As leaders, we hold a very formidable position in directing our people’s professional lives. Leaders exert great influence over and impact the success or failure of their sales agents and staff whether acting as a CEO, a branch office leader, or any other position whereby we touch business lives.  It took me five or six years of running a real estate operation to fully understand the degree to which I represented the voice of influence to my sale agents.

This realization is the beginning of true growth in leadership skills. In other words, if you believe that you will influence the outcome of individual business lives, then you will. Conversely, if you lack belief that you can influence outcomes, then get some coaching on that issue first, before attempting to implement change.

The message here revolves around the necessity of leaders to have a high level of ‘emotional intelligence.’ In other words, to influence people effectively, leaders must be operating from a ‘stable emotional base’. This essentially means that if the world around us is falling down, we as leaders must possess the energy and presence of mind to calm nerves, provide direction and cause the operation to move forward despite all potential disruptions. Influencing people’s lives is, in essence, the ultimate responsibility.  

The final concept that I want to reinforce around influencing outcomes is the idea of total personal responsibility. Being “responsible” means that anything and everything that happens in a real estate operation is the leaders fault. Whether good, bad or indifferent, the leader has incited the result. You can disagree with this statement if you like, but that will not change the reality that you are ultimately responsible for what happens in your organization.

This leads us to the first of many ‘Rules of Thumb’ that I will offer through my blog posts in the future. I won’t comment on this first ‘rule’ but place it here for your thoughtful consideration because it applies to each and every potential leadership situation we find ourselves in.

Rule of Thumb

“If the same problem occurs three times,

you are either causing it, or allowing it to happen”