelligence in project management, then, should be part of any serious construction organisation's strategy. People are the most fundamental resource in any project, and the project managers who are most adept in their jobs are those who know how to get the best out of them.

Pulse Consult Project Manager Jay Marway joined Aaron Zimmerman on the Make Planning Make Sense podcast to discuss emotional intelligence in the built environment, exploring communication, trust, professional relationships, boundaries and the human behaviours that can influence project outcomes. 

To find out more about Pulse's project management services, and how we create our collaborative culture, don't hesitate to get in touch with us.