A few days ago, I found myself writing an email to one of our Dudes in Development leaders in Dallas, Mustafa Abdul-Jabbar of ABHR.
I wasn’t congratulating him on closing a major transaction or celebrating a promotion. I was simply thanking him for the way he leads.
Over the past several years, I’ve had the privilege of building Ladies in Land and now Dudes in Development from the ground up. That journey has allowed me to meet hundreds of professionals across nearly every discipline in land development: developers, home builders, engineers, attorneys, planners, consultants, contractors, utility providers, and public officials.
I’ve met people with extraordinary experience. I’ve met professionals with impressive résumés, strong technical expertise, and networks they’ve spent years building.
Those things matter. Experience matters. The relationships we cultivate over time matter. They’ve been earned, and they deserve respect.
But the quality that consistently leaves the greatest impression on me is something else. It’s initiative.
Mustafa embodies that quality. He’s experienced, highly respected, and exceptionally talented at what he does. What impressed me wasn’t simply his background, it was what he chose to do with it. Every email has purpose. Every introduction is intentional. Every opportunity becomes a chance to create value, strengthen relationships, and move the mission forward. He doesn’t wait to be asked to help; he looks for ways to contribute, solve problems, and create momentum.
I’ve seen that same mindset in Kelsey Taylor of ABHR in Dallas, who has helped build Ladies in Land through her willingness to lead and serve. I’ve seen it in Kim Storch of PulteGroup in Nashville, who continually invests in her own growth while elevating those around her. I’ve seen it in Christina Kelley of CCMC in Houston, one of the first people to help us expand nationally and someone who, two years later, is still learning, still growing, and still finding ways to give back.
These professionals represent different companies, different markets, and different disciplines. What connects them isn’t their title. It’s their commitment to keep growing, keep learning, and keep investing in the people around them.
As I travel the country, I find myself asking a question I don’t hear often enough: “Are we spending too much time teaching people how to network and not enough time teaching them how to lead?”
For years, our advice to young professionals has been simple: attend events, shake hands, exchange business cards, and build your network. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that advice. Relationships have always been one of the greatest assets in our industry.
But networking, by itself, isn’t enough.
I say this often: networking may open the door and put you in front of the right people, but education and leadership determine what happens once you’re inside.
The professionals who make the greatest impact aren’t simply the ones who know the most people. They’re the people others trust when a project becomes complicated. They’re the ones who educate municipalities instead of becoming frustrated with them. They help clients navigate uncertainty, bring teams together, mentor younger professionals, and keep projects moving when everyone else starts focusing on why something can’t be done.
Those are leadership skills, and I believe they’re every bit as important as understanding entitlement, engineering, finance, construction, or land planning.
If you can’t lead a team, a client, a city official, an investor, or a community toward a solution that creates value for everyone involved, projects slow down, costs rise, relationships suffer, and opportunities disappear. Leadership is often the difference between momentum and stagnation.
The more conversations I have with company owners and executives, the more I hear the same concern. Finding talented people isn’t the greatest challenge anymore. Developing leaders is.
That realization became very personal as I built Ladies in Land from a single idea into a national organization.
As we grew, I realized that our greatest opportunity wasn’t simply connecting professionals. It was helping develop them. I wasn’t seeing a lack of intelligence or technical ability. I was seeing an opportunity to invest more intentionally in leadership, communication, confidence, accountability, and the willingness to step forward when it mattered most.
That’s what ultimately led us to create the Ambassador Leadership Certification Program that launched in July.
Not because the industry needed another networking gimmick and certification. We created it because we believe leadership deserves the same level of intentional investment as every other professional skill and something we pride our leaders to have when putting their best foot forward in being ambassadors of this national organization.
When we select Ambassador Leaders, we aren’t looking for the loudest voice, the biggest personality, or the most recognizable name in a market. We’re looking for people who are willing to invest in becoming better leaders, not only for themselves, but for the companies they represent, the communities they serve, and the professionals who will follow behind them.
Some, like Mustafa, Kelsey, Kim, and Christina, naturally embody many of those qualities today. Others have the desire to develop them. Both are equally valuable. Because leadership isn’t about perfection. It’s about making the decision to keep growing.
Today’s market presents challenges we can’t ignore. Higher interest rates, slower sales, tighter capital, longer entitlement timelines, and increasing uncertainty have created headwinds across nearly every sector of land development.
Ironically, that’s exactly why leadership matters more than ever. Great markets don’t create great leaders. Difficult markets do.
This is the time for companies to invest in their people, not just through technical education, but by developing stronger communicators, better mentors, more thoughtful problem-solvers, and professionals who know how to bring people together when challenges arise.
Ask yourself a few simple questions.
- How are you developing your future leaders?
- How are you measuring growth beyond attendance at networking events?
- Are your people simply expanding their contact lists, or are they becoming stronger communicators, mentors, problem-solvers, and decision-makers?
At Ladies in Land and Dudes in Development, that’s the standard we’ve chosen to pursue.
We don’t want to recognize people simply because they have impressive résumés or large professional networks. We want to recognize people whose actions consistently demonstrate leadership. People who raise their hand. People who continue learning. People who invest in themselves so they can better serve their companies, their communities, and the next generation of professionals entering our industry.
One of my favorite movie quotes comes from A League of Their Own, when Jimmy Dugan says:“If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”
Leadership is no different. It’s not easy to invest in yourself. It’s not easy to mentor others, embrace accountability, or step into difficult conversations when no one asks you to. But that’s exactly what separates good professionals from great leaders.
Networking may open doors. Leadership determines how many doors you open for others.
And I believe that’s one of the greatest investments we can make, not just for our organizations, but for the future of the land development industry.
To learn more about the Ambassador Leadership Certification Program or leadership opportunities in your local market for Ladies in Land or Dudes in Development, contact [email protected] or [email protected].
