Executive Search for the Real Estate and Construction Industries

Hot Candidates

Real Estate Development Manager
Candidate has 7 years of experience with commercial and residential development projects. Background includes negotiating purchasing agreement, due diligence, negotiating leases, financial analysis, as well as acting as a liaison between state, county, and private entities.

Real Estate Development Project Manager
Real Estate professional with over 20 years of project management, development, construction, marketing, and sales experience. Experience include acquisitions, permitting, financing, budgets, and property & asset management. Candidate is a licensed real estate sales professional as well as a licensee construction supervisor.

Real Estate Managing Director
Development executive having over 25 years of experience with commercial real estate projects. Background includes managing and delivering management & agency leasing services for a portfolio of 135 million feet of managed property and 35 million square feet of agency listings.

Real Estate Leasing Executive
Candidate has 20 years of commercial leasing and sales experience specializing in the sale of land, office, and retail buildings. Background includes the sale of over $500mil and more than 5 million square feet of commercial property. Experience includes maintenance of key clients, marketing, and business development.

Real Estate Analyst
Experience includes pro-forma modeling of ground-up development deals, market and economic analysis, and preparation of investment summaries. Base salary in the low $80K's.

For more information on one or more of these candidates, please contact John Rainone, Project Operations Manager, at JRainone@MorganSullivan.com.

Developing your firm's next generation of leaders
By John Rainone, Project Operations Manager, MorganSullivan

If there is one constant to running a business, it's change. As your company grows and develops, its goals will likely change. So will the people who play key roles.

One very unwelcome change is when a valuable lieutenant gives notice just when you can least afford to lose him or her. An untimely departure of a manager or rainmaker can wreak havoc on a business, especially on a small business. Unfortunately, the unpredictability of life is bound to deal your company such a hand sooner or later.

That's why every business should try to develop successors to key personnel, including you. But most firms don't plan ahead for key losses, and may end up scrambling around to cover for the departed manager with no obvious successor prepared to take his or her place.

Preparing proactively for untimely departures can make leadership transitions go much more smoothly. In some cases, a leadership succession plan can literally save the business.

Assessing vulnerabilities
The first step in a leadership succession plan is to assess your current management structure and staff. Identify the key roles and most valuable contributors. What would be the consequences of one of these people leaving the company, suffering a serious health problem, or dying prematurely?

If you do suffer a key loss, is there anybody waiting in the wings with the ability and experience to take over? If not, how difficult would it be to recruit someone capable of assuming this role, and getting up to speed fairly quickly? Any critical positions that don't have heir-apparents are the areas on which to focus. Try to find promising young talent that can be groomed for these roles.

Choosing apprentices
Not everyone is cut out to be a leader. Successful leaders have certain attributes that are necessary to manage groups of people effectively. Some key personal characteristics for leadership are:

• Strong interpersonal skills
• Sound judgment
• Remaining calm under fire
• A willingness to make difficult decisions
• Good listening skills
• Assertiveness without being overbearing
• Sales aptitude
• Willingness to go the extra mile for clients
• Being well respected by peers and superiors

Few of us have all of these qualities in abundance, but good leaders have most of them. What's more, younger staff members may not have had a chance to develop and demonstrate many of these traits. That's why identifying promising future leaders is a challenge.

If you pay close attention to the performance of your staff, however, you'll be able to spot your future leaders. Look for people who take the initiative to tackle challenges and solve difficult problems. Those who can handle criticism gracefully, and learn from their errors, may have promise. Staffers that take responsibility for mistakes-even when they are not at fault-and resolve resulting issues with staff and clients could well be your future stars.

To track these promising future leaders, make leadership skills a regular part of employee evaluations. Make it regular policy to give young staffers opportunities to test these skills from time to time.

Grooming habits
It's important to keep in mind that when your up-and-comers are testing their leadership abilities, they are going to make some mistakes. Obviously, you don't want their failures to be huge ones, so make sure you don't give them more than they can handle. Give them small projects or pieces of larger ones to manage. And, when they do make errors, treat them like learning opportunities, not as occasions to bash their egos.

Provide regular positive feedback, as well as constructive criticism, to leadership candidates. Assigning an experienced hand to mentor these high- potential employees is a good strategy to make sure they receive regular feedback. Make sure that potential leaders know where they need to improve in order to advance.

Another thing to consider is making your staff more adaptable. Consider cross-training people in different areas of responsibility. The more versatile your staff, the more options you will have to fill a vacancy after an unexpected departure. Sometimes, a managerial role gone vacant can be divided between multiple people.

You might end up with an internal candidate for the vacancy who isn't quite ready to step in, but with a little more seasoning will be ready to handle it. This is a much better position to be in than having no one remotely ready to assume the role. Other managers might be able to pitch in for 6-12 months while the heir- apparent trains for the job.

The key thing is to ensure that the business will be able to function well no matter who leaves. If a business is to endure for many decades, no single person should be irreplaceable.

What do you think? Let us know...

John Rainone is Project Operations Manager for MorganSullivan, an executive search firm serving the real estate and construction industries.