The Rise of the Operator: Why CRE Needs Builders
Leadership Imperative in Commercial Real Estate
The commercial real estate industry stands at a pivotal crossroads. Market volatility, technological disruption, and shifting tenant expectations aren't just temporary challenges; they represent a fundamental restructuring of how value is created and captured in the built environment. This evolution is happening faster than leaders can react and therein lies the fundamental problem.
Too many managers are still managing from a comfortable distance, clinging to leadership playbooks that worked in previous decades. They dictate strategy without understanding implementation. They demand results without building the infrastructure to achieve them. But the next wave of elite performers in commercial real estate? They're not just managing—they're methodically building.
This is the rise of the Operator.
These leaders architect systems, drive unprecedented clarity, and aren't afraid to dive into the operational details when necessary. They don't just set ambitious goals, they meticulously construct the infrastructure that makes those goals inevitable. They create machines that scale, not dependencies that bottleneck.
Let's be crystal clear: Commercial real estate needs operators; strategic leaders who think in systems, lead with precision, and execute with disciplined consistency.
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Why the Traditional CRE Model Is Rapidly Becoming Obsolete
The conventional leadership playbook in commercial real estate has long relied on hierarchy, accumulated experience, and instinctive decision-making. This model emerged in an era of relative stability, when market cycles were more predictable and information asymmetry created natural competitive advantages.
That world no longer exists.
Today's CRE leaders are managing increasingly complex portfolios across multiple markets, coordinating hybrid and distributed workforces, responding to sophisticated tenant demands, and navigating unprecedented levels of data—all in real-time. The traditional command-and-control approach simply cannot process information quickly enough to compete in this environment.
Being a boss who issues directives isn't sufficient. Top-down mandates and siloed decision-making create too much friction and are far too slow for today's market realities. The leaders capturing market share today are the ones building frameworks their teams can deploy and scale with limited oversight.
Operator understand this paradigm shift intimately. They're obsessed with operational clarity, decision-making velocity, and creating repeatable processes—building engines of growth rather than becoming bottlenecks to progress.
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What Distinguishes an Operator in Commercial Real Estate
The Operator approach represents a fundamental shift in leadership philosophy. Here's how these next-generation leaders differentiate themselves:
1. They Systematically Eliminate Chaos
Where traditional managers might pride themselves on firefighting skills, Operators refuse to solve the same problem twice. They view each operational challenge as an opportunity to build a system that prevents recurrence.
When a property management emergency arises, they don't just resolve the immediate crisis, they document the response, identify the root cause, and implement preventative measures across the portfolio. They create incident response playbooks that any team member can deploy, reducing dependence on specific individuals.
Example: When a major tenant complained about inconsistent maintenance response times across a portfolio, one Operator didn't just address the specific issue. Instead, she implemented a standardized service request system with clear SLAs, automated escalation paths, and real-time dashboard visibility—transforming a one-time complaint into a portfolio-wide competitive advantage.
2. They Think in Templates and Frameworks
Operators understand that excellence at scale requires standardization. They develop templated approaches for everything from acquisition due diligence to tenant onboarding to emergency response protocols.
This template-driven mindset extends beyond documents to decision frameworks. They create clear rubrics for evaluating opportunities, allocating capital, and prioritizing initiatives, ensuring consistent excellence regardless of which team member executes.
Example: One forward-thinking CRE executive created a comprehensive "New Property Playbook" that includes 127 distinct processes required when acquiring a new asset—from technical due diligence checklists to standard vendor contract templates to tenant communication sequences. This allowed his firm to reduce onboarding time by 64% while improving compliance and tenant satisfaction during transitions.
3. They Strategically Automate Routine Operations
Operators leverage technology not as a novelty but as a force multiplier. They systematically identify high-volume, low-judgment tasks and build automation solutions that simultaneously increase speed, reduce errors, and free human capital for higher-value activities.
They approach automation strategically, understanding that the goal isn't technology for its own sake but rather creating compounding operational leverage that accumulates over time.
