Trulia founder and investor Pete Flint shares his opinions about the lack of real estate leadership — and the challenges the industry faces as a result.
Flint’s predictions about disruption, and hesitant and resistant real estate leaders, were harsh but necessary for all of us to hear.
“It’s a slow-moving industry. There’s a 10-year window here. But the majority of traditional real estate companies will die.” His point was not that the industry has no leaders, but that many have their heads stuck in the sand as a “tsunami” of disruption heads for the beach.
I agree with Flint that ours is an industry facing serious, existential threats. And that transformational leadership will be required to survive.
We need to think about how we can connect to the right people, inside and outside the business, and what we can do to illuminate the inevitable changes on the horizon.
How do you lead boldly without acting reckless? How do you bring along a restless workforce and thrive in a divided society and a conflicted industry? How do you prepare your company to survive a world of open data? How do you scale your idea into a much bigger enterprise?
Leaders must step up, speak up and be authentic.
For our Industry to thrive, we need to not only be looking at the here and now but have a future plan in place as well. We need a comprehensive commitment to support a new generation of leaders; to inspire legacy executives who are willing to change; and to share best practices for leadership across the industry.
It begins with bringing all sides, voices and perspectives together. We need to create a living document that maps out real estate leadership in the future. There are organisations, each of which has developed impressive leadership principles and figured out ways to build a culture that wins – these are the leaders we need to connect with to help us step up.
Change is upon us, I hope you will join.