„Leadership is not a position, but a task” – we also asked the Engineer of the Month about the renovation of the Citadel

Family, teachers, and where he grew up – all played a decisive role in István Muskovits becoming an engineer.
„We lived in a much more closed-off world during the socialist era than we do now. We couldn’t choose between options like going to school in Vienna or Stockholm. Like many others, at the age of 14 I didn’t know what I wanted to be. So my teachers, my family and where I lived all played a decisive role in my decision.”

In his case, too, his primary school teachers recognised his outstanding drawing skills and fine motor skills, and so steered him towards a career path where he could develop these talents. As a native of Székesfehérvár, he attended the József Jáky Secondary School of Construction, which was considered one of the leading institutions of its kind at the time. Thanks to his good academic results and achievements in professional competitions, he was eventually admitted to the Budapest University of Technology without having to sit an entrance exam. There he faced another choice: whether to become an architect or a civil engineer. In the end, he was drawn to the broader horizons of architectural engineering: a world that offers a wide range of roles, from the initial concept of a building through design and construction right through to its operation.

BME taught me to think and adapt

After graduating from the Faculty of Architecture at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, he remained at the institution for a further three years whilst pursuing a PhD. He regards this period as pivotal in his professional career. Through his tutors and academic work, he was able to acquire at a young age the problem-solving, analytical mindset that many only acquire more slowly, through their own experiences. The focus of his research was the impact of construction technologies on structural systems. This proved to be a forward-thinking decision, as the period coincided with the years following the political transition, when major international industrial investments began to appear in Hungary – such as IBM in Székesfehérvár – bringing with them numerous innovations. The production halls of multinational companies required a completely different spatial and structural logic to the familiar building systems of the past.

From building petrol stations to major investment projects

His first job was at a family business, where he initially worked as a design engineer. The company was primarily involved in the construction of petrol stations in Western Hungary. He was able to develop in a supportive environment, where he was always given tasks that matched his current professional expertise. When the first residential estate developments emerged, he worked on the design of residential buildings through his own business, and later on police stations commissioned by the Ministry of the Interior. In property development, following the design phase, he became increasingly involved in the construction processes, which over time led to a new decision: to remain in the world of small businesses, or to move on to larger, more complex projects.

The solitude of the designer replaced by teamwork

Through his design work and his dealings with contractors, it became clear to him that the collaborative nature of the work and the constantly changing, intense environment of the construction process – which often demanded immediate decisions – suited his personality better. He also made another important realisation: he was more interested in larger, more complex projects, which required a large-scale corporate environment involving multi-stakeholder collaboration and genuine coordination. Prior to ZÁÉV, he worked as a regional director at Hazai Építő Zrt., and subsequently at Közgép. While at the latter, he was involved in numerous projects in the southern Balaton region, including, among other things, the reconstruction of the main square in Keszthely.

The contractor’s responsibility: will it be a midwife or an orphan?

According to István Muskovits, technical expertise alone is not enough in construction: communication and the ability to assert one’s interests play an equally important role. A project involves the client, the designer, the contractor and the technical supervisor all at the same time, and although they all want the same thing – for the project to be completed – they each view the same situation from a different perspective, through a different lens. In this system, the contractor often becomes the primary person held responsible. If there is a problem, in most cases they are the first to be held to account for the fault, even though the decision-making powers do not always lie with them.

„They say that success has many mothers and many godmothers. Failure, however, is always an orphan.”

He considers it crucial that the contractor should not merely be an executor, but should also be capable of managing the processes – in such a way that cooperation, rather than conflict, develops between the parties involved. To achieve this, however, one must learn to speak the other party’s language. You can only work well with a designer if the contractor also understands the designer’s logic. The same applies to the client or the technical supervisor: results can only be achieved if the parties are able to view the same problem from the same perspective.

„My aim is not to ensure that the person sitting opposite me understands what I want, but rather to express myself in such a way that they understand what I want.”

