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Define Transformational Leadership

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Leadership is scary and hard. But leading your team to achieve big, daring goals is one of the most rewarding things you’ll ever do—if you do it well. And that starts with deciding to level up in how you lead. Just like there’s no magic pill for weight loss or better finances, there’s no magic pill to being a leadership expert. You just put one courageous foot in front of the other, day in and day out, getting better and stronger as you go. And using the transformational leadership style will help you shift your mindset to focusing on your team’s ability (not just yours) to get those big, daring wins.

You may be thinking that transformational leadership sounds like corporate mumbo jumbo. However, it’s anything but that. Imagine drama and bureaucracy in your business decreasing so productivity, innovation and creativity can take center stage. Imagine a team of go-getters who are motivated to win every day and enjoy going to work—that’s the culture transformational leadership can create for your business. As you inspire your team to think and work beyond themselves for the greater good, you are on your way to becoming a bona fide transformational leader. Is this really possible? Absolutely.

Define Transformational Leadership

In the words of the Transformer Optimus Prime, “Autobots, transform and roll out!” If only transformation was that simple for us non-autobots, right? But it’s possible to spur on change—and it starts with your leadership.

The idea of a style of leadership that transforms team members, businesses and the world was first introduced in the 1970s by sociologist J.V. Downton. The theory caught fire later that decade when James MacGregor Burns, a leadership expert and historian, wrote Leadership. In this book, James describes transformational leadership as a style where “leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.” This style is based on a leader who has built trust and respect with their team—and because of that, they can influence their team to work harder and think smarter to achieve a common goal.

James put a spotlight on a leadership style that increases loyalty, commitment and the ability to accomplish way more than the company and team members thought they could. So, what does a transformational leader look like?

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How To Effectively Delegate Tasks

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All managers and leaders must master the art to effectively delegate tasks. Understanding how and when to allocate responsibility to others is essential in maintaining a high level of productivity, both on a personal and organizational level. Delegating tasks is also essential for effective leadership.

To learn how to effectively delegate tasks is to build a cohesive and effective team that can meet deadlines. Moreover, knowing when and how to delegate work will reduce your workload, thus improving your well-being at work and boosting your job satisfaction. Unfortunately, many leaders are unsure how to delegate properly or are hesitant to do so.

In this guide, you will discover what delegation really entails, how delegating tasks benefits your team, and how to assign tasks effectively.

The Significance Of Delegating Tasks

A good leader knows how to delegate. When you delegate some of your work, you free up your time and achieve more on a daily basis.

Effective delegation also promotes productivity and good time management within a team by drawing on the existing skill set of its members and allowing them to develop new knowledge and competencies along the way. The result is a more flexible team that can share roles when the need arises.

When you are willing to delegate, you promote an atmosphere of confidence and trust. Your actions send a clear signal: as a leader, you trust your subordinates to achieve desired outcomes. As a result, they will come to think of you as a likeable and effective leader who respects their skills and needs.

Delegation isn’t about barking orders and hoping that your staff falls in line. A manager’s job is to get the very best from those under their supervision and, in doing so, maximize productivity and profit.

Careful delegation helps to identify and capitalize on the unique strengths and weaknesses of the team members. Delegation also boosts employees’ engagement as it proves that the managers are interested in drawing on their talents.

Why Are People Afraid Of Delegating Tasks?

Delegation boosts productivity, but not all managers are willing or able to delegate.[4] Why? Here’re some common reasons:

They resent the idea that someone else may get the credit for a project.
They are willing to delegate in principle but are afraid their team won’t be able to handle more responsibility.
They suspect that their staff is already overworked and feel reluctant to increase their burden.
They suspect that it’s simpler and quicker just to do a task themselves.
They dislike the idea of letting go of tasks they enjoy doing.
They fear that if they delegate responsibility, their manager will conclude that they can’t handle their workload.

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7 Tips for Career Success in CRE

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So, you’ve chosen a career in commercial real estate and want to make the most of it. How do you climb that ladder and become the best in your league? How do you ensure career success in your current CRE field?

Regardless of what specialty or focus your career path is in, commercial real estate is a demanding field that requires dedication, commitment, and growth. It is crucial for CRE professionals to be ever-learning, ever-advancing, and ever-evolving for maximum career success and advancement.

Some of these principles hold true for whatever career path you take. Others are especially important in CRE. If you’ve made a commitment to succeed, here are seven tips to help you get the most out of your career.

1. Come Prepared to Learn

Like most professions, working in CRE means learning a variety of skills, information sets, and best practices. But much of what makes you successful now might change in coming years. Therefore, it is imperative that you are prepared to learn on the job, even after you have become well-established in your field.

