Leadership shows up in unexpected places
We’ve just moved house.
Which means we’ve spent months in and out of conversations with estate agents.
Lots of them.
And here’s what surprised absolutely no one.
Most of them struggled to be honest.
I know, shocking, eh? 😉
I have a very effective inbuilt bullsh*t detector and tolerating being lied to really isn’t my forté.
Not in leadership.
Not in business.
Not when you’re standing in my living room telling me that you can absolutely sell my house for the best price by this time tomorrow and yes, of course, you operate differently from all the other estate agents in this area… bla bla bla.
Agent after agent came in selling themselves. Their services, their stats, their shiny promises, their websites full of words like honest, human and client-first.
It was all me, me, me, as if they’d pressed play and I got their spiel.
So the relationships were short. Very short.
My trust levels were so low we even told agents we’d put cameras up for viewings.
They still lied. #ImpressiveInAllTheWrongWays
One agent invented a viewing. A fictional human. True story.
You know the drill: house spotless, windows and mirrors cleaned, hob gleaming.
Only to discover there’d been no viewing at all.
Would you tolerate that?
And then one agent, Harry, did something radically different.
He asked about us.
Why we were moving.
What our situation was.
What mattered.
What we were looking for.
What we wanted from an agent.
He didn’t perform.
He didn’t pitch.
He didn’t pretend.
He was honest, human, communicative and funny.
And just to be clear, this wasn’t about being nice.
Harry sold our house fast.
At a good price.
#Results
Because relationships lead to results.
Not the other way round.
And here’s the bit I didn’t expect.
The hardest part of moving house wasn’t the logistics.
It was being messed about when we were already stretched.
Clearing out a house after 28 years is emotionally exhausting. You’re making hundreds of decisions, reliving memories, and running on reduced bandwidth before the day even starts.
So the last thing you need is someone adding friction, wasting your time, or inflating their ego instead of understanding your situation.
And this is where leadership really shows up.
Not just in meetings, strategy days or performance conversations, but in unexpected, ordinary, human moments like this.
Your team members are always carrying more than you can see.
Stuff at home, stuff in their heads, things quietly draining their capacity before they even show up to work.
In those moments, they don’t need spin, a performance, or your ego.
They need you on their side.
Because when leaders put relationships first, results follow.
Every single time.
That’s leadership.
And it shows up everywhere.
Sometimes, it looks a lot like Harry turning up, getting curious, and putting the human first.
If you want better results, start where Harry did: with the person in front of you, not the outcome you’re trying to impress.
Rock on.