David Martin On Leading a Staff: How the CEO Brings His Team Together
David Martin, the founder and former CEO of Terra Group. As the current CEO, David has quite a lot to live up to, particularly when it comes to implementing leadership that lives up to his father’s legacy. Luckily, Martin had plenty of time to learn during his youth. He absorbed not only how to hire people, address his staff, and work with employees individually, but how to lead by example.
David watched Pedro Martin stand at the helm of it all. He saw who Pedro chose to partner with, which locations he favored, and how he ensured that the properties Terra built would live up to the buyers’ expectations. He wanted to emulate his father, but he didn’t want to become a carbon copy either. He examines his personal philosophy when it comes to handling the staff at Terra Group and why it’s sometimes easier to manage when you’ve had so much exposure to good leadership at a young age.
From the very beginning of his career, long before he took over the CEO role, David Martin of Terra Group Miami wanted to figure out his personal relationship with leadership. He found that it made sense to be generous with his employees at the onset and then watch that generosity be returned in spades. This meant structuring competitive compensation packages, of course, but it was more than that.
David Martin wanted his employees to know that they had their own sense of agency about which direction the company traveled in. The more he gave employees room to breathe, the more creative they could be. From the designers to the architects to the accountants, he didn’t want anyone to feel pigeonholed, lest they start becoming resentful of the company. David has to maintain his flexibility throughout the day too. He has so many demands on his time that he has to be strategic about where and how he spends his resources. If his employees feel like little more than underlings, he won’t be able to rely on them in a crisis.
Like his father, he tries to show his employees what he wants rather than telling them. Micromanaging isn’t just time-consuming, it can also be counter-productive in many environments. Standing over an employee and pointing out their mistakes can make them more likely to make mistakes in the future. Part of how Martin manages to navigate the landscape at Terra is by spending more time during the hiring process.
It’s not easy to get a job at Terra Group, but this has ultimately been a boon for the entire staff. He surrounded himself with people who could not only tackle each new responsibility but also work with colleagues to work through each new obstacle in their past. He wants good communication to be at the heart of what he does. Too little communication, and people will make decisions without all the facts. Too much communication can lead people to check out, particularly if what they’re hearing isn’t relevant to their role.
There’s no other way through a problem at Terra Group than by working through it together. When it comes to constructing buildings from scratch in and around a city like Miami, the challenges can be severe. Thankfully, David Martin has plenty of experience in this area. His father, Pedro Martin, didn’t start as a real estate tycoon, but rather as a lawyer who worked with real estate professionals.
Most people involved in a building project, whether it’s the construction workers, the designer, or the buyer, understand that the schedule is subject to change. What they may not understand is just how many snags a construction project can hit along the way. Both Martins will tell you that inclement weather is far from the only impediment to keeping a project on track. Throughout all the negotiations and paperwork in his career as a lawyer, Pedro Martin learned what not to do if you were going to lead a development company.
David Martin might not have personally handled it all, but he has personally seen the collective effects of smarter leadership. When he considers his staff, he thinks about how their talents fit into the larger context of the company. To him, this is the essence of leadership: what can you spot in an employee and where can that talent be best utilized to make the business run a little smoother?
Part of it is looking at a C.V. and assessing a person’s formal background, but part of it is looking past a one-page document to how a person solves problems. If a project manager is consistently able to predict when different stages of the project will be finished, what exactly are they doing to pinpoint the timelines with such accuracy? Will people delegate when there’s a deluge of work, or are they more likely to try to do it all on their own? Are there some people who balk at the idea of leadership entirely? Whatever the case may be, David Martin is notorious for spotting the warning signs that can take a company down if they’re allowed to snowball.
David Martin Miami on What It Means to Lead
With all the theories about leadership out there, sometimes there’s nothing better than following someone’s lead. After all, being a good leader is as much about being a good follower as it is about knowing when to take charge. David Martin had Pedro Martin to learn from, but he used his own innate skills to carve out a place for himself at Terra Group as CEO. His employees understand that while David Martin may not be perfect, he’s harnessed the same values as his father. It’s just one of the reasons why Terra Group has managed to build a portfolio worth around $8 billion in a competitive location like South Florida.