Continuous learning has been directly tied to success on the job. It enables you to adapt and become multifunctional, engaged, and prepared for the unexpected. In the long run, it positions you to excel in your career and be promoted in time.

2. Cultivate Better Communication

One of the keys to career success in any field is effective business communication. Proactively and effectively communicating with your direct reports and superiors facilitates a more functional workplace and healthier relationships. These in turn directly contribute to your success. Some keys to improving your communication include:

Use clarity
Err on the side of over communication
Be open and honest
Emphasize a communication culture

3. Achieve Specific Goals

Especially in the world of commercial real estate, you are not paid just to clock in and clock out. Your career advancement hinges on your ability to identify and achieve goals central to your company’s mission. Your employer will recognize your profitability if you focus on achieving these goals, both long term and short term. And your career will benefit from it.

4. Demonstrate Initiative

If you want to actually go places in your career, take initiative. Your growth, adaptability, work relationships, and overall success depend on you. It’s up to you then to demonstrate initiative to succeed in your career. Some ways to do this include:

Ask for guidance
Offer help
Volunteer
Educate yourself
Be a cost saver

5. Manage Up

When you manage your boss instead of waiting to be managed, you will become far more valuable and likely to succeed in your career. Really impress your boss by getting to know him or her, avoiding office politics, and bringing solutions rather than just problems to the table. When you are detailed and proactive in solving problems for your managers, your career success will be inevitable.

6. Evaluate Yourself

Rather than waiting for your annual evaluation, be your own evaluator! Identify objectives and goals, and then create a task list to achieve them. At the end of each week, fill out a form or work diary to rate your progress on each of these tasks and overall goals.

You might even consider showing these work logs to your supervisors to see if they agree with your real-time self-evaluations. And doing so will also impress upon them your dedication to progressing and improving in your career.

7. Act

Talk comes cheap. There’s a saying managers used once upon a time: “Show me the baby, don’t tell me about the labor pains.” While this antiquated quip may sound cold, what’s beneath it is an inherent valuation on putting feet to your plans and ideas. When you do what you say, it goes a long way towards building your credibility and long-term prospects for success. When you put in the effort to make real gains, it translates into respect and meaningful contributions at work.

Generating real and tangible career success in CRE has so much more to do with being proactive than being lucky. By following these basic principles and tips, you can climb the ladder and achieve your career goals. It doesn’t matter where you start or what adversity you encounter. You can find fulfillment at work and create the career trajectory you want.

It’s entirely up to you!

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What Is Employee Advocacy?

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Employee advocacy is one of the most effective ways to boost your public image and employee engagement.

Why? Because your employees are already posting about you. Half of all employees share content from or about their employer on social media, and 33% of all employees do so without any prompting.

Sounds great. But without a content strategy to guide them, you have no idea what they’re posting or the ROI of those efforts. With a formal employee advocacy program, you can expand your organic reach by 200% and increase profitability by 23%, among many other benefits.

Keep reading to learn how to build an employee advocacy program that your team will love, and that will contribute to your business results.

Define Employee Advocacy

Employee advocacy is the promotion of an organization by its workforce. Employee advocacy can take many forms, both online and off. But the most common and effective channel is social media advocacy.

Social media advocacy comes down to employees sharing your company’s content on their personal social media accounts. Everything from job postings (and other resources for job seekers), blog articles, and industry resources, to new product launches.

However, employee advocacy can also be original content that offers a glimpse into your company culture. Maybe it’s an Instagram post showing the free lunch spread you brought in last Friday, a special event, or a moment from an average workday.

All these activities can help boost your brand reputation with both customers and potential new recruits.

The Importance Of Employee Advocacy

A recent study found that employee advocacy benefits companies in three key ways:

It positively impacts sales due to increased brand awareness and favorable perceptions (“brand sentiment”).
It improves staff recruitment, retention, and engagement.
It aids in PR crises and issues management.

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3 Methods Leaders Can Use Set Employees Up For Success

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As leaders, we sometimes lose touch of the importance of our employees. This is not to say that we forget them, it just means that we sometimes forget how important they are to our bottom line. After all, without our employees, we would not be able to perform the functions of our organization.

The reality is that if we do not give our employees the tools they need to succeed, they will either quit or “simply collect a paycheck” (i.e. perform their job to minimal expectations). Either scenario is detrimental to your business.

So what does it mean to “set our employees up for success”? It means we invest in them, giving them the tools needed to succeed, both personally and professionally. This concept can easily be dismissed by larger companies having hundreds and thousands of employees, with a pipeline of individuals ready to take on any job. However, the basic needs of an individual to feel successful, needed, respected, and appreciated do not change, whether in a small company or large. It does not take a Harvard graduate to predict the productivity and longevity of an employee that is set up for success versus one that is not.

