What Leaders Are Made Of
By Pamela Geurds Kabati
Do you know how many words are in the preamble of NAR’s Code of Ethics? If you said 460, you'd be right. It starts with "Under all is the land ..." and ends with a reference to the Golden Rule. When is the last time you read the preamble?
Richard Mendenhall, 2001 president of NAR, told the 26-member inaugural class of NAR's Leadership Academy that he reads it every year on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He reads it on that day, he said, to remind himself of how important honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness are to his business and to effective leadership. Richard, a REALTOR® in Columbia, Mo., was at the helm of NAR during the attacks and oversaw the creation of the REALTORS® Relief Foundation, which has collected millions of dollars over the years to help disaster victims.
On Monday he delivered the graduation address to this class of future NAR leaders, who are gathered in Washington, D.C., for NAR's Midyear Legislative Meetings. The topic of his address was ethical leadership.
Anyone who has ever heard Richard speak knows he is eloquent, engaging, and inspiring — especially when talking from the heart about things he cares deeply about. Leadership and ethics are clearly some of those things. For the whole 30 minutes that he spoke, I didn’t see anyone checking a Blackberry. Now that's saying something!
Richard talked about the demise of ethics and integrity in today's business world, pointing to the obscene excesses and deceptions of the leaders of Enron, Tyco, and Worldcom. He said it's precisely because of this demise that leaders must recognize their most precious asset is their integrity. He talked about NAR’s Code of Ethics — and although he hasn't memorized all of its articles and standards, he can recall key parts of the preamble without any prompting at all:
“Under all is the land. Upon its wise utilization and widely allocated ownership depend the survival and growth of free institutions and of our civilization…Such interests impose obligations beyond those of ordinary commerce. They impose grave social responsibility and a patriotic duty to which REALTORS® should dedicate themselves...In the interpretation of this obligation, REALTORS® can take no safer guide than that which has been handed down through the centuries, embodied in the Golden Rule: Whatsoever ye would that others should do to you, do ye even so to them.”
He told members of the graduating class that there are certain things other people will want to know about them as leaders: Where have you been? Why are you here? Where are you going? Do you care about me? Can I TRUST you? If you want to lead, you need to have honest, thoughtful answers to these questions, recognizing that always — especially with that last question — your actions will speak much louder than your words.
Looking for a good guide to ethics for leaders? Richard suggested two great books: John C. Maxwell's There's No Such Thing as "Business" Ethics: There's Only One Rule for Making Decisions and Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street Can Learn from the Code of the West, which he discovered in a shop in Cody, Wyo., one year when he was visiting to experience the town’s famous rodeo.
Richard's presentation was peppered with great quotes about leadership and integrity, all of which he delivered with his own special passion. One of them (a personal favorite of mine) is a piece of wisdom from Albert Einstein: "Don't try to become a person of importance. Try to become a person of value."
Clearly, these are words that Richard Mendenhall has lived by.
Subscribe to this blog's Web feed
Comments
A realtor logo should explain basic values of the business. There are certain rules and principles, which can easily ensure to make a realtor logo both, striking and memorable for its observers.
Posted by: Sharpest Realtor Ever | May 14, 2008 06:52 AM