Real Estate Agent Leadership Challenge

Effective Leadership and Management Abilities

Effective leadership and management abilities are essential for achieving goals and objectives in any business or organization-related tasks. Planning, organizing, staffing, regulating, and leading an organization in order to achieve a unified goal are all components of effective leadership management. Bringing people together to achieve desired goals with the resources at hand requires leadership. The process by which maintenance and operation of real estate are carried out with the intention of attaining the goals of the real estate owner is referred to as real estate management. The goal of the current article is to examine the leadership issues that real estate salespeople face while also identifying the leadership models and theories connected to those challenges. The paper will then apply the identified leadership theories and models in the challenge of a real estate agent.

Situation Description

Real estate agents are responsible for ensuring that they meet the demands of their buyers and sellers. Therefore, as a real estate agent, one is required to have a great understanding and familiarity of the market, and more precisely the location of their client's properties. The major challenge facing real estate agents which is also a centered organizational problem is based on the need to lead, coordinate and manage individuals and teams of professionals towards a successful transaction promptly. The transaction involves different parties including realtors, brokers, buyers and seller clients and insurance representatives. In most cases during the transaction period, a client may experience uncertainty, nervous, stress or excitement which could result in misunderstandings either on the price or other purchase-related issues. Mortgage lenders, inspectors, and appraisers may at times fail to meet the required deadline to address any problems. This creates a leadership challenge for the real estate agents, realtors, who are responsible for handling such a situation. Therefore the leadership challenge facing the real estate agents is the need for them to multitask while conducting their daily tasks. They are tasked with the role of taking care of the paperwork, explaining provisions of a contract to a client and coordinating inspection of the target property. They should also make sure that they review the documents to ascertain that everything is by the terms of the agreement. Therefore, one needs to gain an understanding of the varying personality types for purposes of developing effective strategies for addressing the challenge. Second, the realtors need to education and training and are informed of the consequences of failing to perform their task as required.

Leadership Theories and Models

Situational Leadership

Situational leadership style is classified as an adaptive leadership approach. It involves the leaders of an organization taking stock of their team members, weighing the available variables within the working environment and deciding on the most effective leadership style that best suits the current circumstances. It is a flexible leadership model, which can quickly adapt to the work environment and the needs of any organization. It does not depend on any particular skill of the leader but the capacity of the leader to modify the management style to suit the organization’s situation requirements. According to situational leadership, leaders should first identify the most crucial tasks or priorities that need to be addressed in the work environment (Mujtaba, & Sungkhawan, 2009). Second, the leader must consider the willingness level of the work personnel by accessing the team’s ability and enthusiasm. The leader must apply the most suitable leadership style with regards to the identified variables, to address the given situation (Thompson & Vecchio, 2009; Blanchard, 2008). There are four different types of situational leadership, delegating, directing, coaching, and supporting.

Path-Goal Leadership Theory

The theory is founded on the need to specify the most effective leader’s style or behavior that best suits the workforce or work environment with the aim of achieving a goal. The objective is to boost the worker’s motivation, them to become more productive. The theory can be viewed from the perspective of leaders deciding on specific behaviors that match the employee’s needs and the working environment with the aim of guiding the employees through their path in achieving their daily work goals. Path-Goal theory involves, determining the characteristics of the employees and the working environment, selecting the most appropriate leadership style and focusing on motivational elements that would help the employees to succeed. (Alanazi, Alharthey, & Rasli, 2013) The theory is centered on the leader’s behavior which is an independent variable. The theory advocates for the adjustments of the leader’s style of behavior to the employee and task characteristics to create an environment that motivates the employees to excel at their goal (Dixon, & Hart, 2010).

Leadership Grid

The Leadership Grid is considered as an extension of the Behavioral Leadership Theories. Its primary focus in on the attitudes that drive behavior, which is the concern for people and concern for results. It was developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton, who proposed that these two attitudes are independent variables. Also, the two attitudes reside within any leader who works with the designated style. One of the style that a leader could opt to operate with is team manager style. As a team manager, one is concerned with results as well as high concern for people. Any leader operating under at this level is labeled as highly effective and is a perfect example of a leader who leads (Arian, & Tipu, 2008). A team manager is expected to lead their team to achieve different results. Such a leader is knowledgeable on the various ways through which they can motivate a diverse team of people towards achieving a common and beneficial goal, resulting in a triple win-win-win for the team members, the leader, and the company (Gregoire, & Arendt, 2014).