So how do we as leaders set employees up to succeed and avoid leadership mistakes? Keep reading!

1. Be Mindful

As Brad Federman once said “Paychecks can’t buy passion”. The first step for a leader is to become aware that a paycheck alone is not going to create the motivation for employees to succeed. Or bring fulfillment for them at work. You will not retain the employees you would want to keep without giving them the opportunity to innovate and excel. As such, you must create opportunities for them to grow, for them to champion a process or skill set, for them to learn new things, for them to innovate and learn how to pick themselves up from a setback. These are not only skill sets that can help them professionally, but personally as well.

2. Create Programs

This is where we need to invest some time and money. Task your managers with identifying training programs that can ensure their employees are given the training needed to perform their job functions.

I would recommend digital training programs that can be accessed 24/7, ensuring consistent application from one employee to another of what is being taught and giving the employee opportunity to take the course at their own speed and as many times as needed. These three vital elements of learning (among others) do not always happen in a classroom environment, nor in subsequent training sessions. Creating digital training programs take time and money, but once the initial investment has been made, each employee will be given the same exact opportunity to learn how to succeed in their job.

3. Motivate Your Employees

Take success stories and share them with the other managers. Utilize the experiences of each manager to further tweak the programs and make them more effective and more successful. Build benchmarks that show progress and success and then rally around those numbers.

Use your marketing team to use these stories on social media or in the trade press. Get the word out that your company has a culture of success and you will recruit better employees and retain existing ones. Create these programs to give your employees the opportunity to better themselves and increase their skills. You will then begin to see an increase in productivity, innovation, initiative, and retention.

Let’s not forget about what it does for the personal life of your employee. If they feel successful, respected, and needed at work, think of the positive influence they will have at home and with others.

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Fun Activities With Coworkers To-Do Outside Of Work

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Surrounding yourself with the same people in the workplace every day can get repetitive and boring. Although it may seem unnecessary, simple team-building activities let employees form personal bonds that contribute to the success of any business in the long run. If everyone feels comfortable around one another, decisions become easier, more voices are heard, and the smiles exchanged are genuine.

Here’s a list of fun activities with coworkers to attend outside of work:

1. Change Up Dinner Plans

Think typical work dinner, but with a twist. Many restaurants today offer more than good food. They offer experiences. For example, Korean barbeque restaurants often have a grill at each table and the customers, rather than the chefs in the back, are responsible for cooking their food. An eating experience like this can spark more interaction among individuals because making the food requires teamwork.

2. Create Tournaments

Ping-Pong, kickball, basketball, you name it, your company can benefit from it. Every company has a range of personality types that are always represented in the office. There’s the detailed-oriented individual, the workplace jokester, and the ultra-competitive personality. Imagine dividing all of these people into groups for a tournament! Pick a sport where athleticism does not matter. A tournament structure acts as a fun office activity to boost morale and a way to build workplace relationships. A top team will likely emerge so workers will have the chance to form bonds with their own team members as well as cheer for or against the top performers.

3. Enjoy Go-Kart Racing

Everyone secretly wishes to return to their childhood days when everything was simple and carefree. So why not escape the workplace environment for a while and do that? Fun work outings don’t need to be something that only adults see as fun. They can be something kids like too. Go-kart racing allows employees to compete with one another for the winning title and maybe even a trophy. Sometimes all it takes to connect with coworkers is a simple hour in a different mindset. Employees can always look back at photos or videos from go-karting and remember the fun experience. Competition like this can cause some friendly workplace tension. Employees will want to participate in more outside-of-work activities in the future either for redemption or to keep their title.

4. Karaoke Night

Let your inner talent shine! Everyone has a song they know all the lyrics to. Partner with a few coworkers to sing karaoke after work. Even if you are not a performer, attending an event like this and watching everyone cut loose and share a laugh can promote coworker bonding. What may seem like an unusual team-building activity could be the moment where a colleague becomes your new best friend.

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10 Creative Interview Questions You’re Probably Not Using

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When it comes to hiring within the commercial real estate industry, there’s a lot at stake. How do you know that good first impression is really a rock star hire and not a poser? The cost of a bad hire can be startling, so knowing creative interview questions can be a valuable skill. The goal is to have a genuine conversation that fosters a better understanding of that person.

So, to find out what you need to know, what sort of interview questions will get a candidate to open up about their experience and skills? How can you find out if they’re really right for your unique needs? It helps to get creative.

