You’re in the interview process, attempting to do a great job in choosing your next manager. What do you want to listen for? What ‘red flags’ should you notice? It all starts with your job description. (Look below to get mine).

The real estate industry is changing rapidly. Yet, many of our job descriptions for managers have not changed in 40 years! So, don’t rely on that old job description when hiring. Instead, look way past the a�?traditional managera�� profile. What do I mean? You can’t afford to have just a ‘maintenance manager’. You can’t have a manager who:

Sits in the office and waits for a crisis

Refuses to recruit because he/she ‘doesn’t have time’

Doesn’t believe in standards of performance

Thinks training should be done by someone else (unless he/she is managing a very large office)

Thinks managing is about getting groups to do what he/she says, instead of developing each agent to his/her potential

What to Listen for in the Interview

A�If your candidate says any of the statements below,

A�a�?I just want to support my agentsa�?.

a�?Ita��s tough out there; I want to keep encouraging them to just hang in there.a�?

a�?I want to be available to agents 24 hours a day.a�?

a�?Retention is much more important than recruiting.a�?

a�? I dona��t train or coach. Youa��ll have to hire someone to do that.a�?

a�?I dona��t believe in taking courses. I learn from experience.a�?

a�?My expertise is in answering broker questions. Ia��ll be there for thema�?

a�?Crisis management is my forte.a�?

A�Run the other way. In my experience interviewing hundreds of would-be leaders, any of these statements is a strong indicator that the person is going to practice a�?maintenance managementa��. You need much more than that. You need an action leader.

For a job description of that action leader, click here.

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