The art of delegation: empowering your real estate team for growth

Becoming a team leader is a major responsibility, but the biggest challenge is understanding that you can’t keep the whole ship afloat by yourself. If you’re not just the team leader — but also the lead listing agent, inside sales agent (ISA), and transaction coordinator — you’re probably not delegating effectively.

At Follow Up Boss, one of our favorite things to do is sit down with leaders in real estate to get the inside track on what it really takes to lead a high-performing team.

Today, we’re sharing insights on the art and science of delegating tasks to agents and staff, including real experiences from real team leaders.

1. Offload the stuff you don’t like first

As you start building your real estate team, your first order of business is to delegate the things you don’t like doing, and if we’re honest, you probably aren’t that great at anyway.

“When I grew into Director of Operations, the first thing I delegated was transaction coordination because I love people, but I hate talking to people. I was like, I’m gonna take out what I’m not great at and find someone else who loves that piece,” explains Christy Belt Grossman, Owner of Ops Boss Coaching.

Whatever you do, don’t rush it. You don’t want to hire talented people, only to burn them out and squash their potential. When delegating tasks to new team members, aim for a balance of simple and challenging projects. The goal is to lighten your load, while leaving enough space for each individual team member to learn and grow.

Here’s how Matt Smith, President & CEO of Matt Smith Real Estate Group, explains it:

Whether you're handing over tasks to your very first virtual assistant or your newly appointed Director of Operations, it’s important to remember that there is such a thing as offloading too much.

“You can't delegate your push-ups, right? You’ve gotta do it yourself. If it’s something that’s a big gap in our organization that needs to be done, I believe there’s only one leadership style, and that’s servant leadership by example,” explains Matt.

“We’ve heard of them apart, ‘servant leader’ and ‘lead by example’. I believe you combine them and that’s the only way to lead people. So, what is the biggest gap in our company? Where is the biggest weakness? How can I jump in and fill it? I’ve been doing that for a few months now and we’ve got the train back on the tracks. We’ve actually been able to lower expenses and increase the output just because we had better leadership, better structure, and better accountability in place.” — Matt Smith, President & CEO of Matt Smith Real Estate Group

If you’re experiencing challenges in a specific area of the business, be honest with yourself about whether or not it’s really something that belongs on someone else’s desk. It’s almost always better to do it yourself than make a rushed hire, or delegate to the wrong person out of desperation.

✅ Tips for effective delegation:

• Make sure you’re clear about your needs before you make any big hiring decisions.
• Take time to break down your daily tasks and figure out what’s slowing you down the most — if possible, that’s the first thing you should delegate.
• Never delegate your company’s biggest weakness or most challenging area during a moment of crisis.

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2. Don’t just dump tasks on someone else

If you’re like most real estate leaders, you’re feeling the weight of dozens of priorities competing for your time and attention. Take a breath and remember: the goal is to carefully hand over the tasks you don’t need to be involved in — not dump your least favorite to-dos on another team member and call it a day.

Depending on the amount of tasks you need to outsource, you may be looking to hire part time help, promote an existing team member, or open a brand new full-time role. Whichever approach you take, be intentional. For example, if you’re hiring for a new role, think about the type of role that person could grow into — not just what you need from them right now. 

“As the team grows, they delegate more day-to-day tasks and focus more on the systems building, income generation, and growth side of it. Ideally, you bring in that first person and they grow into it,” says Christy Belt Grossman of Ops Boss Coaching.

Here’s how Christy sees the challenge of not just hiring, but keeping the right people: 

Make sure your growth speed aligns with your agents’ goals and capabilities, or risk losing them to another team.

“I see a lot of agents make the mistake of saying, 'I want the empire builder, I’m gonna hire that awesome person that can be my COO.’ If you hire that person, you have to remember they are also a driver and they drive fast. If you are not helping build an organization big enough for them to become the COO fast enough, they will leave and find a place where they can use their gifts and talents faster,” Christy explains. 

✅ Tips for effective delegation:

• Have a clear vision for your company and a 5-year plan for each role. Commit to finding the person who best fits that picture.
• Keep your job description as clear as possible, paying close attention to how you align your expectations with the level of experience you’re looking for.
• Remember that skills are trainable, but a growth mindset typically isn’t. Consider adjusting your agent recruitment process to focus on potential over credentials. 