Application of Theories and Models

Real estate agents are faced with the problem of dealing with misunderstandings and uncertainty issues that might arise with the customers. Therefore, from the situational leadership model aspect, as a leader on may opt to coach the agents, realtors on various ways through which they could handle such cases. Coaching, a type of situational leadership, would be most suitable to address the leadership challenge since it works well where the team members are willing but have limited ability to handle the tasks at hand. The leader will be required the roles of each team member clearly to clear any misunderstanding. Moreover, the leader is also required to seek ideas and suggestions from the realtors. The leader will then make a decision, but communication is two-way. The current leadership challenge could be due to the unexperienced nature of the realtors, thus through coaching, they will be directed and supervised on what they are supposed to do. Coaching entails supporting and praising of the team members to help them develop self-esteem as well as being involved in decision-making to restore their commitment. Coaching will help address the challenge since it will require the leader to spend time listening, advising and helping the realtors gain the required skills to execute their tasks autonomously next time.

Path-Goal theory will guide the team leader on setting high goals and getting involved in achieving those goals as well as supporting employees. The current leadership challenge facing the organization could be addressed through adopting the path-goal theory of leadership. The leader could set the goals that the team is required to achieve and get involved together with the real estate agents to achieve the goals. Moreover, the realtors could gain motivation to achieve the goals when the leader supports them by either explaining to them the varying personality types for purposes of developing effective strategies to execute their designated tasks. The organization is made up of different key players such as the realtors, brokers, buyers and seller clients, lenders, inspectors, appraisers, and escrow officers, there each of them must encourage to do their part of having a successful transaction. Moreover, they must feel the leader’s commitment and have the support of each other to perform at their best.

Leadership Grid would be appropriate in addressing the leadership challenge through the application team leader style. Once the organization’s leader inspires commitment to the real estate agents and promotes career development and puts into consideration the need to meet deadlines, then customer satisfaction would be guaranteed. It would help solve the anxiety and misunderstandings that might emerge during the transaction.

Reflective Analysis

One insight about leadership learned from the assignment is that a leader is always responsible and the employees are required to be responsive to their leader. It can also be argued that employees within an organization should be responsive and the job of management by the leader should be responsive to them. Therefore, as a leader, one is required to help employees perform at their best. Another insight about leadership is that it has nothing to do with seniority complex or an individual’s position in the organization. Third, is that leadership does not depend on personal attributes. One action that I will take to enhance my leadership practice would be being responsible to my employees and supporting them develop skills to help achieve the organization’s goals.

The most surprising thing is that upon entry to the business world the way of thinking is quite different. The previous way of reasoning and thinking will not be applicable in the new world, even though in the past many might have been successful. However, for those that embrace the change and step up to the challenge, they learn new skills to fit in the new world. In the end, such individuals end up becoming new leaders of the industry. This implies that there is a complete change in the mindset and so the subsequent challenges facing real estate agents may appear irresistible and hard to overcome. Situational leadership theory will help the realtors gain adequate skills to perform their tasks and address any challenge that they face. Also, it will also allow them to execute their tasks autonomously next time in case of a similar situation. Path-Goal theory will help each of the team members in the organization realize their roles and have the support of the leader to perform at their best. Through the use of leadership grid model, a leader would be able to appreciate loyalty and admiration from the employees in the real estate industry as well as recognizing that managing a successful business is not dependent on being liked by the employees. A real estate agent is responsible for operating a short-term service business by applying their professional skills and knowledge. It also involves an agent spending time to develop and nature personnel teams. Such skills and attributes of a real estate agent are important to ensuring fundamental success factors for an organization. Therefore, it is domineering that active leadership features are affected early on in developing an organization. My thinking has changed from the perspective that leading specific real estate agents, it is important to be mindful of the several leadership crisis indicators and challenges within the profession.

Conclusion

As a leader, a realtor plays a major role that has a significant influence towards the outcome. When dealing with issues finding solutions to overcome problem will depend on the quick thinking and decision-making, providing valuable information and proper wording. A leader should apply different leadership models and theories to address any situation in a work environment.

References

Alanazi, T. R., Alharthey, B. K., & Rasli, A. (2013). Overview of path-goal leadership theory. Sains Humanika, 64(2).

Arian, F., & Tipu, S. (2008). Determining the emerging leadership styles using the Leadership Grid. Journal of Global Management9, 4, 274-285.

Blanchard, K. (2008). Situational Leadership-Adjust your style to suit the development level. Leadership Excellence, 25(5), 19.

Dixon, M. L., & Hart, L. K. (2010). The impact of path-goal leadership styles on work group effectiveness and turnover intention. Journal of Managerial Issues, 52-69.

Gregoire, M. B., & Arendt, S. W. (2014). Leadership: Reflections over the past 100 years. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 114(5), S10-S19.

Mujtaba, B. G., & Sungkhawan, J. (2009). Situational leadership and diversity management coaching skills. Journal of Diversity Management–First Quarter, 4(1).

Thompson, G., & Vecchio, R. P. (2009). Situational leadership theory: A test of three versions. The Leadership Quarterly, 20(5), 837-848.