What Makes A Great Real Estate Executive?

A successful real estate agency is only as good as the sum of its parts. And who should be adding up those sums? An excellent real estate executive. These folks are usually GREAT at what they love to do. They thrive on working with customers… listing, buying and selling houses. Leading an agency, though, that’s a different animal. An agency typically consists of a diverse group of individuals and you’re attempting to get them all to work together to achieve your long-term business goals. That takes a different set of skills. How do you know if you have the skills and attributes necessary to manage others? What skills are needed to run a successful real estate agency?

Based on studying top performing real estate executive’s and team leader’s DISC personality profiles, here are the traits that seem to correlate with being the best in that role:

Leadership: There are numerous kinds of leaders, ideal for numerous kinds of environments. This description is strictly for the most ideal overall leader of others.

• Behavior – Moderate Decisive, high Interactive, mid-line Stabilizing and Cautious.
  • Pros – The somewhat restrained D helps them be more collaborative and patient. The high I brings an emotional intelligence that is vital. Mid-line S and C make them most flexible to deal with each end of the spectrum found throughout the team.
  • Cons – They are better at working through others, and not as much as an individual contributor.
• Motivations – High Political followed by Economic and rounded out by a high Individualistic motivators.
  • Pros – They really like being in charge, taking command and leading. Others would prefer to be led. They’re always focused on the top and bottom lines and are comfortable standing out in the crowd.
  • Cons – They can be considered more of a jack-of-all-trades than master of any. They need people to lead and don’t perform or enjoy the work as much without such.

Real Estate Executive Summary:

Often the best salesperson becomes the de-facto leader, but great sales capability doesn’t always translate well to leading other salespeople (or a team). Like few great athletes make great coaches, a great leader is ideally suited for leading, more than doing directly. It is about understanding the team. Being able to relate with each person and having insight into how to develop each of them to their personal best is key.

Real Estate Executive should have a focus on all of the following:

• The importance of having a vision
• Leading with charisma
• Creating the best environment for a team
• Communicating effectively
• Exhibiting integrity
• Generating passion for a mission
• Integrating into something larger than themselves

Success is determined by how a team plays as a whole

All organizations have a great number of individual stars and top performers – employees who are skilled and knowledgeable and have the necessary attitudes and behaviors to accomplish anything they desire; yet without proper leadership the agency may still come up short on their results.

Babe Ruth said it best. “Success is determined by the way a team plays as a whole.” No one player is more important than another. It doesn’t matter how talented a real estate executive is in sales. If he or she hasn’t mastered the fine art of leading and the team isn’t encouraged to play together, the desired results will not be achieved.

Leaders who focus on and practice the traits above are well on the way to creating a powerful team.

Remember, management is about things – leadership is about people.

Are you a strong leader ready to build a team?

Aidan Weinrib