The 3 Personalities Every Real Estate Leader Needs

April 23, 2025

The 3 Personalities Every Real Estate Leader Needs (No Therapy Required)

To grow your real estate business, you must lead with vision, organize with systems, and stop doing it all yourself—master all three roles to scale.

In real estate, it’s easy to get caught in the whirlwind of listings, deals, marketing, and management. Many agents become team leaders or brokers because they’re great at sales—but as Michael E. Gerber outlines in his classic book The E-Myth Revisited, being a great “technician” doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be a great business owner or leader.

Gerber introduces a powerful framework for understanding the internal conflict that often arises when someone tries to grow a business: the struggle between the Entrepreneur, the Manager, and the Technician. These are the three personalities that live inside every business owner—including you—and understanding how they interact can help you lead your real estate business with more clarity, balance, and intention.

Let’s break them down—and then we’ll explore how this trio plays out in a real estate setting.

The Entrepreneur: The Visionary

The Entrepreneur is the dreamer, the forward-thinker, the one asking “What’s next?” They thrive on possibility and potential. They’re not concerned with the details—they’re focused on growth, scalability, and the big picture.

In real estate, your inner Entrepreneur might be the one who says:

“Let’s open another office.”

“We need to create a YouTube channel for our brand.”

“What if we built a referral network with agents across the country?”

Entrepreneurs are essential because they see the future of the business and are constantly seeking ways to innovate and expand. Without the Entrepreneur, your real estate practice risks becoming stale or stuck in outdated systems. However, unchecked, the Entrepreneur can pull the business in too many directions too fast—without a foundation to support it.

The Manager: The Organizer

The Manager is the planner, the systems-creator, the one who loves predictability and order. They crave control and stability. The Manager’s mindset is rooted in the past and present, using structure to avoid chaos.

In your real estate business, the Manager shows up when:

You create SOPs for listing presentations and client onboarding.

You hire a transaction coordinator to streamline the paperwork process.

You set team goals and implement CRM systems to track leads.

Managers are crucial for operational excellence. They take the Entrepreneur’s ideas and turn them into tangible, executable processes. But if the Manager is too dominant, innovation stalls. The business becomes focused on preserving what is instead of imagining what could be.

The Technician: The Doer

The Technician is the worker bee. They love rolling up their sleeves and getting the job done. The Technician thrives in the present moment and finds satisfaction in completing tasks and serving clients directly.

For most agents-turned-leaders, this is the dominant personality. You might be a Technician if you:

Love working one-on-one with buyers and sellers.

Prefer solving a transactional problem over attending a strategy meeting.

Feel most productive when you’re in the field rather than behind a desk.

The Technician is what built your initial success—but if you try to lead a growing business while functioning primarily as a Technician, you’ll burn out. You’ll always be “doing” and never have time to build, delegate, or scale.

Why This Matters for Real Estate Leaders

Most real estate leaders start as Technicians. You were good at selling homes, so you built a team. But as your business grows, so must your mindset. You have to shift from “agent thinking” to “business owner thinking”—and that means balancing all three personalities within you.

Here’s the challenge: Most of us are naturally stronger in one area and underdeveloped in the others. You might be an Entrepreneur bursting with ideas but no systems to back them up. Or a Technician overwhelmed by your to-do list because you’re trying to manage the team and work every lead yourself.

Understanding these personalities helps you:

Recognize which part of you is running the show (and when to shift gears).

Hire people who complement your weaknesses.

Build a business that can thrive without your constant involvement.

Putting the Framework into Practice

Here are a few tips to bring this model into your real estate leadership strategy:

Schedule Time for Each Role – Dedicate part of your week to entrepreneurial thinking (strategy, vision), part to managerial responsibilities (systems, team reviews), and part—if needed—to technician work (clients, transactions). Eventually, aim to reduce your technician time as your business matures.
Build a Leadership Bench – If you’re a strong Entrepreneur, hire or promote a Manager who can execute your vision. If you’re a great Technician, surround yourself with leaders who can help you scale.
Use This Framework in Team Development – Teach your team this model. Help them understand their strengths and growth areas. It’s especially helpful when identifying future leaders or delegating responsibilities.
Check In Regularly – Ask yourself: Who’s driving my decisions this week—Entrepreneur, Manager, or Technician? Am I leading my business, or just working in it?

Final Thoughts

Gerber’s insight is timeless because it gets to the heart of what makes or breaks a business. Real estate is more than selling homes—it’s about building something that lasts. And to do that, you need all three parts of yourself aligned and functioning.

The Entrepreneur will help you dream.
The Manager will help you build.
The Technician will help you serve.

The magic happens when they work together—not in competition, but in collaboration.

For Your Agents…

There’s a powerful idea from the book The E-Myth Revisited—that inside every businessperson are three roles: the Entrepreneur (the dreamer), the Manager (the organizer), and the Technician (the doer). Most of us start as Technicians, working hard and serving clients—but if we want to grow something bigger, we’ve got to step into all three roles.

This week, I challenge you to think beyond just doing the work. Start dreaming a little bigger and look for ways to bring more structure and intention to your business. You have everything it takes to build a career you love—and I’m here to help you make it happen.

Darryl Davis is an award-winning international speaker, real estate and business coach, and best-selling author of three books, all published by McGraw Hill Publishers.       

For more than 35 years, Darryl has spoken to and trained more than 600,000 sales professionals around the globe to more than double their production year after year. His book,  How to Become a Power Agent in Real Estate, tops Amazon’s charts for one of the most sold books to real estate agents.       

He was awarded the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation by the National Speaker’s Association, which is given to less than 2% of all speakers worldwide.       

Whether from a stage or Zooming into a virtual room, Darryl’s extraordinary humor, relatability, and natural gift for teaching real-world, results-producing skills and mindsets to audiences have made him a client favorite throughout his career.       

Audiences will laugh, learn, and ultimately walk away better prepared for a changing world, with the tools, skills, and training they need to build their businesses with more ease and less stress and to design lives and careers worth smiling about.       

Bring One of Darryl’s W.O.R.K. Topics to Your Organization!      

By providing your agents with the knowledge and insights they need to stay ahead of the game, you can ensure that they are equipped to handle any situation that comes their way!  Contact us here to learn more!  

Blog