A 'Million Dollar Listing' star whose team sold over $800 million of property last year says he's learned people really want 2 things from a boss

• "Million Dollar Listing" star Ryan Serhant runs The Serhant Team, the top real-estate team by sales volume in New York and No. 2 nationwide.
• Serhant said that discovering who he was as a leader showed him the two things that people want in a manager: Direction and kindness. 
• Serhant follows the golden rule to keep his team sharp and efficient.

Running the top real-estate team in New York isn't easy.

"Million Dollar Listing" star Ryan Serhant runs The Serhant Team, which closed deals worth more than $838 million in 2017, making it the No. 2 real-estate team by sales volume in the United States. His new book "Sell It Like Serhant" comes out this month. 

Serhant told Business Insider he learned to be a leader through failure and "terrible, terrible management skills" on an episode of our podcast "This Is Success." Serhant said that discovering who he was as a leader showed him the two things that people want in a manager: Direction and kindness. 

Serhant said that workers want to get business from clients and succeed at doing their jobs, but they need direction. "So I needed to help my team get business and succeed, the same way a football team can't exist if the quarterback doesn't throw the ball somewhere, right?"

Serhant also learned that he needed to be a nice person to run an efficient team. "I saw teams that failed and companies that failed because they were run by people who were just dicks, and they just were mean," Serhant said.

Serhant said he follows the golden rule: Do unto others as you wish they would do unto you — the best leadership advice he said he has. 

Serhant said that without providing business and success to a team and company, "people don't want to work for you."

"And so as long as I was putting business out there, working harder than everyone who works for me so that I could lead by example and practice the golden rule, my team just slowly, naturally started to build," Serhant said. 

Serhant said his team is incredibly disciplined and said he is a tough leader. "I think I can be very, very tough, but I trust everyone to do their job, or they can't work for me," Serhant said. "Everyone who's on my team is relentless and incredibly aggressive and also very empathetic, and they're all great people."

SEE ALSO: 'Million Dollar Listing' star Ryan Serhant explains how he went from broke actor to leading a top real-estate team that sold over $800 million worth of property last year

DON'T MISS: A 'Million Dollar Listing' star who filmed two TV shows, wrote a book, and ran a real-estate team at the same time figured out the key to his schedule after a reality check from his wife

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