The real estate industry is shifting fast. Brokerages are consolidating. Technology is rewriting workflows. Roles that didn’t exist three years ago are now mission‑critical. And roles that were critical are becoming obsolete due to AI.
According to McKinsey, 70% of professionals feel unprepared for the future of work as technology reshapes roles, yet fewer than 30% have a clear plan to reinvent their careers.
Nobody is coming to save you.
The people who thrive in the next cycle will be the ones who decide, deliberately, how they create value and where they deploy it.
I decided my story would be: “Big career. Audacious goals. Incredible life. No apology.” Because when we rewrite the rules by adding value, we succeed.
CEO Mindset Shift #1: Stop Chasing Titles. Optimize for Role Alignment
Most career moves fail not because people aren’t talented, but because they optimize for the wrong thing. Title. Ego. Optics. Short‑term compensation.
The most strategic professionals ask a different question: Is this aligned with who I am and what I want to build next?
When your role aligns with your values, energy and strengths, your performance compounds. When it doesn’t, even the most promising career stalls.
Before you consider your next move, define your non‑negotiables: Culture, autonomy, ethics, lifestyle, growth trajectory.
CEO Mindset Shift #2: Know Your Numbers, Personally and Professionally
Every business runs on numbers. Your career is no different.
You need to understand your financial floor, the minimum required to sustain your quality of life, and the trade‑offs you’re willing (and not willing) to make to grow.
Stability without growth leads to stagnation. Growth without financial clarity forces reactive choices, often pushing people into misaligned roles or premature risk.
Equally important: Know how you create measurable impact.
If you can’t translate your wins into outcomes, revenue growth, efficiency gains, retention, brand equity, you’re operating without a balance sheet. In the next era of real estate, value creators win.
Learn to speak the language of value.
CEO Mindset Shift #3: Design Your Role Around Energy, Not Burnout
High performers don’t burn out because they work hard. They burn out because they spend too much time working against their natural strengths.
Pay attention to what fuels you and what drains you. Closing deals, building systems, mentoring talent, negotiating partnerships, these are different energy profiles.
The most effective CEOs structure their roles to focus on the areas where their decisions and strengths drive the most value. You should be doing the same inside your own career.
CEO Mindset Shift #4: Autonomy Is a Strategy Choice
Many professionals move between independent and highly structured environments without evaluating how decisions are actually made. Before accepting a role, understand where authority lives. Who owns outcomes? Who controls inputs? Who makes final decisions?
Misalignment between responsibility and authority is one of the fastest paths to frustration. Clear governance and decision-making structures, even in structured environments, create better daily experiences and stronger results.
CEO Mindset Shift #5: Growth Is the Real Compensation
Building skills leads to sustained career progress.
Every role should expand your strategic capacity,through leadership exposure, operational responsibility, technology fluency, or market insight. Roles that offer income without learning may sustain you, but they do not increase future leverage.
Smart CEOs negotiate for growth. Training. Stretch projects. Visibility. Instead of viewing them as perks, they’re seen as assets.
CEO Mindset Shift #6: Build Bridges Before You Leap
Career transitions are strongest when they build on existing expertise.
Before making a leap, look for ways to apply your current knowledge in adjacent contexts, cross-functional initiatives, partnerships, interim responsibilities, or hybrid roles that sit between strategy, growth, and operations. These moves allow you to test new directions while increasing optionality.
CEO Mindset Shift #7: Protect and Compound Your Network
Professional relationships function as long-term career equity. The strength, depth, and continuity of your network directly influence future opportunities, access to information, and professional mobility.
Every interaction contributes to that equity. Introductions you facilitate, partnerships you maintain, and reputations you safeguard all increase future optionality. Career progress is rarely driven by a single role change; it is shaped by the accumulation of trust built over time.
Intentional leaders maintain relationships beyond immediate utility. They stay connected to former colleagues, collaborators, and partners, understanding that career paths are rarely linear and that future opportunities often emerge through existing relationships.
The 2026 Roadmap: Intentional Beats Perfect
Being the CEO of your career doesn’t mean having all the answers. It means asking better questions, owning your decisions and building momentum with purpose.
The market will keep changing. Technology will keep evolving. Roles will keep shifting.
The constant is you, your ability to define your value, align your work and lead yourself forward.
That’s what CEOs do.
And in 2026, that’s exactly who your career needs you to be.
About the author
Lauren Henss
VP, Marketing & Strategic Initiatives at First Team Real Estate
Lauren Henss is a leading Strategy and Marketing Executive who has led brand, marketing, and growth strategy for real estate, PropTech, SaaS, and large consumer brands for more than 20 years. Her career has centered on the intersection of brand technology and human behavior, helping companies translate long-term vision into strategy, measurable growth, and impact. She currently serves as the VP of Marketing and Strategic Initiatives for FirstTeam®.
Through operational excellence, strategic alignment, M&A integration, digital transformation (AI), and strategic partnerships, Henss enables organizations to scale sustainably and future-proof growth. These initiatives drive global expansion, go-to-market success, and long-term enterprise value.
Henss has led high-performing teams for global brands and high-growth companies, blending Fortune 150 discipline with startup agility. Her work consistently translates strategy into measurable outcomes, including 3X revenue growth, global market expansion, and sustained competitive advantage. In her current role, she leads marketing and communications,
digital transformation, GTM, partnerships, and strategic growth initiatives, aligning brand, recruitment, revenue operations, and partnerships into a single growth engine that drives agent acquisition, retention, and market expansion. At COMPASS and Toll Brothers, she played a key role in accelerating sales volume ($6 billion+) and expanding regional market share (28% increase).
Her experience spans both B2B and B2C, partnering with Fortune 500 companies and global brands including Amazon, Salesforce, Nike, CHANEL, Hyatt, DreamWorks, WPP (VML), CBRE, Zoho, Zillow, and LPL Financial.
Henss was named a 2025 HousingWire Marketer of the Year for driving marketing innovation, digital transformation, and measurable GTM impact.
