I was standing in line at the grocery story today when I heard a couple behind me talking about the challenges they’ve been facing in trying to sell their home.

The wife was upset that despite their home being on the market for several months and reducing the price three separate times, they still haven’t been able to sell it. Her biggest complaint was not just that it didn’t sell, but that they weren’t even getting any showings.

This unfortunately is a common occurrence today, driven by a declining economy, growing inflation, and high interest rates. Couple this with stagnant wages and it becomes a proverbial “perfect storm.” People are understandably scared about the financial direction this country is going, and as a result, they’re delaying or passing entirely on purchasing a new home. To put into perspective just how prevalent this is now, I came across a tweet from Amy Nixon, a housing data expert, who recently tweeted about a conversation with a top producing broker who was now driving for Uber because his real estate transactions had slowed to literally zero.

I’m seeing this at most income levels and locations. Homeowners are struggling to sell their homes because not enough people are buying, and real estate professionals are struggling to stay afloat because transaction volume has plummeted.

Hard times are coming for the real estate industry.

Surviving, and better yet, thriving during these hard times will require exceptional leadership.

As real estate professionals, we need to understand what’s coming, how challenging it will be, and how we need to adapt. That’s how we develop the confidence our teams need to see in order to follow our guidance.

On that, leadership speaker and coach, Jake Thompson, shared his thoughts, saying,

"One of the biggest considerations all leaders should keep in mind when in the midst of a storm is what perspective they’re reinforcing. Is the world coming to an end, is this a temporary storm, or is everything fine and dandy? It does your team no good to avoid the reality of the situation. Many leaders think being positive means not talking about the challenges or acting as if they'll magically go away. This delusional attitude does the opposite of building confidence because your team can see what you're saying isn't true. Accept that you're in a storm, AND talk about how to respond to the challenges. Optimism is based on reality with a focus on what's still in your control to move forward.”

It’s important to point out just how critical this is because you’re going to need your team if you expect to make it through the downturn—and with the economy where it is today, everyone is looking for better opportunities. Especially if they aren’t confident in your leadership.

I’ve seen the impact of effective leadership first hand, both in my own businesses and in those run by friends and associates in the industry. In every case, when a deal or even an entire business fell apart, it could always be traced back to a failure in leadership. That might mean misrepresenting the truth, not following through on your word, setting double standards, or any number of other poor choices that are unethical and undermine your leadership.

Leadership can make or break a business even in the best of times, so whether your leadership skills are a little weak right now or you’re the kind of person that people would follow into hell without a question, there’s always room for improvement.

So let’s break down five things great leaders do that make them more successful.

Brokers who can talk tough

It’s easy to talk with people about things like movies, music, or other fun topics, but it’s a lot harder to talk with them about high conflict topics.

Unfortunately, many people try to avoid conflict by dodging tough conversations, but all that does is kick the can down the road and magnify the problem. What typically happens is something will go wrong, and that real estate professional will jump in and try to fix it before it becomes a big problem—and usually leave the people affected by it in the dark along the way. While this is usually rooted in good intentions, it almost always has a disastrous outcome.

There are several reasons for that.

The first is that even if someone may not know what the problem is, they can sense that something is off, and that creates unnecessary tension in the working relationship.

Another is that while the goal is to fix it before it becomes a big problem, things often quickly spiral out of control because as you’re busy trying to fix the first issue, new ones start piling up. This means your workload will increase exponentially with each new issue, and if you still haven’t had the tough conversations from the start, it’s about to get a lot worse.

Someone in this industry who I have a great deal of respect for and is a master of having these tough conversations, which come up often in real estate, is Dr. David Phelps.

Every investment comes with risk, and every investor should understand that. We know that deals sometimes go bad despite doing everything right, but what separates great leaders from everyone else is the fact that when an issue comes up, they take ownership of it, communicate with stakeholders, and resolve the matter as effectively as possible.

I remember watching one of David’s deals from the sidelines—something I like to do often because no matter how much experience we may have, we can always learn something new. Unfortunately, things went sideways when a third-party involved in the deal made a poor decision that led to a loss on the investment.