3. Clarify your expectations

Whether you’re hiring new agents or implementing new systems of accountability with your existing team, you need to be honest, clear, and thorough about your standards.

Leaders like Katie Day, Team Leader of The MOVEMETOTX Team in Houston, turn this one inward as well. Katie uses a combination of two agent avatars and a three-week training program to consistently select and onboard the types of agents she wants for her team.

Here’s how she explains it:

Once you’ve got them onboard, don't sugarcoat your expectations. What does 'done' look like? Which metrics do agents need to achieve? What are the leading indicators that will take them there? What cadence should they be hitting in their follow up?

“We're a pretty high accountability team, so I think you just have to take that look inside yourself to know if that's something that you work well with or not. If joining a team is the right fit, generally speaking, you need to be coachable,” Katie explains.

✅ Tips for effective delegation:

• Think about the things you don’t want. Establish values and expectations based on these clear parameters.
• Set KPIs for every team member. Include targets like average speed to action, number of appointments, and deals closed.
• Schedule recurring monthly 1:1s. In addition to your weekly team meetings, set aside time for dedicated check-ins with agents to go deeper on personal and professional goals.
• Put everything in writing using clear standard operating procedures (SOPs) and easy-to-access documentation.

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4. Make decisions from agent up, not top down

Effective delegation isn’t just about adding new hires, or handing more tasks to your team. If you’re doing it right, delegating puts your team in control. In some ways, it even alleviates some of the pressure of being the sole decision maker.

According to Ben Bluemle, Broker & Owner of Seaport Real Estate in Savannah Georgia, the most important thing you can do as a leader is also the simplest: listen to your agents.

Here’s how Ben explains it:

“When you talk about being accountable, just listen. That was the biggest thing we ever did. Every change that I’ve ever made at the company was never top down, it was always agent up. Everything we change from technology to staff to employees, it was always coming from the agent. Always listen to the agents.”

Take time to really understand what your agents need. Whether it’s transaction coordination, marketing, or Ben’s north star question when delegating was always:

Is this something that will help grow your business?

Delegation isn’t about telling other people what to do. It’s about empowering them to do what needs to get done. When you let your agents be your guide, the delegation process happens much more organically than a forced, top-down approach ever could.

✅ Tips for effective delegation:

• Resist the urge to micromanage. Instead, invest in robust agent training systems, then step back and watch them flourish.
• Create a channel for two-way feedback and communication. Make sure team members know what the feedback loop looks like and who to reach out to for support.
• If you’re considering making a new hire or another major change to your org chart, take time to get feedback from your existing team members for a better understanding of how it will affect them. Transparent communication not only makes things easier for them, it also helps uncomplicate the decision-making process for you.

5. Keep what you love

Ask any team leader and they’ll tell you that one of the biggest fears when coming out of full-time production, is the risk of losing touch with what you loved about real estate in the first place.

At the end of the day, your team can’t flourish if you’re miserable. If your passion is getting on the phone with clients, don’t let yourself end up caught in an endless loop of Excel spreadsheets, vendor meetings, and operational tasks.

The best part about this strategy is that it can and should look different for everyone. For leaders like Jenny Wemert, leading by example means making sure you never stop doing what you love.

Here’s how the Team Leader of Wemert Group Realty explains it:

As a former school teacher, Jenny’s big on the idea of learning through hands-on experience. 

“Coaching is what I enjoy the most. I’m sort of like a team mom at this point. I’m a firefighter, like, ‘Please, call me with the problem, all the way until 11 o’clock, put me in! I will solve your problem’… I love to problem-solve and be the hero,” says Jenny.

✅ Tips for effective delegation:

• Notice any red flags in your behavior. If you find yourself micromanaging an agent, it might be because you miss your old role in sales.
• If you’re too burnt out to do the things you love, you’re probably not delegating well or enough. Where can you make changes or improvements?
• There will be periods where you have to put out fires, that’s fine. Just don’t stay stuck in that mode for too long.

There is no leadership without delegation

In the world of real estate, successful delegation is about more than assigning tasks — it's about building a cohesive team that works together towards shared goals, even when things get tough.

The good news is, effective delegation is a skill like any other. It can be learned and honed over time through practice and a commitment to getting better, every day. 

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