The traditional top-down style of agency leadership is losing relevance. Increasingly, agents want leaders who are collaborative, supportive, and attuned to wellbeing — not just performance. Laing+Simmons CEO and President of the Real Estate Institute of Australia, Leanne Pilkington, looks at the ‘whys’ and ways leadership in real estate has evolved to meet the needs of different people with different expectations, and how culture is at the core.
It’s often said: real estate is dynamic. Consider the COVID experience.
Yes, it changed the world, we all had to pivot, but from an individual industry perspective, the changed implications for real estate have been especially profound. Hence, the role of leaders in our industry had to change.
Post-pandemic, real estate leaders have had to evolve, and for me personally, it has required a different style of leadership.
On one hand, that’s due to network expansion. Laing+Simmons has experienced a significant growth phase in recent years.
But it’s also due to changed expectations, which demand a more strategic leadership approach.
It has required the development of more structure and accountability while being careful it doesn’t lead to micro-management.
Leadership is no longer a one-size-fits-all exercise.
Different team members need and respond to different things.
Micro-management is never popular, so setting clear expectations and a culture of achievement is essential.
Changing a culture is a major investment and this investment must be made on multiple fronts: in time, money, research, technology, partnerships, people and more.
It begins with a leader asking what they want the business to be.
And then seeking the input of the team to come up with the right answer.
When I started at Laing+Simmons way back in 1995, it became obvious very quickly that the franchisees didn’t like each other.
They liked head office even less. I had to get the buy-in of the leadership group at the time to initiate a culture change.
It took time, resources and deliberate actions to achieve.
Over the years, we have made changes to everything from our training calendar to the direction of our events, and developed a team building focus that ultimately now has us achieving a Net Promotor Score of 91.4, making Laing+Simmons a world leading brand to belong to.
Establishing a culture is like building any other part of a business.
It takes meaningful, deliberate steps and actions in pursuit of a defined target outcome.
As a leader, it’s important to collaborate to define that outcome, so the team not only has buy-in to the end goal but also a degree of ownership in its achievement.
It’s also important for leaders to be visible. They are not above the team, they are a part of it.
They are not an enigma behind a closed door.
At Laing+Simmons, I make sure I am part of our daily huddles.
I attend as much of the training as I can, and I personally run the bi-monthly inductions for all new team members.
Everyone across the brand has my mobile number and knows I will respond if they reach out.
It’s not about what I say, it’s about people watching what I do.
Culture is set from the top and will fail if the leader doesn’t embrace it.
We have a culture of reflection – we constantly ask what’s going well, what’s not, and what should we do differently.
If your culture encourages curiosity, that means embracing the times when things go wrong.
Psychological safety has become somewhat of a buzz phrase since Google’s Project Aristotle acknowledged it as the most important element for a high-performance team.
The reality is that when people feel comfortable to admit mistakes, to ask questions and to suggest new ideas, everyone flourishes.
As a leader, it’s important to embrace the same mindset, to seek to innovate and when things don’t work out, to acknowledge it.
So, as a team, whenever something goes wrong, we say to ourselves “let’s get curious about how we could have done that differently”.
We don’t apportion blame but rather find a more effective solution.
This effort to find effective solutions is embedded in our schedule.
Each month we come together to train, get updates on products from our suppliers, report on our 90-day sprints and reflect on what is going well, what isn’t and what can be done better.
We hold regular team building activities and an annual retreat for the Corporate team, during which each department presents its strategies and plans for the upcoming year.
We do this, because that’s what the team has identified as important.
As a leader, it’s my job to create the opportunity, through structure and accountability, for team members to identify the right path.
Culture is what enables us to walk it together.