Instead of sweeping it under the rug like many operators do, David first rallied his team to learn everything about the problem and how it happened, and then plan a solution. Once that was all in place—which they completed in less than 24 hours, he immediately presented the situation and the solution both to the investors in the deal and to the members of his real estate investing community, Freedom Founders.

Obviously the investors weren’t happy that things didn’t go as planned, but they knew it was part of investing. There was one factor in the situation that resulted in a positive outcome for everyone, though. By David being completely transparent and immediately taking the initiative to update his investors on the situation and his solution, he maintained their trust. This gave him time to fix the problem and in the end, all of the investors were more than happy with the outcome.

Had he not been willing to have those tough conversations, the situation would have quickly spiraled out of control, likely leading to negative publicity and possibly lawsuits.

To put in perspective just how powerful this strategy is, when the situation first started unfolding, a financial advisory firm tried to attack him, using it as an opportunity to generate leads for their company. Except because of how David handled the situation, his investors jumped into the fray to defend him and his company.

When you master this skill, it’s like having a superpower.

Brokers who follow through on their word

Success in any field comes down to two factors.

The first is technical proficiency. Obviously, you need to be able to do your job well, and the better you are at it, the more successful you’ll be—this shouldn’t surprise anyone.

A second and equally important factor is your ability to persuade other people.Most people think of clients when we talk about persuasion because we need to convince them to buy what we’re selling, but this also applies to associates, vendors, bosses, and anyone else you may encounter while conducting business. In order to be effective at persuading others, you need to convey a certain level of trustworthiness, and the best way to do that is to consistently follow through on your word.

This sounds simple in practice, but it’s a lot easier to find excuses when things get tough than it is to follow through, and so that’s exactly what most people do. When that happens, they develop a pattern that other people start to notice, so now when that person who made a promise they didn’t follow through on pitches a product or service, proposes an internal initiative within the company, or tries to raise capital, the other person they’re trying to persuade is likely to be skeptical based on their past behavior.

Once people perceive you as someone who doesn’t follow through on your word, it will take a lot more effort to get the same results you were getting before, and repairing your reputation from here will be a long, hard road, so it’s best not to damage it in the first place.

Brokers who do the right thing

When I was a little girl (much longer ago than I care to admit) my mother would drag me and my siblings to her investment properties. We were her little construction workers helping renovate these dilapidated homes, as she, a single mother, worked her butt off to support our family.

That experience eventually led me into real estate because I got to learn how to renovate homes and saw how financially rewarding it could be. But as I was learning the construction skills we needed to turn these run down properties into lovable homes. And most importantly, I learned the importance of doing things right even if no one was watching.

In construction, it’s really easy to take shortcuts to save time and money, but when someone does that, they are cheating the buyer because those substandard renovations don’t hold up, forcing them to make costly repairs that should have been done right the first time.

Praise publicly, criticize privately

Can you remember a time when you misbehaved in school and your teacher scolded you for it? I think most of us have experienced that at some point in our lives, and if you’re anything like me, you were probably completely embarrassed by it. On the other hand, I bet when that same teacher commended you for something, like answering a question correctly, acing a test, or helping another student, you probably beamed with pride.

You might be thinking, “Now Lori, what does this have to do with me. Or real estate. Or anything. We’re not kids anymore.”

This is true, but at the same time, we’re all little kids in an adult body and that inner child feels things a lot more intensely than we let on. So when you criticize a team member in front of other people, they most likely will take it personally, and that often leads to reduced productivity and in more extreme cases, higher turnover.

Someone I’ve known for a while and is really great at this is Amanda Webster, who I met through her role as COO at Fund&Grow. Her company employs upwards of 70 people, and if you’ve never run a company of that size before, I can tell you it’s far more difficult than you could possibly imagine. So I asked her to share her thoughts on the topic.

She says, “I originally learned this strategy in college from the book The One Minute Manager, co-authored by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. Every employee wants to feel like they're appreciated, seen, and understood, and they want it all to happen publicly so others can see and hear it. Let’s be honest—we all have an ego.

