Great Welder. Bad Leader.

Some foremen aren’t leaders. They’re just good welders with a title and a bad attitude. This episode calls out the promotion mistake too many shops keep making.

#Welding #MetalFabrication #ShopLife #BlueCollar #SkilledTrades

Metal Fabrication Nation with Greg Sheldon. Real talk for welders, fabricators, shop owners, and the next generation of tradespeople. Built on the belief that AI won’t replace real tradespeople, and the trades aren’t a backup plan; they’re the backbone. 

Greg reminds welders, fabricators, foremen, shop owners, and tradespeople that they are not behind the times — they are building the future. Follow the show, share it with someone in the trade, and keep pushing the industry forward. Want to see what bad quoting may be costing your shop? Get the free calculator and Baseline Efficiency Report here: https://gregsheldon.github.io/metalfabexcel/calculator.html

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Welcome back to Metal Fabrication Nation. I'm Greg Sheldon, and I appreciate you coming back. Today I want to say something straight. I want to talk about something that most shops do that really doesn't help a business, but it seems like the obvious intuitive next step for a welder. That the shop, the best welder becomes the shop foreman. And I've been that guy. And I lucked out. But it doesn't always work out. And it, you know what? It was a crazy, crazy experience of learning how to manage people, communicate effectively, pivot, change how I manage people, because I was iron fist, and then I learned that that didn't work. And you know, it's somebody that's willing to pivot, but not a lot of guys are willing to pivot, pivot. And a lot of shops don't want to admit that just taking a guy off the shop floor and putting him as a manager is a good idea. They don't admit that that, sorry, they don't admit that that's a bad idea. Because it seems intuitive, but it's not. Being great on the tools does not automatically mean that you can lead people. A guy can be an amazing welder, a great fitter. And a guy everyone trusts with the hard jobs, the guy that can solve the problem every single time when it comes to hands-on taking a drawing, taking a whatever it is, a weld or a complex situation and solving it, but doesn't mean he knows how to run a crew. Those are totally different skills. Shops do this all the time. They take the best guy off the floor. They take the best guy off the floor and promote him, and that's great. But what two things happen. You lose the best guy on the floor, and then he has to learn a whole new thing and he sucks at that. And they don't give him any planning, any training. Like he has to learn how to deal with conflict and the safety and the quality and scheduling and pressure and accountability and all that stuff's great. But these businesses are not training the guy on how to do that before. There needs to be a transition, period. They just say you're in charge now. That's not leadership development. That is a gamble. A shop can lose his best welder and gain a foreman in the same promotion. That happens more than people want to admit. Some guys are terrible at this. They don't explain, they don't teach, they expect everyone to know what they know. And I've done this myself. They think sarcasm is training, they think yelling is leadership, they think making people feel stupid is holding a standard. It's not. This is poor leadership with a welding hood. I'm not saying foremen need to be soft. I'm definitely not saying that, because that's not cool. I said that in the last episode. Like we don't want to have a soft industry because it takes tough, good men and women to make this stuff happen. It's serious, but it's lazy, and I'm calling it out. Laziness on the management and the business ownership part of not giving somebody what they need to get into this position. Yelling is not a management system. Fear is not leadership, and I've learned that firsthand. A real foreman does more than push production, a real foreman builds people who can produce. He's not somebody that says hurry up. He does not make you feel small. So the real question is: can you keep the shop moving without destroying the crew for a new guy? For a new manager, even some of the old ones. Because there's guys that have grandfathered because there was no other option and continue to be horrible. So the questions that you know need to be answered are: can you correct without humiliating? Can you teach under pressure? Can you explain why something matters? Can you hold a high standard without becoming the reason people hate coming to work? If you can answer those, that's leadership. My message here is stop promoting people only because they're good on the tools. Ask better questions. Can this person communicate? Can they stay calm? Can they teach? Can they plan? Can they handle pressure? This is the biggest one. Can they handle pressure without dumping it on everyone else? And I have a lot of thoughts on that, around, you know, how that person can develop that way, but I'll leave it out of here. I'll spare you that. Can they earn the respect without demanding it? Can they protect quality, safety, production, and morale all at the same time? If not, then maybe they're not ready. Maybe they need training, maybe they need your support. And if you don't know how to do that, then you're not the one to do