TRANSCRIPTION OF VLOG:
Hi, Kimberly Mackey from New Homes Solutions, and I am coming to you today from the barn so that I can talk to you about leadership. Hopefully I can get this 1,100 pound beast beside me (my horse, Prince) to actually cooperate and be part of it. “Prince, say hi to everybody.” This is Prince, and there’s lot of distracting grass around, but say hi to everybody.” The reason that I am coming to you from the barn today, is that I want to talk to you about leadership, and horses can actually teach you a lot about leadership, but we’ll get to that in a second. (To Prince,) “In the meantime, how about I let you go eat your grass while we talk?”
Leadership is a mindset, not a position. Earlier this week, I was talking to one of the sales people that I coach, and he said something to me that I found very disheartening. He actually said that no one respected him. We were talking about respect and things that he could do to lead from where he is. He said no one respected him. I stopped for a moment, it took me back a bit, and then I said, “What are you doing to earn that respect?” I think that is a good question for all of us to consider regardless of our title. Horses can’t be pushed from behind. You can’t push a horse and tell it to go somewhere. If I tried pushing him, he thinks, “No, the grass is good here, and I’m not going anywhere.” If I try to pull him from the front, the same thing happens. He says, “No, the grass is good here. I don’t want to go. I’m going to stay right here and eat the grass, Mom. That’s all I’m going to do.” But if I walk beside him, and get his attention away from the grass, of course, then he is is going to walk anywhere I want him to walk. The point is when you walk beside people, and they know that you’re with them, then they’re also going to respect you. They will look at you as a leader, and they will follow you, and they’ll follow your direction regardless of what your title is.
So, let’s talk about what can you do, from whatever position you’re in to be a leader.
One thing you can do is to thank people. Be appreciative. Always be appreciative of what people are doing. I like to reward right behavior and talk about right behavior for people and appreciate the effort that people are putting forth. A lot of times we get caught up in only rewarding the outcome, but it’s the right behavior that leads to the outcome. So, if you see somebody trying really hard, encourage them, thank them for their efforts. It doesn’t matter that you’re not their boss. They’ll see that somebody is paying attention, and they’ll look at you for leadership. Of course, if you are their boss and you’re doing that, well then all the better because that’s even more important that when you are the boss you’re thanking people and rewarding that right behavior. Again, it’s the right behavior that leads to the results that we’re looking for.
Go out of your way to make the company look good. I know that a lot of the salespeople may not like the dress code for instance or they make not like this, that, or the other thing (rule). Sometimes it’s easy to get on that phone tree and do the yammer, yammer, yammer. You know, that thing where salespeople call your friends and complain about something or say that something isn’t right. That’s not being a leader. Leaders talk about solutions and look at solutions for things. They accept company guidelines are just that; they are company guidelines. So follow those company guidelines. Don’t complain about them. Lead from where you are. If there is something that needs to be changed, don’t just complain about it, but look for a better solution or a better alternative. Back it up. Do some homework on it, and then take that to your leadership team or your management team, and talk to them to find out what the possibilities of that might be.
Take yourself seriously. Now, life is short, and of course, I’m out here with a horse to illustrate a point. I understand we should have fun, but having fun doesn’t mean that we don’t take ourselves seriously and put in the time and effort; do the homework, read books, go to classes, listen to podcasts, take any good training that you can get to better yourself. And then take action from that training regardless of your position. Because if you’re doing that, people will naturally see you as a leader. Realize that others are watching you, so model that right behavior. For the company leadership, that’s even more important. If you’re the owner or the manager, are you modeling the behavior that you’re asking of your team? Are you showing up on time for meetings? When you’re there, are you all in on that meeting, or are you busy and distracted and taking calls and letting people walk in and interrupt you when you’re supposed to be spending time with someone? When you’re there, focus on the task at hand. And that will garner you the respect of everyone around you. That goes for whatever your position happens to be.
The bottom line is that no matter what you’re title happens to be, YOU can be a leader! *No horses were harmed in the making of this video. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the grass. 
Kimberly Mackey is the founder of New Homes Solutions, and has the reputation as someone with real-world SOLUTIONS in a competitive and rapidly changing sales environment–SOLUTIONS like “50 Sales per Year before Any Walk-in Traffic”. She is a keynote speaker and published author of many Sales and Leadership articles with 20 years of experience as an executive in the residential home building and real estate industry. She has a proven track record working with Builders and Developers of all sizes –from the local/regional companies to the publicly traded nationals. She also works with Brokers from across the country and is the architect and director of the highly successful Preferred Builder Partnership with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Properties Group where she works with 32 builders, 22 offices and over 600 agents.
For more information, or to book Kimberly for your next event, visit www.NewHomesSolutions.com, or visit Mackey at LinkedIn,www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlymackey; Twitter,www.twitter.com/KimberlyDMackey; and Facebook,www.facebook.com/NewHomesSolutions or on YouTube, www.youtube.com/c/NewHomesSolutions