Example: A regional developer automated their lease administration workflow by implementing an AI-powered system that extracts key provisions, flags critical dates, and generates tenant notices without manual intervention. This reduced administrative overhead by 22 staff hours per week while improving compliance and eliminating missed deadlines, creating both cost savings and risk reduction simultaneously.
4. They Lead with Precision and Clarity
Where traditional managers might rely on ambiguous direction and "figure it out" leadership, Operators are ruthlessly precise about roles, responsibilities, and expectations.
They create clean lines of accountability, establish clear decision rights across the organization, and communicate with unusual specificity. They eliminate the organizational friction caused by ambiguity, replacing it with systems that enable autonomous but aligned execution.
Example: Instead of vague quarterly objectives, one Operator implements a modified OKR system where every team member maintains a continuously updated document showing their top three priorities, expected completion dates, and explicit dependencies. Weekly leadership reviews focus on removing obstacles and ensuring alignment—creating unprecedented execution velocity.
5. They Maintain Operational Proximity
Unlike managers who become increasingly detached from frontline realities as they advance, Operators stay connected to ground-level operations regardless of their title or company size.
They regularly review operational dashboards, test new technologies personally, make property site visits, and maintain relationships with staff across all levels. This operational proximity ensures they make decisions based on reality rather than filtered information.
Example: The manager of a $3.8B portfolio still blocks two hours every Friday to personally review property performance dashboards, identifying trends and anomalies that might otherwise go unnoticed. This ritual has repeatedly surfaced emerging issues before they became crises, allowing for proactive intervention rather than reactive management.
6. They Establish a Culture of Operational Excellence
Operators recognize that sustainable performance requires more than individual effort, it requires building a culture where operational excellence becomes the default. They deliberately cultivate environments where precision, continuous improvement, and system-thinking are valued and rewarded.
They establish clear standards, provide developmental feedback, and celebrate operational innovations alongside financial wins—creating teams that don't just hit targets but continuously improve the systems that deliver results.
Example: One visionary CRE leader implemented a "Process Improvement Bonus" where team members receive recognition and financial rewards for documented improvements to operational systems. This created a flywheel of innovation where the entire organization continually refines its execution capabilities.
7. They Build Scalable Knowledge Management Systems
Traditional CRE leadership often relies on tribal knowledge and individual expertise. Operators, by contrast, are obsessed with making organizational knowledge explicit, accessible, and continuously improving.
They implement robust documentation practices, create searchable knowledge bases, and establish processes for capturing and distributing lessons learned—transforming individual insights into institutional capabilities.
Example: A fast-growing property management firm created an internal "Operations Wiki" containing standard operating procedures, troubleshooting guides, and best practices. This not only accelerated new hire onboarding but also reduced dependency on specific individuals, enabling faster growth without sacrificing quality.
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Why This Leadership Evolution Matters for CRE Right Now
The transition to Operator leadership isn't just a stylistic preference, it's becoming an existential necessity in today's commercial real estate landscape. As AI adoption accelerates and operational capabilities diverge, the industry is separating into two distinct tiers:
The first tier consists of organizations becoming increasingly systematic, data-driven, and operationally excellent. They're developing proprietary operational systems that simultaneously reduce costs, improve tenant experiences, and create scalable competitive advantages.
The second tier remains anchored to traditional approaches, running on institutional memory, undocumented processes, and heroic individual efforts. Their operations rely heavily on manual intervention, spreadsheet workarounds, and firefighting.
The gap between these tiers isn't just growing, it's becoming permanent and potentially insurmountable. The operational debt accumulated by traditionally-led organizations creates a competitive disadvantage that compounds over time, making catch-up increasingly difficult.
The firms led by Operators are evolving into high-performance machines. They scale more efficiently, integrate acquisitions more smoothly, onboard new hires more effectively, deliver superior tenant experiences, and maintain quality while reducing burnout. Their operational infrastructure makes excellence inevitable rather than exceptional.
