EDITOR’S COMMENT It takes a strong leader to say you feel pathetic. Of course, we all do at some point in our careers, maybe in our daily life, feel less than. Maybe we even feel a touch of shame that someone has got it more right than us, that someone is bossing it better than us. I know I do.
But humility is more powerful than hubris, right? And sometimes that feeling of being a little bit less than, being “pathetic” in comparison to, is just what we need to be better. To be more than.
It has certainly been a driver for Mark Kildea, chief executive of the Howard de Walden Estate. It was an unexpected admission in EG’s interview with him this week. He was reflecting on the Crown Estate boss Dan Labbad’s comments at a Real Estate Balance event in which Labbad spoke about accountability and the need for him to show action, not just talk about it.
“He sort of made me feel like a pathetic chief executive,” Kildea told us. It is humility like that which makes him anything but pathetic as a leader. It makes him honest. It makes him a leader who is aware of things he is missing. It makes him authentic. It also makes him pretty brave if he can admit that to a journalist.
But why ponder on this here? Well, because good leadership is never more important than it is in challenging times.
As the “stay alive ‘til 25” mantra rings louder and louder across the industry, how individual businesses, bodies and the industry as a whole is led will become more important and a dose of realism will be the tonic that sees us through.
Almost every conversation I’ve had this week has come back to the power of leadership.
The investment market is expected to slowly open up again this month, agents tell me hopefully, as leaders start to accept realistic asking prices and come to terms with the fact that those dreamy days of free money are now gone and a 6% cost means a different achievable price.
That’s leadership (and good advice if you believe everything the agents say), if you are humble enough to know that the heady days are gone, that a lower return is better than no return and that creating some action in the market is a good thing.
I’ve also had the pleasure this week of sitting down with a wide variety of smart people to talk about our listed sector and the importance of real leadership there. We spoke about how a bit of bravery and some different ways of thinking and doing might bring about the growth that is needed in that sector.
The highlight of my week, however, was being asked to join a session hosted by the Women’s Investment Network, the brainchild of Alexa Baden-Powell from GPE and Ella Johnson from CBRE. Not only because this was a room full of what should – if the industry knows what’s good for it – be the next generation of leaders, but because of the frank, results-focused conversations we had.
Those discussions took me right back to Kildea’s “pathetic” comment. Because, as much as I believe his ability to admit he felt pathetic probably means he is anything but, when it comes to ED&I there is at the very least an undertone of “patheticness” that still persists through much of this industry’s leadership.
The WIN discussion was not an “it’s so hard being a woman in property” discussion, but it was a discussion about the continued lack of visible pathways for women – and other under-represented people – in this industry. There is still a massive lack of routes to follow, especially in the investment world.
We need leadership to forge those pathways or at least create the ability for the next set of leaders to forge their own. And we need every one of us – those who struggle to see the path – to do what needs to be done to get there and support others on the way.
The task now is to find someone who does better than you to feel a bit pathetic about our actions and change them.
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@eg.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @EGPropertyNews
