What Sheryl Palmer Learned at McDonald’s

Taylor Morrison president and CEO Sheryl Palmer is a people-centric leader who knows the importance of building a strong team and stepping back to let them shine. She values confidence and humility along with her why-not-try-it attitude that has opened many doors for her throughout her career.

“I’m always going to make sure the people I’m surrounded by are so much smarter and better than me,” says Palmer. “I think that’s a challenge for a lot of leaders—they feel like they have to have all of the answers—I have so few of the answers. I have great talent around me.”

The following is an edited transcript of Zonda’s Inspirational Leadership with the Best in Home Building podcast with Palmer, which took place in October 2022. To find a full archive of episodes and links to your favorite podcast players, visit Zonda Home's PodBean page.

Carmichael: Probably the most important question is what do you do every day? What is your job?

Palmer: It's such a fascinating question. I've been in this role for 15 years now. And wow, changes. It's been a heck of a journey for those 15 years, but the company's evolved, my job has evolved. It’s easy to default to what it takes to run a public company and talk about strategy. And all that's wonderful, and certainly what the organization does. But when I look at my real role, and where I can add value, I'm here to serve our teams across the country.

I've always said when you move up the ladder and you get into a new role, you don't just get smarter that next day, like overnight. You get access to people and access to more information. When I look at the responsibility I have, it's how do I make sure all of that transcends the organization? How do they get that access to allow them to make better decisions? When you have the right people in place, the rest almost takes care of itself.

Carmichael: Have you always been people-centric?

Palmer: Our greatest assets are people. It’s really making sure we have a place of purpose for our team members across the country. What we're spending our days on and making sure of is that fulfillment and professional development. If I can get all that right, it's a home run.

I'll probably go back to my childhood. I moved a lot as a child, I think I was in eight schools before junior high. My mom was a fashion designer, and we moved from LA to New York back to LA and then different houses within the cities. I had to adapt because, as a child, kids aren't always the nicest.

I had a New York accent in Georgia and then a Southern drawl when I went back. And I think through that, I got such an appreciation that people are also different. There’s such beauty in that. I look around my leadership team, and they have such strong, good personalities. But they're also different. That's a gift. You don't know what makes those people tick until you take the time to care.

Carmichael: Did you know what you wanted to be when you were growing up? How did you find yourself in home building?

Palmer: That was an accident. This is going to be where the younger version of myself was probably a spoiled brat. You don't know how good you have it until you keep going. And I had two wonderful parents, and my mom was very career oriented. She traveled the world.

I kind of resented it. I resented that, you know, there wasn't milk and cookies when I got home from school. And that since my mom was in the fashion industry that we didn't get to shop, we had to, you know, take her clothes that she designed. Like I said, a really spoiled brat. I grew up really believing that the most important thing for me was I wanted to be home.

I wanted to have kids and I wanted to be home. And I thought I was going to be a schoolteacher. I was going to be a special ed schoolteacher and be home at 3 p.m. every day. I went to school to go into special ed, and I did a lot of stuff with crisis centers, and I just have such a passion for little babies. At the end of the day, I don't know if I could have done it because it broke my heart.

And then I started working for McDonald's with Ray Kroc in marketing. And then I was at an agency, and I had a home builder as one of my accounts. Home building is a little contagious, right? I mean, it's hard not to fall in love with it—you're designing probably the most important hub of everyone's life, which is their home. I mean, what bigger place?

Carmichael: What did you learn from legendary McDonald’s CEO Ray Kroc?

Palmer: It was one of my greatest, greatest, greatest moments of learning. I think I was 20 years old. I was a marketing manager for San Diego, and I was doing my first big presentation. We used overheads back then; I didn’t have PowerPoint. I had those little transparencies that went on the machine.

He walked into the meeting, of course, when I happened to be doing my first presentation to this big group. He couldn't see the presentation, and then he started yelling at me from the back of the room. I'm trying to turn the overhead to make it bigger. And I'm trying to move the table, and he's yelling and saying, “Why do people use these? Nobody can read them.”

And my boss looked at me from the front row and said, "Turn it off." And then I had to give my first big presentation from memory. After I was done, I just cried my eyes out. It probably changed my career. I mean, my poor team suffers to this day because we always have a backup presentation. We rehearse before board meetings; we really talk about things because you just never know what your technology is going to do.

Carmichael: Tell us a little about your early career. Is it true you couldn't wear nail polish?

Palmer: It was really a thing. You had to wear clear nail polish. It was very corporate, and you had to wear pantyhose every day. That's just not comfortable. We had dress codes when I was at the Irvine Co. There were some weird things. I was like, really? Are you kidding me?

The doors were all locked, and you had to have to pass keys to get into people's offices. That’s a really weird environment. One of the presidents of one of the seven cities, the one in Phoenix, we were good friends, and he said, “Why don't you come be a sales manager?”

I've never sold; he said, "Go get your license." Two weeks later, I had my license, and I was probably the old age of 27, and I'm going to go be a sales manager at Sun City where the average age of the sales team was probably 60 or 65. I've never sold, and I'm going to go manage. As crazy as it was, I didn't have sales experience to offer them.

I learned a lot about leadership. How do I create value for this team that knows 10 times more than I do?