In construction, just like in football, it’s all about tactics and teamwork

By his own admission, he doesn’t know much about football, but he is interested in tactical analysis and likes to illustrate a situation using examples drawn from the sport. He believes he can draw many parallels between football and project delivery, whether it be teamwork or the division of tasks.

„Even Messi can’t score goals on his own; he needs teammates, teamwork, and players who can pass the ball to him. If I put 11 Messis in the starting line-up, it’ll be chaos. You need someone who’s willing to run down the touchline with the ball and doesn’t get frustrated at having to pass it to Messi.”

Another key similarity is that, on the surface, it looks as though 11 players on each side are chasing a ball. In reality, for truly successful teams, many aspects of a given match are planned in advance. Bayern Munich recently managed to break down Barcelona’s structure and defeat them with a masterfully devised tactic. It is often said in analyses that one team imposed its will on the other.

„When it comes to execution, if we have a pre-planned strategy and are always thinking several steps ahead of everyone else involved, we can steer the client in that direction so that, in the end, they believe it was their decision, when in fact that’s what we wanted.”

It’s not just Ronaldo and Messi who can win matches

As chief engineer, István Muskovits believes that leadership is not a position, but a role. A leader’s job is not to issue orders, but to provide the team with a solution when work comes to a standstill – much like a football coach. The important thing is that everyone is given a task they can carry out. Of course, it may happen that, for some reason, someone is unable to resolve a situation, but in that case they must know who to ask for help.
There was a period when he was managing four different projects at the same time. He worked with four different clients, design teams and teams on the construction of the Fehérvár Hospital, the University of Public Service, the Sports Hospital and the Citadella. At such times, only 3 per cent of his work was the actual profession itself, whilst 97 per cent was problem-solving. After a while, it is no longer the task itself that matters, but how it can be solved with the team at hand.

„If a team is like, say, Paris Saint-Germain, which is considered one of the best in the world, then you know how to field them. But in a company, not everyone is Messi or Ronaldo, and it wouldn’t be a good thing if they were. You need other types of players as well. However, if you take to the pitch with a team of a different make-up, say Paks, then you have to choose a different tactic. It is the manager’s job to recognise this: who can do what, and how to get the job done. After all, the expectation from the owner and senior management is always the same: the match must be won.”

In a good team, people don’t just work alongside one another; they work for one another

According to István Muskovits, it is not the mechanical adherence to job descriptions that makes a project successful during implementation, but rather the fact that team members genuinely help one another. His guiding principle is that if one person is overburdened, another must step in to help. The interests of the project come first, not rigid role boundaries.
On occasion, as chief engineer, he has personally carried out preparatory tasks that he took over from overburdened colleagues. At other times, site managers have helped out with work that, formally speaking, would not have been their responsibility.

„A real team can be recognised by the fact that its members don’t just work alongside one another on the same project, but also for one another. We have to win the project together.”

You have to be a psychologist too

As chief engineer, he pays close attention not only to the team but also to its individual members. Professional performance is always underpinned by a person’s state of mind, resilience and sense of security. The chief engineer must therefore also be a psychologist. His office door is only closed when someone wishes to speak to him in private.

„This is another reason why it’s worth watching football: even if you have a squad full of big names, if there’s no discipline in the dressing room, you won’t win. It’s not the manager’s job to run onto the pitch as the twelfth man and score the goal himself, but to get the team into a state where the players can win the match. It’s no different in the construction industry: if the workers are in the right frame of mind and spirit, then you can expect them to perform really well. But for that to happen, you need to listen to them.”

He learnt a great deal from the company managers he had the opportunity to work with. István Istenes, the former production director at ZÁÉV, always used to say: you should listen to the unskilled workers too, because they might just be right on that particular issue.

„I still consider this to be true and worth following. A good leader does not listen to someone simply because of their rank or position. They pay attention to what is said and, if they deem it appropriate, convey it with due weight to their superiors or, where relevant, to the owners.”

A wizard in Orczy Park?

