Real Estate and Construction

Leading the way

By Mark Scott

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Tom Sudberry
chairman, Sudberry Properties Inc.

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Tom Sudberry didn’t sit down and put a lot of thought into what type of leader he wanted to be at Sudberry Properties Inc. Instead, he just looked at his personality and the way he liked to be treated and decided that would be the best way to lead a group of people toward making the real estate development and asset management firm a success. With a strong dose of enthusiasm and passion, Sudberry — founder and chairman of Sudberry Properties — has developed nearly 6 million square feet of property with a market value totaling more than $800 million.

Smart Business spoke with Sudberry about how to manage your enthusiasm and how to guide your employees without looking over their shoulders.

Put your enthusiasm to good use. A leader needs to have enthusiasm and passion for what you are doing. It’s critically important. Without that, you can’t maintain the energy level you need to run a successful company.

Enthusiasm and passion leads to a sense of vision and optimism. Enthusiasm is contagious. I love being around enthusiastic people because that energy level rubs off on everybody. But you can be very enthusiastic and never accomplish anything.

You have to match your enthusiasm with a sense of vision and strategic thinking, or you’re never going to get anywhere.

Keep employees in the loop. Share what’s happening in the company. We share our vision every month. We talk about the projects we’re working on. If everybody in the company knows where we’re going, we’ll get there.

If we don’t share the vision and the goals, it’s hard to keep everybody moving in the same direction.

Celebrate and support each other. We get into celebrating birthdays and anniversaries and accomplishments and sharing the small victories that people have so people can feel good about each other and what we are doing. We really hold each other up.

Make employees feel comfortable. My style is to treat people as I’d like them to treat me. That engenders a sense of cooperation and a synergism in the company. People feel comfortable in this atmosphere that their decisions aren’t being second-guessed.

They have the opportunity to grow and make decisions and make mistakes. We all make mistakes. When you make a mistake in our company, we have a tendency to say, ‘OK, we all make mistakes. But we’re trying to make the right decisions.’

They feel empowered because we don’t second-guess our decisions. We aren’t constantly looking over their shoulders. We don’t lose our temper and get angry when things aren’t perfect. They feel safe working here.

Not that we don’t ask for and need accountability and the best effort from everybody, but we recognize that none of us are perfect, and occasionally, we’re going to make mistakes. When we do, we’re not going to get crucified for the mistake. We’re going to learn from it and be a better businessperson as a result of learning from those mistakes.

Stay the course through tough times. It’s really through the down times when a company’s reputation is made. How do you treat your employees, your partners, lenders and your merchants when times are bad? Do you treat them honorably or not?

Anybody can do the right thing when times are good. The companies that do the right things in the tough times, those companies are the ones that get through it with their reputation intact.

Accept new ideas. I’m certainly going to listen to anybody that works here for good ideas that they have. Many times, they can point you in a direction that you should be going in. Their ideas are listened to, and they are respected.

We never say things like, ‘That was a dumb idea or a stupid decision.’ We listen to different opinions with an open mind and with respect.

But in the end, the CEO and the chairman need to make the decision as to what they think is the best interest of the company.

Take the time to get to know your employees. When I come in the office in the morning, I always take the long way around to my office so I can get through to the rest of the offices and say hello to people.

I like to see how they are doing, I’ll stop and ask about a family member or what they did last weekend. It’s really important to me that people enjoy working here and they, in general, have a smile on their face.

I think the leader of a company is always a role model. Whether you want to be or not, you are a role model.

Help employees find new challenges, even if it’s not with you. I want you to be happy in your job. But when you reach the point where you feel like you are ready for more of a challenge and more responsibility and you do not feel there is an opportunity to do that in this company, then let me know.

Don’t just quit and go someplace else. Let me know you would like to take on more responsibility, and if I don’t have a spot for you in this company, I’ll help you find a spot at another company.

HOW TO REACH: Sudberry Properties Inc., (858) 546-3000 or www.sudprop.com