Tammy Noll-Adams Cultivates Tomorrow’s Leaders, Creates Room at the Top for National Women’s Council of REALTORS® Members
By Elyse Umlauf-Garneau
“I just didn’t feel like I belonged,” she recalls.
As a newer agent, Noll-Adams found the acronyms unfamiliar and she struggled to understand the association’s culture, all while she worked to establish her voice and footing.
But some of her discomfort dissipated when she started chatting about the cold weather, real estate, and snow skiing with a kind, welcoming Women’s Council of REALTORS® member.
Two hours later, it was announced that that person, Jo Kenney, would be installed as the Women’s Council of REALTORS® National president.
Her humility and generosity floored Noll-Adams, Broker Associate, REALTOR® Residential & Commercial Sales for Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Metro Brokers in Atlanta, Ga.
Kenney had never mentioned her titles or that she was about to accept the council’s highest office.
“That’s when I realized that there was something different about the Women’s Council of REALTORS®,” comments Noll-Adams. “Because you gave me Jo, I was immediately sold on Women’s Council of REALTORS®.”
Kenney has become Noll-Adams’ mentor and close friend.
Doors swing open
For Noll-Adams, the Women’s Council of REALTORS® has been a game-changer for her life, confidence, and career.
For one, it helped to expand her business and referral network, and 60% of her sales now stem from referrals. Plus, because of her Women’s Council of REALTORS® involvement and the resulting higher profile, Noll-Adams has gotten new opportunities, like being tapped as a coach and trainer for the southern region of her company.
She credits such successes to the Women’s Council of REALTORS’® education and its nationwide network of experts she leans on for questions, brainstorming, advice, and referrals.
Noll-Adams describes the Women’s Council of REALTORS® as something of a secret sauce. “Once you taste it, you’re drawn to it for the rest of your career,” she says. “You have access to all these brains and experience.”
In addition, she notes that almost instantaneously, women feel a part of something bigger and gain confidence, two things that help them enhance their businesses. “I tell people, ‘You are going to grow personally because the Women’s Council of REALTORS® is going to stretch you in ways you could have never imagined,'” she adds.
Spicing the secret sauce
Now that Noll-Adams has become the Women’s Council of REALTORS® National President, she intends to extend the generosity she experienced during her first state meeting by looking for members’ unique gifts, mentoring them, and carrying them up the leadership ladder with her. 
She notes that great leaders move in concert with their teams, and they rise together.
In addition, during her presidential term—her theme is Stronger Together—Noll-Adams intends to spice up that secret sauce by collaborating with other real estate professional groups to identify new leadership opportunities for women.
“We need to continue using our voices to lead this industry forward. Until we have women sitting at every leadership table across this country, we still have work to do,” she says.
Her efforts will start at the local Women’s Council of REALTORS® networks—where she got her start—to collaborate with local presidents to draw more women into the community, deliver job skills, and nurture those future leaders. Noll-Adams emphasizes that they aren’t expected to arrive as technology, negotiation, or leadership experts.
“That’s our responsibility,” she comments. ” Women’s Council of REALTORS® is a space where we build leaders.”