Leadership, People, Management

Leadership, at its core, is the ability to guide, influence and develop people toward a shared goal. It isn’t defined by a title or a position of authority. It is defined by whether people trust your direction and are willing to follow it.

After years of leading teams, I’ve learned that leadership has far less to do with having authority and far more to do with understanding people.

You can have the title, the experience and know the numbers better than anyone in the room. None of that automatically makes people want to follow you.

People follow leaders they trust.

And trust isn’t established by a title. It is built over time, often in hundreds of small moments that we don't think much about while they are happening.

Trust is built when you listen instead of immediately responding. It grows when someone brings you a problem and you take the time to understand what is really happening instead of assuming you already know. It is reinforced when your words and actions match, when you keep the commitments you make, and when people understand where the team is going, why it matters and how they contribute to getting there.

Every person on a team is carrying more than their job title. They have strengths, worries, ambitions and things happening outside of work that we may know nothing about. Over the years, I’ve learned to pay attention when someone who normally contributes suddenly becomes quiet or when someone seems overwhelmed. Sometimes asking, “What’s on your mind today?” and actually listening to the answer tells someone more about whether you see them than any performance review ever could.

Understanding people, however, does not mean lowering expectations.

People need clarity. Telling someone to “do better,” “sell more” or “improve performance” may communicate an expectation, but it doesn’t give them direction. Leadership means helping people understand what success actually looks like. What needs to change? What should we do differently? What are we measuring? What tools can I give you? And perhaps most importantly, what can I do as your leader to help you get there?

Numbers are an important part of that conversation. I’ve spent much of my career working with sales, budgets, occupancy, closings and performance metrics, and I believe strongly in knowing the numbers. But numbers without context rarely tell the entire story.

When performance is down, I want to understand why. When performance is up, I want to understand what we did right so we can repeat it. Numbers should start conversations, not replace them.

Communication matters just as much.

People hear uncertainty. They hear frustration. They can tell whether you believe what you are saying. Leadership doesn’t require pretending to have every answer. I certainly haven’t had every answer throughout my career. I’ve found there is far more credibility in saying, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” than pretending otherwise. When you make a mistake, own it. When you make a commitment, keep it. Credibility is built through consistency.

I’ve always believed that when you hire good people, you have to give them room to do their jobs. Give them ownership, trust their judgment, and be there when they need guidance or support.There is a significant difference between constantly checking someone’s work and asking, “I trust your judgment. How do you think we should approach this?” There is also tremendous power in simply asking, “What do you need from me?”

People rarely do their best work when they feel micromanaged. They grow when they are trusted with responsibility, given ownership of their decisions and know their leader will support them when they need help.

That doesn’t eliminate accountability. I believe accountability and encouragement belong together.

Holding people accountable doesn’t require tearing them down, just as supporting people doesn’t mean avoiding difficult conversations. Some of the best growth I’ve witnessed happened because someone was coached through a challenge rather than simply criticized for getting something wrong.

Sometimes that requires something very simple from the leader: stop talking.

Listen long enough for someone to finish the thought. Ask another question. Give them enough space to tell you what they might not have told you otherwise. We learn very little about people while we are doing all the talking.

There will always be goals to hit, budgets to manage, problems to solve and difficult decisions to make. That is part of running any organization. But behind every spreadsheet, sales report, occupancy number, closing, deadline and KPI are people. They have ambitions and insecurities. They have good days and difficult ones. They want to grow, and most people want to know that the work they are doing matters.

That realization has changed how I measure my own success as a leader.

Of course results matter. They always will. But some of the accomplishments I value most can't be found on a spreadsheet.

I see them in the once-quiet person who now has the confidence to run the meeting. I see them in the person I coached who was ready for more responsibility and finally got the opportunity. And I see them in the person who no longer needs me to tell them what to do because they have developed the confidence and judgment to make the decision themselves.

To me, that is one of the greatest accomplishments of leadership.

Projects get completed. Budgets close. Sales targets reset. Another year begins and eventually many of those numbers are forgotten.

But the people you develop carry what they learned with them for the rest of their careers.

After years of managing people, my philosophy of leadership has actually become simpler. Be clear about what you expect, listen carefully, understand the numbers, say what you mean, keep your commitments, coach people when they need help, hold them accountable when necessary and give them credit when they succeed.

Above all, earn their trust.

A title can give you authority.

Trust is what gives you leadership.

Of everything leadership asks of us, what do you find the hardest to consistently practice?

Daisy Finazzo, Chief Operating Officer

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