Posts Tagged ‘Bob Moles’

Thursday Thoughts: Want to lead? Be prepared to take the bad with the good

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That sounds obvious, doesn’t it? And, theoretically, it is. But in the real world of real estate management things don’t always work out that way.

Have you ever worked for a manger that couldn’t make a decision? Or, when presented with a failure, sought to deflect responsibility?

There is nothing more unsettling to agents and employees than being under the command of a manager who shows a lack of commitment in his or her responsibility as a leader. Someone who wants the perks of leadership without the challenges.

These failed leaders don’t understand that it is better to make a bad decision than no decision; more admirable to accept responsibility than to avoid it.

In accepting responsibility for the Bay of Pigs fiasco – a military disaster of massive proportions – President Kennedy said, “Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan.”

It’s true. But leaders accept the good with the bad.

Bob Moles has always said, “Show me a great leader and I will show you a successful office.” Realtors will choose to follow only those managers who demonstrate a desire to lead.

Such leaders may be as different from one another as agents are different from one another. They will not have every human virtue, nor will they possess a flawless character.

But they will be distinguished by their good judgment, sincerity, compassion, authority and courage. They have a human quality, a strong commitment to their cause – and to those they serve.

In the next issue of Thursday Thoughts on Leadership, we will examine the question: “How do you know if you Possess Sufficient Desire to be a Leader?”


Thursday Thoughts on Leadership: Measure leadership by those who follow you

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Every true leader understands the value in measuring the caliber of people in their organization. It doesn’t matter what kind of group or organization you are leading, or the size; the caliber of people you lead speaks volumes about you, your organization, and your direction.  As Dennis Peer put it, “One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you.”

There is a great relationship that is developed within a great organization, the leader motivates, and guides, but eventually the group matches the challenge and catches up, and now they push the leader forward so that the whole company can grow. Against that push, the leader must strive to find new objectives, new models and new goals in order to once again bring the organization forward in its development. The French diplomat Tallyerand, once said “I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion, than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.”

At the 2007 NAR Conference & Expo Bob Moles and I were recognized and awarded the prestigious RISMedia National Home Ownership Award for “outstanding achievements among residential real estate’s most influential and charismatic leaders.”  Often, as President of Intero, I accept such awards, but these awards are truly achieved because of the team that I lead. The Intero team of agents, staff and management are the highest caliber in the business, and I have the privilege of leading them.

Soon, it will be time to turn the spotlight back on those who push me every day to be a better leader by once again recognizing the best within our group through the Intero Achievement Awards. Every year it is a nice benchmark for where we stand as a company and as individual members of the whole.

It has been demonstrated that people’s motivation to increase their productivity only increases when they have a challenging goal and receive feedback on their progress. The awards are a very public way to give that feedback. It lets us know if we are still climbing, and it lets me know how much more I need to do to meet the challenge.  As described above, the leader pulls the group forward, and the group rises to the challenge and pushes the leader to still greater achievements, the group’s momentum never stops.


Thursday Thoughts On Leadership: What Is So Special About Leaders?

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What is so special about leaders? Do we ever really stop to ask ourselves this question? There are a million different responses, but consider this one … they bring out the best in us. Leaders recognize what is possible before we do. They recognize the potential in an individual and perhaps more importantly, they know how to bring it to the surface.

Consider, Joe Montana. We all know how his story ends, but do you know how it started? As a freshman at Notre Dame in 1974, Montana was the seventh string quarterback. The following year Dan Devine, the newly hired coach stated to his wife after being impressed by Montana’s performance during training: “I’m gonna start Joe Montana in the final spring game.”  When she replied, “Who’s Joe Montana?” Devine said: “He’s the guy who’s going to feed our family for the next few years.” Today we all recognize what Dan Devine recognized in that spring training game in 1975. It is a difficult task to find six better quarterbacks in the history of football than Joe Montana, much less on one college football team. It took a leader with vision to see that.

Montana did go on to have a very good college career at a highly regarded college program, yet when he entered the NFL draft in 1979 he was once again overlooked. He was selected in the third round by the San Francisco Forty-Niners because Bill Walsh, like Dan Devine before him, recognized the potential that everyone else missed.

Walsh knew that in Montana he had found the perfect understudy to lead his team and execute his plans. As Montana related years later in the foreword to the book, The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership, “He (Walsh) had in his mind this ideal – an image of perfect football – couple with the nuts-and-bolts details of how to accomplish it, which he then taught … the place you dreamed of but didn’t know you could reach? Bill Walsh taught me how to reach it. He taught all of us how to reach it.”

I do not have any doubts that Montana believed he could make it in the NFL, but having a leader like Walsh who believed he could be one of the best ever played a vital role in Montana achieving that status. When others see potential in our abilities and they believe in us, and they reinforce that belief every day through their interactions with us, we are strongly influenced by that support. Our Chairman, Bob Moles played that role for me. If the potential exists within us, it will come out when a leader takes the time to bring us along.