Canned Conversations

Part of the problem with interview questions, is there are only a handful of them commonly asked in job interviews. So, prospective candidates can easily look them up and craft a scripted response for each of them.

The result?

A lot of canned talking points and speaking past one another. It’s entirely unhelpful! To really make it in CRE, you need better than that. You need creativity to flip the script and open a helpful dialogue. You need interview questions that really work.

So, without further ado, here are ten of the most creative interview questions that most hiring managers in commercial real estate never think to ask.

Productive and Creative Interview Questions

1. What are some of the qualities you like most in yourself?

The qualities someone prides themselves in are most likely the qualities they will work to excel in. Even if they’re not as strong in those qualities as they think, their confidence will become a self-fulfilling prophecy over time. And they just might give an example or two of these qualities in action at their last job.

2. What adjectives would your co-workers use to describe you?

Similarly, the way a candidate believes they are perceived is important in how they view themselves. And they just might be a bit more accurate when discussing the perspective of others.

3. If magic exists, how would you define it?

The great thing about this creative interview question is how it touches on their passions and gives the interviewer an opportunity to gage the way the candidate responds (behavioral interview questions can predict the future). Are they literal or figurative? Do they pause to think or shoot from the hip? Are they imaginative or a clock puncher?

4. If you had $10,000 to help the needy, what would you do?

Questions that aren’t about work are great for bypassing scripted responses and touching on the true soul of a candidate. This one helps you understand what motivates them and what kind of person they are.

5. What led you to choose this line of work?

Uncovering what fulfills someone in this particular area of CRE is helpful in understanding their cultural fit as well as their long-term potential.

6. If you couldn’t live in the US, what other country would you live in, and why?

Before asking this question, determine just what you are looking for and what you hope to learn. There is no correct answer to this question, but the way it’s handled will tell volumes about how a prospect will behave on the fly and in creative situations.

7. What’s your favorite movie, and why?

Again, this quirky question doesn’t have a right answer. But it will help you better understand the heart of your prospective employee and what drives them.

8. Let’s pretend you are interviewing me; what questions would you ask?

This one literally flips the script by reversing roles for a moment. With the candidate completely off guard, pay special attention to the focus of their questions as well as their demeanor in a managerial role.

9. If you were one of our properties, which type would you be?

This one only works if you deal in multiple property types, of course. But the responses will lend keen insights into how well they know your business, your properties, and what they value most in your company.

10. What is something you recently learned?

This creative interview question should include a time limit during which you will observe the way the candidate organizes their response, checks in for feedback along the way, and expresses emotion. Much can be gleaned from listening to your candidate relate a short lecture or moral story.

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3 Ways To Improve Your Work-Life Balance

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Often, work takes precedence over everything else in our lives. Our desire to succeed professionally can push us to set aside our own well-being. Creating a harmonious work-life balance or work-life integration is critical, though, to improve not only our physical, emotional, and mental well-being, but it’s also important to improve your work-life balance for your career.

Defining A Work-Life Balance And Why It Is Important

In short, work-life balance is the state of equilibrium where a person equally prioritizes the demands of one’s career and the demands of one’s personal life. Some of the common reasons that lead to a poor work-life balance include:

Increased responsibilities at work
Working longer hours
Increased responsibilities at home
Having children

Employers that offer options as telecommuting or flexible work schedules can help employees have a better work-life balance.

When creating a schedule that works for you, think about the best way to achieve balance at work and in your personal life. Work-life balance is less about dividing the hours in your day evenly between work and personal life and, instead, is more about having the flexibility to get things done in your professional life while still having time and energy to enjoy your personal life. There may be some days where you work longer hours so you have time later in the week to enjoy other activities.

Improve Your Work-Life Balance

Here are three ways to improve your work-life balance, as well as how to be a supportive manager

1. The Perfect Work-Life Balance Doesn’t Exist

When you hear “work-life balance,” you probably imagine having an extremely productive day at work, and leaving early to spend the other half of the day with friends and family. While this may seem ideal, it is not always possible. A work-life balance is more of an ebb and flow.

To improve your work-life balance, don’t strive for the perfect schedule; strive for a realistic one. Some days, you might focus more on work, while other days you might have more time and energy to pursue your hobbies or spend time with your loved ones. Balance is achieved over time, not each day.

2. Search For A Job You’ll Love

Although work is an expected societal norm, your career shouldn’t be restraining. If you hate what you do, you aren’t going to be happy, plain and simple. You don’t need to love every aspect of your job, but it needs to be exciting enough that you don’t dread getting out of bed every morning. Some recommend finding a job that you are so passionate about you would do it for free.