“So it’s critical to acknowledge employees when they're doing a great job, and one example that we do here is anytime we have an employee who is specifically named in a review online, we like to put it out through our team chat and let everybody know. It’s like ‘Look at this great review that Sarah earned for the company!’ and kind of shout that out to the team. We also do monthly meetings with the entire company, where we acknowledge the wins our team members have achieved, whether it's employee of the month, somebody who crushed their sales goals, or a customer service representative who turned an unhappy client around. This creates a culture of appreciation and respect, which has a huge impact on workplace morale, and that translates into increased productivity and reduced turn over.

“Criticism, on the other hand, is something we always do privately, because it not only embarrasses the team member being criticized—it also creates a lot of unnecessary tension in the workplace, which decreases productivity and increases turn over. Plus, the drama leads to gossip and may make it more difficult to recruit new employees.”

“It always has to come from a place of love and gratitude for what they do for the company, but you still need to be assertive and show them kind of the things that they could've done differently, how we'd like to see it done next time. Keep in mind that we have to be very intentional in your approach in delivering the criticism because we want to make sure we're building and cultivating a positive work environment, even in the moments of criticism.”

Leaders eat last (AKA: their team comes first)

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Leaders eat last,” but you may not know that it comes from the military.

I first heard the origins of the phrase during downtime on the set of Funding Faceoff a couple of years ago when Jeremy Knauff, the host of the show and a man who and served in the Marine Corps, shared some stories about his time in service during the downtime between episodes, and a few other guests who also served shared theirs as well.

What I took away from these stories was that in the military, leaders eat last because they feel they have a responsibility to the men and women under their command. In other words, it’s not just about barking orders and sending them into harm's way—those are just the parts the rest of us civilians see. What most Americans don’t see is that these hardened leaders will always put their troops' needs ahead of their own.

This isn’t just about eating though. It’s about all aspects of life.

Knauff shared one story in particular that really stood out (among several other great stories) in an article he wrote about his experience serving under General Anthony M. Henderson, a captain at the time.

“When we would complete training for the evening during a field op, and the rest of the company was climbing into their sleeping bags, he and I would return to the company office in the humvee.

We would then proceed to complete whatever administrative work we had there before returning to the field with the rest of the company several hours later.

“And while we were well within easy driving range of the commissary, multiple fast food restaurants, and vending machines, he would always eat an MRE. Most people wouldn't do this, and on more than one occasion, I've seen Marines at all levels of leadership grab a more enjoyable meal or snack because let's be honest — MREs suck and they were even worse back then.

“One night, I was going to make a quick run to my room at the barrack to grab a snack because I kept my room stocked like a grocery store, and I asked him if he wanted something. His response was simple, ‘No. I've got this MRE.’

“I asked if he was sure and rattled off a few things I had that I could bring back. His response this time was equally simple. ‘My Marines are eating MREs, so I'll eat MREs.’ Needless to say, I didn't end up bringing any snacks back for him or for myself,” he said.

This kind of leadership, where your team can clearly see that you put their needs above your own, creates a kind of company culture and loyalty that can propel your company through the toughest times.

Closing thoughts: If you have to tell people you’re a leader, you’re really not one…

Leadership is less about the power to tell people what to do, and more about the responsibility to the people under your command.

This means that your influence should come from your actions, not your words.

If you find that you often have to remind people that you’re “the boss” then you’ve likely failed as a leader. On the other hand, if your team consistently follows your direction and accomplishes tasks to your standards, then you’re probably doing a pretty good job.

If you’re somewhere in the middle, as I suspect will be the case for most of you, then you’ll want to start implementing these five things that great leaders consistently do. Your team won’t change overnight, but once you start doing these things, you’ll see them slowly start to become more positive, productive, and loyal—and that’s what you need to thrive through the challenges we’re all going to face over the next several years.

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Lori Greymont is a seasoned real estate investor, creator of the hit TV show, Funding Faceoff, and founder of a private mastermind community with the mission to help 5,000 real estate entrepreneurs get their real estate deals done and create true financial freedom.