According to HousingWire, a piece from business leader Michelle Berman-Mikel uses a running story to illustrate an important lesson about leadership and pace. She describes a nine-mile run where the terrain unexpectedly became hilly, forcing her to adjust her strategy mid-workout. Rather than maintaining her original pace, she had to focus on keeping her heart rate in the right training zone, which sometimes meant walking instead of running.
The key insight Berman-Mikel shares is that her training watch wasn't measuring success by speed, but by maintaining the proper heart rate for the workout's objective. She realized that what might have looked to observers like she was struggling was actually her doing exactly what the training plan required. From the outside, slowing down can appear like failure or lost momentum, but she was adapting to changed circumstances.
Berman-Mikel draws a parallel between that run and business leadership. She points out that the profession tends to celebrate speed and rapid expansion, with leaders constantly measuring themselves against how quickly they can move. However, she argues that true leadership isn't about maintaining the same pace regardless of conditions, but about understanding what each season or situation actually demands.
She explains that some seasons call for sprinting hard, while others require conserving energy and even resting so there's fuel left for future challenges. She's learned this lesson through her various roles as a business owner, speaker, and parent. Sometimes leadership looks like leaving work unfinished to meet someone's immediate need instead of chasing another email or task.
The broader message is that many leaders mistake movement for progress. Berman-Mikel contends that knowing when to push harder and when to ease back is one of the most valuable leadership skills there is. The real goal isn't to impress people watching from the sidelines, but to finish well and achieve the actual objective.
What I am seeing locally here in the Bay Area is that this wisdom applies directly to how we approach our real estate careers and advise our clients. When market conditions shift and inventory patterns change, the brokers and agents who do best aren't always the ones running the hardest, but the ones who adjust their strategy to what the market is actually asking for right now.