Also, before you hand in your resignation letter, take a moment to realize that quitting isn’t your only option. It’s not possible to always love your job, but you can love the idea of working at it and love different aspects of it. Learn to love your job again!

3. Make Your Health A Priority

Your overall physical, emotional and mental health should be your main concern. If you struggle with anxiety or depression and think therapy would benefit you, fit those sessions into your schedule, even if you have to leave work early or ditch your evening spin class. If you are battling a chronic illness, don’t be afraid to call in sick on rough days. Overworking yourself prevents you from getting better, possibly causing you to take more days off in the future.

Prioritizing your health doesn’t have to consist of radical or extreme activities. It can be as simple as daily meditation or exercise.

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Learn To Love Your Job Again

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We fall in – and out – of love with our jobs all the time. Though we rarely think of it that way.

Remember the butterflies of excitement you had on your first day? You loved those weekly staff meetings, adored your training, and couldn’t wait to chat with new co-workers on coffee breaks.

It was when the honeymoon period ended that things changed. You started thinking “Really, this all over again?” when you woke up. Small irritations turned into large ones, and you started getting coffee at a different time to avoid Dave in Accounting.

Before you hand in your resignation letter, take a moment to realize that quitting isn’t your only option. It’s not possible to always love your job, but you can love the idea of working at it, and you can love different aspects of it.

How To Love Your Job Again

1. Is It Your Job Or Your Boss?

You might not want to leave your job, you may just want to leave your boss. One study found that 50 percent of employees left their job “to get away from their manager to improve their overall life at some point in their career.”

If you find yourself in this situation, but still really enjoy the company you work for, you may want to entertain the option of switching departments. Give yourself opportunities to work with other teams and see if it’s your manager or it’s the job you don’t like before you hand in your resignation. Small changes can make a significant impact in helping you love your job again.

2. Learn Something Different

If you have been doing the same tasks for the past 5 years, it is very possible you are simply bored and uninspired. Challenge yourself by learning something new and exciting.

Offer to help out a different department. Volunteer to take on new responsibilities. Take a course to advance your skills. Attend professional development seminars. Whatever you do, make sure it is interesting to you. It will help you look at your role in a new light. Boredom will never help you love your job, but being excited about something new will.

3. Ask For What You Want

Instead of waiting for your exit interview to mention all the things you wish you had been offered – ask for them! Your manager is probably not a mind reader, and they cannot provide you with what they didn’t know you were interested in.

Speak out about your goals and make your case for change so you can love your job again. Ask to be put in charge of a project. Talk about your dream role. If you are looking for a flexible schedule or salary increase, ask for that too. Have these conversations first instead of assuming your only option is to quit.

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How To Improve Teamwork in the Workplace

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Teamwork. It’s a word that is thrown around in the office on a daily basis, but when was the last time you took a step back and actually evaluated the teamwork in your workplace?

Why Is Teamwork In The Workplace Significant?

Without effective teamwork, productivity and quality of work will likely suffer, even with a group composed of multiple brilliant individuals. Likewise, without effective teams, companies will struggle to keep pace with competitors who do have effective teams.

Multiple studies have shown that promoting good teamwork in the workplace will have positive effects on productivity, quality of work, creativity, innovation and job satisfaction, all of which benefit the company itself.

In a recent study by Stanford, participants who were working on a team as opposed to working alone persevered longer on difficult tasks, showed more interest and enjoyment in working on the tasks, required less self-regulatory effort to complete tasks, and generally performed better on the tasks. The participants who were part of a team even decided to do more tasks related to those performed in the study in a personal setting 1-2 weeks after the study.

How Can We Improve Company Teamwork?

Now that we’ve established the importance of teamwork in the workplace, let’s talk about how we can improve. Here are 8 tips on how to improve teamwork within any organization.

1. Build Diverse And Inclusive Teams

First and foremost, it is important that we focus on creating diverse teams rather than teams of all like-minded people. A group of people with different backgrounds are more likely to bring diverse perspectives and ideas to the table. With more perspectives, comes more thorough decision making. We often tend to want to surround ourselves with people who think and act in ways that reflect our own thoughts and actions.

While a group of like-minded individuals with similar backgrounds may get along great, we have to think about the bigger picture – Will they bring fresh ideas to the table? Will the team members challenge each other to tackle a project from all angles? Or, will the team members be so agreeable that they come up with ideas that don’t get questioned or elaborated upon? If all team members think the same way, come from similar backgrounds, and have the same beliefs and opinions, the work that the team produces will likely be one-sided and less creative. Whereas if each team member has unique opinions, beliefs, background, etc. they will likely produce work that reflects more creativity and innovation.

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