{"id":47673,"date":"2026-03-20T21:22:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T18:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/what-a-visit-to-nar-revealed-about-leadership-change\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T21:22:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T18:22:17","slug":"what-a-visit-to-nar-revealed-about-leadership-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/what-a-visit-to-nar-revealed-about-leadership-change\/","title":{"rendered":"What a visit to NAR revealed about leadership change"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll be honest with you \u2014 I\u2019m not always the most charitable voice when it comes to the National Association of Realtors<\/strong>. Those of you who follow me know I say what\u2019s on my mind, and for a while, my mind hasn\u2019t been particularly generous toward NAR leadership. So, when I received an invitation to visit their headquarters in Chicago and meet with CEO Nykia Wright<\/a> and several department heads, I was surprised they asked. And I went anyway.<\/p>\n

What I experienced there changed something in me \u2014 not naively, not permanently beyond scrutiny, but meaningfully. I want to share what I learned, because I think a lot of us in this industry are making assessments from a very long distance.<\/p>\n

The view from a mile away<\/h2>\n

Here\u2019s the problem with how most of us evaluate NAR<\/a>: we\u2019re judging a house we\u2019ve never walked into. We\u2019re standing a mile away, squinting through a telescope, wearing sunglasses and we think we\u2019ve got the full picture. We don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I got to walk inside the house, and what I saw was different from what I expected.<\/p>\n

The first thing I did when I arrived was find someone who wasn\u2019t in the room with the executives<\/a>. I sought out a regular employee \u2014 someone who described himself as being about 20 rungs down the organizational ladder. Someone with no title to protect, no agenda to push, no reason to sell me on anything.<\/p>\n

I asked him what it was like to work there now, under new leadership.<\/p>\n

He told me that under the previous CEO, watching someone in charge make significantly more money while working significantly less created real animosity throughout the building. Then, he told me about Nykia Wright<\/a>. He said: \u201cWhen I come in early, she\u2019s already there. If I leave late, she\u2019s leaving after me. She is the hardest-working person I\u2019ve experienced here. It\u2019s a real joy to work in this place now.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a press release. That\u2019s a guy 20 rungs down the ladder telling you what it actually feels like inside the building. And those kinds of testimonials speak louder than any official statement ever could.<\/p>\n

The cruise ship problem<\/h2>\n

Here\u2019s something I think we forget when we get frustrated with large organizations: turning a ship takes time.<\/p>\n

When a cruise ship needs to change direction, the captain doesn\u2019t just spin the wheel and expect an instant pivot. That decision has to be made hours before the actual turn happens. The bigger the vessel, the longer the lead time. NAR is one of the largest trade associations in the country, in any industry. This is not a speedboat. It is an ocean liner.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t excuse the mistakes of the past \u2014 and there have been real ones. But it does mean that expecting overnight transformation isn\u2019t realistic, and judging the current leadership by the sins of the previous administration isn\u2019t fair. We need to give the ship time to turn.<\/p>\n

What I saw in Chicago<\/a> convinced me the wheel has been turned. Whether the ship ends up where we need it to go depends not just on leadership, but on all of us.<\/p>\n

What you don\u2019t know about your membership<\/h2>\n

Here\u2019s something that surprised me. Most of us think of our NAR membership primarily as access to the MLS<\/a>. That\u2019s not nothing \u2014 but it\u2019s a fraction of what\u2019s actually happening on our behalf behind the scenes. During my visit, I learned about accomplishments and advocacy efforts I simply wasn\u2019t aware of. Protections fought for. Legislation influenced. Industry interests defended. Work done quietly, without fanfare, that directly benefits your business and your clients.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s where NAR still has real work to do: members are drowning in email, and somewhere between the inbox and the delete button, the meaningful wins are getting lost. It\u2019s not enough to do good work behind the scenes \u2014 you have to break through the noise and actually reach your members with that message. I raised this directly with leadership, and to their credit, they heard it. Getting the right information to the right people, in a way that actually lands, has to be a priority going forward.<\/p>\n

Accountability from a place of commitment<\/h2>\n

I want to be clear about something. Walking into that building and coming away hopeful doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m going soft. I will still call out what I see \u2014 for example, the ridiculously high salaries amounting to over a million dollars paid to elected \u201cvolunteers\u201d over a four-year period, or the Zillow deal that appears designed to work against the very agents NAR is supposed to represent. I will still hold leadership to a high standard. That\u2019s not changing.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a difference between accountability rooted in a genuine desire to make things better, and criticism rooted in wanting to be right about a negative opinion. One of those serves the industry. The other just makes noise.<\/p>\n

Human beings are flawed. You are flawed. God knows I am flawed. Being a human being is a messy thing \u2014 and NAR is made up of human beings. The organization has made mistakes, and some of those mistakes were serious. But the measure of an institution isn\u2019t whether it stumbles \u2014 it\u2019s whether it gets back up, faces what went wrong, and does the hard work of rebuilding trust. From what I saw in Chicago, that work is underway.<\/p>\n

So, here\u2019s my challenge to all of us: Take the sunglasses off. Put down the assumptions. Walk inside the house if you get the chance \u2014 or at least acknowledge that the view from a mile away isn\u2019t the whole story.<\/p>\n

Our industry is worth fighting for. Our clients deserve an association that fights for them. And right now, for the first time in a while, I believe that fight is being waged with integrity.<\/p>\n

Darryl Davis, CSP, is a nationally recognized real estate speaker, coach, and author of three McGraw-Hill books. He has trained over 600,000 real estate professionals worldwide and leads the POWER AGENT\u00ae Coaching Program. Learn more at darrylspeaks.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire\u2019s editorial department and its owners.<\/em><\/p>\n

To contact the editor responsible for this piece:\u00a0tracey@hwmedia.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll be honest with you \u2014 I\u2019m not always the most charitable voice when it comes to the National Association of Realtors. Those of you who follow me know I say what\u2019s on my mind, and for a while, my mind hasn\u2019t been particularly generous toward NAR leadership. So, when I received an invitation to…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}