About
I’ve been working in the construction industry for 50 years – the first 25 years in operational delivery and leadership roles and the last 25 as a leadership team coach.
I am a Master Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation – the Gold Standard for Coaching. I have been a Chartered Civil Engineer since 1989 and a Chartered Builder Since 1994.
I’m the author of several books and on-line courses about people and leadership.
Away from work, I am a family man and very competitive athlete
Dave Stitt BSc (Hons) CEng MICE FCIOB FRSA MCC
A grounded, experienced and quietly enabling leadership team coach for the UK construction industry
I’ve spent nearly 50 years in construction – first as a civil engineer then a project leader, contracts manager, business board member and, for the last 25 years, a leadership team coach. If there’s a thread running through those years, it’s this:
when people work well together, everything else becomes possible.
Today, I work with CEOs, regional directors and project leaders, enabling them to build aligned, joined-up leadership teams that deliver remarkable business results.
The moment everything shifted
For the first part of my career, I relied on technical competence, relentless determination and the belief that hard work alone created results. Then, in the mid-90s, my first coach introduced a deceptively simple idea:
‘The foundation of results is relationships.’
It shook me.
Results weren’t created by force; they emerged from how people worked together. That insight changed the course of my leadership – and my life.
Formed onsite, refined over decades
My leadership was shaped long before management roles, by a general foreman called Harry. Calm, focused, unshakable. He taught me commitment, clarity, and how easily ego can derail everything.
I carried that unstoppable energy into leadership until I learned a deeper truth:
Determination without relationship creates friction, distress and burnout.
Determination with relationship creates possibility.
That is the space I coach leaders into.
What I see inside construction leadership teams
Across national contractors, regional businesses and major project JVs, I see similar patterns:
- boards made up of high-performing individuals, not effective teams
- silo-first thinking
- collaboration mistaken for ‘being nice’ rather than being aligned and straight with each other
- technical excellence overshadowing leadership capability
- exhausted leaders carrying too much alone
- teams meeting frequently but rarely thinking together.
My work interrupts that pattern.
Every 90 days, I take leadership teams out of the noise and create the space where they can think clearly – together.
We identify what really matters, agree how they will work collectively and strengthen relationships so they can deliver reliably under pressure.
When teams reach even 40% effectiveness, the shift is profound. They have never experienced it before.
I never promise transformation; I promise better.
And better compounds.
How I work with leaders
I coach through questions, not content.
I enable capability, not dependency.
I focus on who leaders are ‘being’, not just what they are ‘doing’.
Leadership, trustworthiness, collaboration – these aren’t techniques. They are ways of being. Most construction leaders were promoted for technical excellence, but never taught how to lead.
My job is to help them see themselves clearly, take responsibility and choose better ways of operating – especially when the stakes are high, the project is under scrutiny or the organisation is under pressure.
I’m at my best when I’m simplifying complexity and moving people from confusion to confidence.
When a client says, “Dave, that was useful,” I know the work mattered.
What clients say
What surprises me most is how often leaders tell me I’ve become part of their team – not as a consultant, but as a partner in their thinking.
They return years later to tell me the long-term impact. Some even attribute their success to me – though the work was always theirs.
And occasionally someone says something extraordinary, like:
“Dave, you’re part of this project’s story.”
Those moments stay with me.
What colleagues say
Over the last three years, I’ve had the privilege of knowing Dave Stitt in perhaps a way that few people get the chance to, through the openness and honesty of a mentor-coaching relationship. Coaching reveals the parts of us we often keep unseen, and Dave has never shied away from bringing his whole self into the work.
I once shared “Dave lightness, ease and joy is naturally who you are.” And I meant it. Beneath the precision, the discipline, the methodical mind, and the extraordinary capacity for hard work, there is a gentleness and an ease that is unmistakably his. What makes Dave remarkable is not simply what he does, but the spirit with which he does it.
Dave is courageous and emboldened and both of these qualities also come with vulnerability, qualities that rarely appear together in the construction world he has spent a lifetime influencing. His commitment to doing meaningful work and truly making a difference is unwavering. He gives more than 100 percent to every project, every conversation, every challenge.
Dave understands that knowing oneself is not a destination but an ongoing practice, one that requires humility and curiosity. He continually stretches himself from “doing” into “being”, leaning into edges that many avoid. This willingness to look inward is what makes his leadership so powerful, and his coaching presence so impactful.
Beyond his professional brilliance, Dave brings a wide and beautiful range of interests, philosophy, rowing, writing, speaking, all of which feed the depth and richness of who he is.
It has been an honour to walk alongside him, to witness his growth, and to see how wholeheartedly he shows up for the world. Dave is, to me, an example of what it looks like to be both strong and open, disciplined and reflective, purposeful and human.
And above all, he is someone who leads and lives with heart.
Marie Quigley
OWNER and DIRECTOR
ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC)
CPCC (CTI)
EMCC ESIA Accredited Coach Super-Visor
Co-founder Empower World
Tutor, Cambridge University Coaching Programme
My worldview
After 25 years of coaching leadership teams, here’s what I believe:
- Complexity is normal; certainty is dangerous.
- People want to do well, but few know how.
- Teams decay naturally; regular intervention is essential.
- Success is habitual, not accidental.
- Joined-up leadership enables strength and ownership to navigate construction’s reality.
My days are spent supporting and challenging leaders to move from command-and-control to clarity, openness, trustworthiness and shared responsibility. And accountability. It’s steady, cumulative improvement – drip, drip, drip.
What drives me
I love this work.
I love seeing people come together.
I love watching clarity land.
And I love simplifying complexity so leaders can move forward with confidence.
I’m as enthusiastic now as I was at 17 – despite the senior engineer who once predicted the industry would beat it out of me. It hasn’t. If anything, my enthusiasm has grown.
Where my work is heading
I’m continuing to coach leadership teams, write and codify the thinking that has shaped my career. My next project – Advanced Influencing for Leaders – returns to a more traditional meaning of education: character, ethics and living a good life.
It’s the evolution of everything I’ve learned:
Leadership begins with who we ‘be’, not what we ‘do’.
And I’ll keep going – there’s more ahead of me than behind me.