that. Maybe you need training and you need support, and then this guy needs that training and support at the same time. Maybe they should stay in the tools and be paid well for being excellent there. There is nothing wrong with that. We need to stop acting like the only way to reward a great tradesperson is to put them in charge of people. Some people should lead, some should be trainers, some should be techno technical experts. Some should get the hardest-fitting jobs. Some should become foreman, but not all of them. Those are different roles. If your crew is afraid to ask you questions, like I'm just gonna paint a scenario here for you. If if just ask yourself these questions. If you're either gonna be promoted or want to be promoted, or you're in a management role or ownership role. If your crew is afraid to ask you questions, that is not respect. If everyone goes quiet when you walk in, that's not leadership. If young people keep leaving under you, maybe the problem is not always the young people. If every mistake turns into yelling, you are training people to hide problems. And hidden problems get expensive. They create rework, safety issues, bad morale, crews that stop caring, crews that gossip more than they do work. So a strong foreman does not need to be liked by everybody, but he does need to be respected. Real respect is built by being fair, clear, consistent, skilled, firm, honest, willing to teach, not hiding things, being honest, and not being the loudest guy in the shop. Great foreman always are not the flashiest people. They're the ones who can see the job, see the people, and see the problems coming and delegate. They know when to push, when to explain, when to stop and fix something before it becomes a disaster. When a young guy needs correction, a good guy will help him. A good manager will help him. Other things are like recognize when people are burning, burning out, when the office missed something, and not just bitching about it, going and doing something and figuring out. That is leadership. Bad foreman. Let me talk about that. Poison a good shop and can drive away young talent, drive away business, burn out good workers, create a wall between the office and the floor, and between different shops, between shops, between other shops like stainless shop versus mild steel shop versus stainless or uh machine shop versus no rights. And this makes people stop speaking up. They don't, they don't, they want to break a good manager or or foreman breaks those walls down. They don't help build them back up or build them up in the first place. So I'm not blaming everything on the on the foreman or the management. I just want to make it clear that there's, you know, there's no training and they need they need also authority. Something that always happens is that sometimes management will undermine a new tr a new foreman in front of the other people under him. And that that does not create any kind of trust. Trust is such a big thing. Um so the owners, business owners and managers, you need to build a system. And I'm not here pitching something, I'm just telling you what what you need to do. And this comes from 50,000 hours of experience in the industry and paying attention. I just I'm lucky and fortunate to be observant. And that system needs to include how to lead a crew, how to respect the standard, and how everybody has a part and how to delegate that. So if you want a better shop, you need better leadership. That's it. So just stop assuming your best tradesperson is automatically your best leader, sometimes the best, to just stay on the floor. Train your foreman, support them, give them systems. Well, first off, create the systems. If you don't know what that is, I can tell you what it is. It's creating a streamlined approach, automating everything that you possibly can in your business so that people can be people and people can be creative and do only what people do. Use technology for the rest of it. Stop using promotions as the only reward. To any foreman out there, your title does not make you a leader. Your crew decides if you are one. Lead with standards, clarity, and backbone. Do not lead with ego. And to upcoming tradespeople. I mean, I don't discourage learning and becoming more, but just get to know yourself. Learn people, learn communication, learn planning, and learn how to stay calm under pressure. That's the toughest one I found anyway. Um, to the young, really, really young kids, is pay attention to the good leaders. You'll know them, you'll feel it, and just pay attention to what they're doing. If you have aspirations to do more, just pay attention to what they're doing and how they carry themselves. And ask them, test them to teach you. So that's it. That's the best. Uh that's my my my my my best advice and and thoughts on, you know, don't hire every single guy that's amazing to be a to be a terrible foreman. Um that's part people miss. And leadership is not just skill with steel, it's skill with people. So all right, thank you. That's uh the that's it for this episode of Metal Fabrication Nation. If this hits home, send it to someone in the trade, send it to shop owner, a foreman, or a fellow co worker. And if you like this, follow the show. And listen to the next one. I'm Greg Sheldon. Keep building, keep learning, lead better. This is Metal Fabrication Nation. Real talk, real shops, real metal. God bless.