This operational advantage translates directly to financial performance. Organizations with systematic operations can:
Acquire and integrate new properties faster, creating more accretive growth
Identify and resolve tenant issues proactively, improving retention and reducing vacancy
Optimize building performance with greater precision, enhancing NOI
Scale administrative functions more efficiently, creating margin advantages
Respond to market shifts more nimbly, reducing risk exposure
As interest rates remain elevated and cap rate compression can no longer mask operational inefficiencies, these operational advantages are becoming primary drivers of investor returns. The Operator approach isn't just a leadership philosophy—it's increasingly the determinant of which organizations thrive and which struggle to survive.
How to Transform into an Operator
The transition to Operator leadership requires intentional focus and sustained effort. Here are concrete steps to begin this transformation:
1. Conduct a Systems Audit
Begin by objectively assessing where your organization relies on undocumented knowledge, manual interventions, or heroic efforts. Identify processes that depend on specific individuals or that create consistent friction.
Action Step: Schedule a full-day workshop with key team members to map core operational processes and identify the top five "operational debt" areas requiring immediate systematization.
2. Prioritize Playbook Development
Select your most critical or frequently repeated workflow and commit to fully documenting and optimizing it. Create comprehensive standard operating procedures that could enable a new team member to execute the process successfully with minimal guidance.
Action Step: Build one complete operational playbook this month, focusing on a high-frequency, high-impact process. Include step-by-step procedures, decision frameworks, templates, and common troubleshooting solutions.
3. Implement Strategic Automation
Identify repetitive, rule-based tasks consuming disproportionate team time. Rather than merely delegating these tasks, implement targeted automation to eliminate them entirely, freeing capacity for higher-value activities.
Action Step: Select one recurring administrative task and implement an automation solution within the next 30 days. Document time savings and quality improvements to build momentum for broader automation initiatives.
4. Establish Operational Visibility
Create structured mechanisms to maintain visibility into operational performance. Implement dashboards showing key operational metrics alongside financial results, and establish regular review cadences.
Action Step: Design and implement a weekly operational dashboard review, focusing on leading indicators of performance issues rather than lagging financial metrics. Schedule this as a non-negotiable leadership commitment.
5. Immerse Yourself in Your Tools
Don't outsource technological understanding. Personally engage with the systems and tools your team uses daily, developing sufficient proficiency to understand capabilities, limitations, and improvement opportunities.
Action Step: Block two hours this week to personally use each critical operational system in your organization. Identify friction points and potential integration opportunities that might be invisible from an executive perspective.
6. Build Knowledge Management Infrastructure
Create systems to capture, organize, and distribute organizational knowledge. Implement documentation standards and knowledge-sharing practices that reduce dependency on specific individuals.
Action Step: Establish a centralized knowledge repository using tools like Notion, Confluence, or a specialized documentation platform. Begin with one department and expand progressively across the organization.
7. Redefine Leadership Expectations
Explicitly communicate the shift toward operational leadership. Redefine what excellence looks like, rewarding system-building and operational improvements alongside traditional financial results.
Action Step: Update leadership evaluation criteria to include metrics around process improvement, knowledge sharing, and system development—not just financial outcomes.
The Future Belongs to Builder-Leaders
The commercial real estate industry is experiencing unprecedented change. Rising interest rates, technological disruption, shifting work patterns, and evolving tenant expectations are creating both enormous challenges and extraordinary opportunities.
This industry needs builders. It needs operators who combine strategic vision with execution excellence. It needs leaders who can architect growth engines that deliver predictable results in unpredictable environments.
The most valuable manager skillset is no longer just setting direction—it's building the systems that enable teams to navigate complexity with confidence and consistency. It's creating operational infrastructure that turns strategy into reality without constant intervention.
The future of commercial real estate belongs to the Operators; the leaders who don't just manage businesses but methodically build machines.
Will you be one of them?
About the Author
Hi, I’m Matt Faupel — Founder of FaupelX and a passionate advocate for unlocking potential in commercial real estate and beyond. Through this newsletter, I share insights, strategies, and tools to help you lead, grow, and stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry.
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