Women make up the majority of practitioners in real estate, yet they remain largely underrepresented in leadership. Lori Muller spent 30 years watching this pattern repeat as talented women built successful practices while leadership rooms stayed closed to them. After rising from door-to-door sales to top-producing realtor to broker owner, franchise founder, and now CEO of Empower Coaching Consulting, Speaking and Events, she stopped waiting for the industry to change and started changing it herself.
The first barrier, however, isn’t external. It’s an internal belief. Muller was told early in her career that “leadership looked a certain way. And it didn’t look like me. But I showed up anyway. And I learned every part of the business from the ground up and proved that leadership isn’t defined by stereotypes.”
Lead With Purpose, Not Position
The title matters far less than the impact it creates. Muller firmly believes that leadership happens where passion and purpose align. That was the philosophy behind Empower.
“Leadership isn’t about fitting a mold. It’s about having the courage to break it,” she explains. When leaders begin to focus more on the impact they have than their title, they ultimately stop waiting for permission to lead. They start solving problems that create real value.
Muller served as national president for a franchise brand, launched and sold multiple brokerages, and built infrastructure to help real estate professionals succeed with confidence and clarity. Through all of it, voice, influence, and experience were most important in lifting others rather than climbing alone.
When women lead with purpose instead of chasing titles, they create paths others can follow instead of ladders they pull up behind them.
Replace Competition With Collaboration
The real estate industry defaults to competition where top producers guard strategies, successful agents hoard contacts, and brokers compete for talent instead of developing it. Muller watched this scarcity mindset limit growth for individuals and the industry.
“Women in leadership have a unique opportunity to shift the culture from competition to collaboration,” she emphasizes. Throughout her career, she launched masterminds, peer-to-peer learning groups, strategic partnerships, and leadership communities across the country.
Collaborative environments accelerate growth, improve retention, and create sustainable success that isolated competition never delivers. Successful leaders create rooms where everyone’s voice matters, and growth is shared rather than guarded.
This shift requires intention because competition remains the default. Collaboration requires building structures that reward shared success through masterminds where vulnerabilities become learning opportunities, partnerships where strengths complement rather than compete, and communities where rising together replaces climbing alone.
Build Legacy Through Who You Empower
At this stage of her journey, Muller measures success differently than she did while building brokerages or climbing franchise leadership. Legacy sits at the center of everything, not through awards, titles, or numbers, but through the leaders she helps build.
“My proudest moments aren’t on a resume,” she reflects. “They’re in the messages from former agents now running their own companies. The women stepping into leadership because they finally saw someone like them lead from the front. The people whose businesses and lives transformed because someone believed in them.”
Legacy isn’t what you achieve but who you empower. Every woman in the industry has the ability to be a barrier breaker, but legacy only happens when you turn around and open the door for the next leader in line.
Your Voice Matters, Your Leadership Is Needed
After three decades of building companies and reshaping what leadership looks like in real estate, Muller’s message to women in the industry is powerful: their voices matter, their perspectives matter, and their leadership is needed now more than ever.
“Let’s keep showing up. Let’s keep standing up. Let’s keep lifting up the next generation of women leaders,” she concludes. “We’re not just making moves in business. We’re redefining what’s possible in leadership.”
Barriers are broken when women stop waiting for seats at tables that weren’t built for them and start building better tables. When they lead with purpose over position. When they choose collaboration over competition. When they measure success by who they empower, not just what they achieve.
And when there’s no seat at the table, you simply have to bring one with you.
Connect with Lori Muller on LinkedIn for insights on leadership development in real estate.
