First-Ever Local REALTOR Association Leadership Development Program

The other day, I wrote about “gradumatating” from the Virginia Association of REALTORS, Virginia Leadership Academy. Well, that wasn’t the only great REALTOR leadership program I went through this year.

Three local REALTOR associations, DAAR, PWAR and FAAR, put together a Leadership Development Program and selected only a few REALTOR members to go through the program. I was fortunate and honored to be one of those chosen.

Though the Virginia Leadership Academy focused heavily on leadership in general, it didn’t touch upon the ins and outs of REALTOR association dealings and how they work very much. That’s where the Local Leadership Development Program really came into play.

The program focused heavily on how REALTOR associations work (and the politics involved). I find that equally important as learning how to be a better leader when it comes to bring change for the better to REALTORS and consumers alike. You can lead until you’re blue in the face, but you’ll never bring change for the better if you don’t know how the organization you’re trying to bring change to works.

They didn’t mess around.

The speakers they brought in included,

• Past local REALTOR association leaders
• Past state and national REALTOR association leaders
• Current legislative affairs heads from local and national REALTOR associations
• and the list goes on…

There were only about a dozen of us in the program so one-on-one and group discussion time was abundant. There was plenty of time for us to ask questions and our questions were immediately answered, which helped tremendously in the learning process.

This was the first local REALTOR association Leadership Development Program and hopefully not the last because it was awesome. Thank you to DAAR, PWAR and FAAR for putting it together and for asking me to be a part of it. And congratulations to my fellow graduates!