When we asked István Muskovits to list his most special projects, he highlighted the first phase of the development of the National University of Public Service as one of his earliest projects under the ZÁÉV programme.

„When we took over the site one Monday morning in January, we found ourselves walking through an abandoned, dilapidated area fraught with problems. As we walked through the bushy, wooded area, looking to see where each building would be constructed, we saw a red shoe flutter up in the distance before us, and then its pair appeared on the other side of the tree. At first, we jokingly thought this unexpected sight was the work of a magician, but it soon became clear to us that the prostitutes were simply working on the future construction site. At that time, Orczy Park was a drug den and an open-air brothel. Before the first ground-breaking, a large quantity of hazardous waste, including used syringes, had to be removed.”

Two years later, a completely different world greeted visitors: a well-maintained public park had been created, where families now go for walks, parents with young children push prams, and in the summer, camps and community programmes bring the neighbourhood to life.

„What I like most about projects like this is when a development is not only built, but also brings order and creates real value. This benefits not only the developer, but also local residents and the city as a whole.”

Citadella: smart building features in a listed building

For István Muskovits, the renovation of the Citadella ranks among his most special projects, partly for similar reasons. The task was to transform a neglected, dilapidated historic monument in a prime location in Budapest into an attractive tourist and community space, in a project that presented challenges in terms of heritage conservation, structural engineering and technology. At the start of the project, he had reservations about cutting through the grandiose, historic castle walls and creating new ground levels, but he now believes that the renovated Citadel could become one of Budapest’s most visited sites.
He highlighted two elements of the citadel’s renovation that may be less obvious to the layman but represent a significant achievement from a professional standpoint. One is the glass reception area built into the horseshoe of the rondella, which, according to designer Dániel Taraczky, is currently the largest structure of its kind in Europe where every single element is made of glass. The other, equally significant challenge was the need to integrate modern mechanical, electrical and ventilation systems into a historic building structure that was clearly not originally designed to accommodate them.

At the Citadel, we sometimes had to route a system through walls up to three metres thick and connect it in such a way that it ended up exactly where it was supposed to be and still worked reliably.
„It was a task akin to someone wanting to restore a classic car to its original condition, whilst also fitting an automatic gearbox, lane-keeping assist and a reversing camera. With a car, this wouldn’t even occur to anyone, but with a building, it’s now almost a given that we should make it smart.”

Turning a mistake into an advantage

According to István Muskovits, situations regularly arise during construction where a mistake or a poor decision has to be rectified on the fly. He strives to turn this into an advantage in the end. At the Military National Security Service’s Budakeszi site, one of his colleagues was about to be barred from the base because security guards had spotted that his access card was not on him but in his car. „When I went for my next shift, I deliberately placed my own pass on the windscreen. Shortly afterwards, the inspectors raised the issue. I asked them if they could show me their certification proving they had successfully completed the health and safety training, which is a basic requirement for entering a construction site, as that is where they were. It turned out they couldn’t.”
The story ended with the rule being clarified within a few days: the card does not need to be kept on the worker’s person, as a lanyard worn around the neck could pose a safety hazard whilst working. In other words, a difficult situation ultimately led to a decision that helped my colleagues in their day-to-day work.

Family ties

Although unexpected situations and weekend work are sometimes unavoidable in the construction industry, István Muskovits believes that family should always come first. At ZÁÉV, he considers not only a family-like atmosphere but also a family-focused approach to be important. He believes that if a team functions well and organises its work with foresight, then the time from Monday to Friday should be sufficient to complete the tasks.

Anyone who is unable to relax and recharge will, sooner or later, find it difficult to perform as well at work.

„You can have a successful career and work on valuable projects, but when it’s all over, it’s not the project that comes to you – it’s your family.”

The secret to success

Looking back on a career spanning more than three decades, István Muskovits highlighted adaptability as the most important lesson he has learnt. The profession, technology, the economic environment, projects and teams are all constantly changing, and in the long term, those who can not only adapt to these changes but also turn them to their advantage are the ones who will remain successful.