Then I got an opportunity. I got a call to go up to Northern California in this startup; it was Blackhawk Corp. They were going to do active-adult communities in Brentwood and Rio Vista. They're like, "why don't you come run the operation?" I've never done operations. But why not? Let's try it. What's the worst that could happen? And I did.

That was cool because that's where you really do get the view of community development. I did love building the community and getting to help all these homeowners. You kind of start to see all the pieces come together. That was amazing. I did that for 10 years.

At some point, the owner was in his late 70s, and he was going to sell the company to Pulte. They offered me to come work for them. But I didn't know how I was going to leave Blackhawk, and then I ended up putting the deal together kind of on both sides. This is the company I've been loyal to for 10 years, and this is a company that wants me to come work for them to run their active-adult business. Where's your loyalty, right?

But if both parties win, there's a way to make it work. And we got the deal done. We waited till the closing. I moved back to Arizona, and I worked for Pulte running their active-adult. Eventually I got asked to go to Nevada and be the area president. And then, honestly, things just didn't feel right.

I left Pulte probably after three, four years, and I thought I was going to retire because my daughter was about to be a senior, and I had done exactly what I didn't plan on doing and had been working too hard and too much on the road. I thought it'd be good to get to know her before she goes. I took a year off, and it was spectacular.

After about a year, my head was like, “Don't you think you should go back to work? Are you ready?” It's like you're like home too much. Morrison Homes called me, and first I said, “No, I'm actually enjoying some consulting and being home.” And then they called again, with the whole international piece I hadn't done yet.

They were a U.K. company, and we had started moving through those tough times of 2006 and 2007. I was in Vegas; that was ground zero. So, they wanted that experience. I said yes, I went to them as Western regional president.

I think the next day after I started discussions, I heard this rumor that they were thinking about merging these two companies—Taylor Woodrow and Morrison Homes. Six months later, that came together. Then 30 days later, I got asked to be the CEO, and that was back in 2007.

Carmichael: Tell us how that went.

Palmer: I didn't know what it meant to be a CEO. But you know, we needed each other to survive, both these companies did. My boss in the U.K. was amazing, and he was relatively new as the CEO of the whole group. Probably six months later, I got asked to join the U..K board.

The next seven years I spent on the U.K. board, what an amazing experience that was. Then we sold to private equity because, as we were coming through the downturn, they really felt they needed to focus their attention on the U.K. business and the North American business was a distraction.

They sold us to private equity. I'd heard all about private equity, but I'd never done private equity. Then we took the company public. We've been fully floated since then. It’s been 15 years. I couldn't have written this; I couldn't have imagined this script 10 years ago.

Carmichael: What do you think led to the constant promotions and people saying, “Hey, we're going to give this person a try?”

Palmer: I think it goes back to the basics. First, hard work. You must put in the time. There’s real grit that goes in because each opportunity there's a lot to learn.

There are some things I'm good at, there are some things I've never been exposed to. I'm always going to make sure the people that I'm surrounded with are so much smarter and better than me. I think that's a challenge for a lot of leaders. They feel like they must have all the answers. I have so few of the answers, but I have the right talent around me.

I think back to when I started at as the sales manager at Sun City. I didn't know how to read a floor plan. I'm a sales manager, and I had never bought a house yet. It was crazy. But the vice president of construction was a nice guy. We became friends, and he'd meet me at 6 a.m. to teach me how to read floor plans.

And humility—not being the smartest person in the room and knowing that. Can you imagine when we stop learning from others? What a boring world that would be. I think that's hard for some people. I really do.

Carmichael: Do you have any things that you'd like to do over?

Palmer: I don't know if I should go there, but I think women generally lack confidence. I think we try to make up for that by working extra hard and feeling like we must do it all. We must be the first person in, and we have to be the last one to go home. We can't ask to go take our daughter to a soccer game. I wish I had figured out balance better. I wish I would have balanced life a little better because there are trade-offs for the success I've had.

Carmichael: I think the biggest struggle of all working women is figuring out how to balance that. I don't think you're alone there. I'm sure your mom was the same way and probably struggled with that very same issue.

Palmer: Full circle. When I look at my career trajectory, I don't think I would have changed a thing because every opportunity I had the most amazing experiences. I mean, I worked for Ray Kroc and McDonald's; he was in the same office. I got, you know to be on the U.K. board and learn that culture. I just wouldn’t trade one of them.

Carmichael: Who have been some of the inspiring leaders in your life?

Palmer: I learned from so many different folks. I learned from Ray Kroc, I learned from Bill Pulte, I learned from my boss at Sun City who took me under his wing and really helped me. And then if I were to point to one, it's my dad. I just watched him, I didn't know he was different in the way he engaged with people. And when I would go to work with him, he was in retail, he had a way that just made everyone feel so good and so comfortable. He was just like a big teddy bear—the way he genuinely cared. I think he probably inspired me more than anyone.

Click to hear from the leaders in the last five podcast episodes, which feature Doug Yearley, CEO of Toll Brothers, Rick Severance, president of Wellen Park, Mattamy Homes; Shravan Parsi, CEO of American Ventures; Spencer Rascoff, former CEO and co-founder of Zillow; and Joan Webb, New Home Co.'s former chief marketing officer.