What Leadership Really Means

By Justin Stoddart

Leadership is one of those words that gets used so often in business that it can start to lose its meaning. We associate it with titles, team size, production numbers, or the number of people reporting to us. But in my conversation with Erica Lehmkuhl, I was reminded that leadership is much more practical than that.

Erica retired from the Army after 23 years of service and went on to become a top-producing real estate agent and brokerage owner in Hawaii. When I asked how her military career prepared her for real estate, she summed it up simply: “To lead is to serve.”

That principle has followed Erica from leading soldiers to leading agents and, perhaps most importantly, advising clients through some very consequential financial decisions.

Leadership Means Telling Clients What They Need to Hear

Real estate professionals have an obvious incentive to help transactions happen. Leadership sometimes requires us to recognize when they shouldn’t.

Hawaii offers a good example. Erica works with military families who may expect to purchase a home, live in it for a few years, and then turn it into a rental when they receive their next permanent change of station. In many markets, that strategy can make sense. In Hawaii, Erica cautions that the numbers frequently don’t work that way. That is why she encourages buyers to consider their exit strategy before purchasing, rather than assuming appreciation or rental income will eventually solve the problem.

An agent could avoid that conversation and focus on getting the transaction closed. Erica sees that as a failure of responsibility. As she put it, “If you’re doing it for the commission and not for the client, then you’re in the wrong business.”

That is an important standard for our industry. Expertise isn’t merely knowing enough to complete a transaction. It is being willing to use what you know in the client’s best interest, even when doing so costs you an opportunity.

Erica carries that same expectation into her brokerage. She shared a recent example in which a lock and toilet developed problems around the time buyers took possession of a home her team had listed. Although the contractual obligations were essentially complete, she paid to have a locksmith and plumber address the problems. Her reasoning was straightforward: leaving the buyers with those problems simply wasn’t the right thing to do.

Values become much more meaningful when honoring them costs us something.

Courage and Communication Build Trust

Erica also brought up another lesson from her military career that translates remarkably well into business: courage does not require the absence of fear.

As a former paratrooper, she has a more literal understanding of that principle than most of us. But her point applies just as readily to an agent making a difficult phone call, speaking in front of a room, telling a client something they don’t want to hear, or taking the next step in building a business.

“Courage is not the absence of fear,” Erica said. “It’s doing what you should and doing what you need to, even when you’re scared.”

In our conversation, that led me to a related thought: one of the best antidotes to anxiety is work. Rather than remaining stuck contemplating everything that could go wrong, get your feet moving. You can respond to reality much more effectively than you can respond to every possible scenario you’ve imagined.

That courage also shows up in communication. Erica’s military specialty was in the Signal Corps, and today she remains committed to giving clients the full picture, including the parts that aren’t particularly pleasant. She doesn’t believe clients benefit from “sunshine and rainbows” when there is important negative information they need in order to make an informed decision.

In a referral-based business, that kind of candor matters. People remember the professional who was willing to tell them the truth.

Great Leaders Create More Leaders

Perhaps the part of our conversation I appreciated most was Erica’s attitude toward the agents she leads.

Some business owners are hesitant to develop people too well. What if they leave? What if they become competitors? Erica encourages her agents to pursue their broker licenses and continue advancing, even if that eventually means starting brokerages of their own. She wants knowledge to continue beyond her rather than end with her.

That requires an abundance mentality, particularly in a competitive industry like ours.

Erica doesn’t view every capable agent in her market as an enemy. She recognizes that different clients gravitate toward different professionals, and that good agents on opposite sides of a transaction can collaborate while still competing for business.

The same principle explains her passion for connecting clients with other trusted professionals. That is ultimately what brought Erica and me together through the Homeowner Concierge. A real estate professional’s value doesn’t have to end when the transaction closes. We can curate relationships with excellent professionals and make those relationships readily available whenever our clients need them.

To me, that’s another form of leadership. You’re using the trust and relationships you’ve accumulated to make life easier for the people you serve.

The best leaders aren’t simply trying to become indispensable. They’re creating an environment in which clients, colleagues, and other professionals have what they need to succeed.

If you’re a real estate professional who wants to build a business around that kind of service, consider where your leadership can extend beyond the transaction. Tell clients the truth even when it costs you. Develop the people around you. Build relationships with professionals you trust, and make those relationships available to your clients.

That’s how you become more than the person who helped someone buy or sell a house. You become the person they continue to trust, remember, and refer.

At ProInsight, we help professionals build a referral engine for their business. Apply here to see if becoming a Homeowner Concierge™ Select Professional is available in your area.