Leading With Humanity In Multifamily Operations

Hi, and welcome to the Multifamily Women Podcast. I'm your host, Carrie Antrim. Today I'm joined by Jamie Rouscher. Jamie is the president of property operations at Hamilton Point Property Management. She leads all the strategic direction. She oversees all operations for Hamilton Point, and we're going to dive deep into what she's excited about right now. I met Jamie when she first joined the Multifamily Innovation Council, and I knew right away I wanted her to speak at the Multifamily Women's Summit, which she did. And I'm just so excited to have her on the show today. So let's welcome Jamie to the show. Thanks for having me. Yeah, well, thanks for sharing the time today. I'm so glad to have you as a guest on the show. Excited to be here. So I want to start. I want to, I mentioned that you spoke at the Multifamily Women's Summit. I want to start with that. I'm going to take us back and I'm going to actually play a clip of you, of something that you shared on stage that is still resonating with our audience. And so let's take a look at that clip. Let's roll that right now, please.

Tell my team all the time, you know, figure out what's the glass ball, what's the rubber ball. Your family, your kids, your significant other, the that's glass. You drop that, it's gonna break, you're gonna have a mess to clean up. Almost everything else, work-related, is a rubber ball. It's going to bounce back and you'll catch it on the bounce. Um, I I heard someone once say, I can't remember who it was, but he said, at no point has a very successful person passed away, and the kids stand up at their funeral and say, I will, I will always remember that my dad never missed a meeting. I mean, they they don't your kids won't remember that. Your significant other's not going to remember that. And it's hard because you won't be the person that can be counted on, but you also have to consider what's quantity and what's quality. You can give people a lot of stuff, but if there's no quality behind it, it's you know, it's just trash.

So that line, figure out what's the glass ball and what's the rubber ball, that has hit leaders everywhere, even outside of multifamily. We posted that on our socials, um, blew up on TikTok, so it's really resonating with leaders across the world. I'm wondering, Jamie, how has that mindset changed the way you're leading teams today?

Yeah, I mean, I think as leaders, our leadership style is going to evolve. Um, I think the more a lot of times it's the more confidence you have. Uh sometimes we feel like we know what might be, you know, rubber and what might be glass. And maybe we don't have the confidence to say, hey, this is what's glass for me. Um so I think confidence is is part of it. Um and you know, as you continue to learn your leadership style, not everyone's gonna lead the same way. Not everybody's the cheerleader, not everybody's the quiet person in the background. You find what you're comfortable with, what works for you, and then you execute that the best way that you can. Um, but I think for me personally, it was uh just building the confidence to be able to take the stand to say, here's here's you know, here's what's rubber, here's what I'll allow, you know, to drop, and here's what absolutely can't.

And I mentioned, you know, in your intro, you I'm sure wear a lot of hats in your role. And I don't know specifically your background, you know, where you started, but what lessons were there glass balls that you dropped along the way that helped you build that kind of like, okay, I dropped this glass ball, but the world didn't end, or I dropped this rubber ball. I like you said in your clip, I picked it up on the bounce, like we're good to go. Were there certain lessons that you learned in your journey from where you started that gave you that confidence to now lead the way that you do?

Oh, yeah. I think it's if you're thinking it, whether you're a new leader or not, you're not always going to know what what's glass and what's rougher. No one is gonna know from day one, okay, here's here's my deal breakers. Um, you won't find those out until you break it. And if it shatters, that's when you'll know, wow, I I thought that that was something I was willing to let go of, but now it's shattered and I've got to clean it up. You know, whether that's not everybody's gonna have the same glass ball. Uh, not everyone is gonna look at uh, you know, certain things in their life the same way. Uh, you know, you may not think that your health was that important. You're so busy taking care of everyone else, whether you're a parent or whether you're caring for a parent. Um, with children, you don't always think of your health as something that's glass until you have a health issue and then you realize that's important to me. Uh, for some people it's faith. Uh, you know, you may not think that your faith is important as it is until you come to a point where you need it. Um, so sometimes it sometimes it changes. Um, but I think a lot of times people figure it out just when something breaks, unfortunately. And that's when you know, and that's when you need to really take that seriously. Um you don't let it break twice.

Yeah, that's really important. Um, I think that it's hard as leaders too, we're making decisions all day long and to have to try to sit and figure out, okay, you know, where's the glass, where's the rubber in this situation? I wonder how you balance that with just, we also just got to get stuff done. I can't sit here and ponder everything all day long, like if this goes bad, you know, like you said, and then you just have to move forward. And sometimes it's gonna break and sometimes it's gonna bounce, and sometimes it's gonna go great, and you don't have to worry about it. But I like what you said there, that yeah, there are times, especially with our health and our well-being, I think that we're always on the go, so busy, taking care of others, family, employees, all that stuff. You don't even know until something smacks you right in the face, right? And you're like, Oh, maybe you shouldn't have dropped that one. Yeah. Yeah, shouldn't have dropped that one. Hindsight is always 2020. It's weird how that works. It's beautiful. Do you see your team trying to figure out their own version of what's glass and rubber? Like, how do you guide them through that? Are you helping lead the way? Oh, sure.

Yeah, no, that's that's huge, hugely important. Um, with my particular team, uh, each one of us are remote. Uh none of us work in the same office together. We're in, I think, seven or eight states. So when we see each other, uh, more often than not, it's via Zoom or some kind of FaceTime. I do see that with them because if you're working remote, um I think you have to be very careful about how you prioritize your day, whether you're working at home or you're working uh at various sites, you know, if you're if you're a regional manager, for example, um, it's very hard to stay disciplined in your work day. You know, stopping to eat, stopping to walk away from something. Uh I think when you're in an office and it's structured, you know, you start seeing people around you get up to go eat lunch, like, oh, I should go eat lunch. Uh, people start turning their light off at the end of the day to go home. That's your trigger to go home. When you're remote, you don't have any of those triggers. So it then becomes your responsibility to say, okay, I know what my body needs, and I've got to make sure that I that I take care of it. Um with my team, it's you know, please don't let your vacation roll over to the next year. I hate when that happens. Um, and it does happen, you know, but you know, you you should use your vacation time. Use the sick time if you need it. Um take a half a day off. If your kids got something going on at school or you need to help your parents with something, do it. You you won't get that second chance. We can reschedule a meeting very easily. It's it's not, you know, it's not uh a crucial thing. But, you know, and that's when it goes back to what do you hold as glass? What's glass to you, um, and prioritize it. Because I feel like if if you don't prioritize it after a while, that will start to wear on you. Even though it's a decision that you made yourself not to take care of that glass thing, you still know you're not taking care of it. And I think that can affect us as leaders where either you're becoming resentful, um, you're tired. I feel like it kind of wears you down a little bit. You know you're not making good choices. Um, so yeah, I I I encourage that. I I see them doing those things mainly because they know it's completely expected of them.

That's an amazing, very enlightened leadership style. I feel like me, for me specifically, I was raised in such a way that it's like, you know, you you do what everything you have to do, nose to the grindstone, like boots on the ground, you're working sunup to sundown, whatever's necessary to get the job done. And the thought of taking a sick day or a vacation can be scary, um, especially for up-and-coming leaders who want to prove themselves, like, yes, I got this, I can do this, I'm committed, I'm loyal. How do you help them find the balance between, yes, we see that you're loyal, you're doing a great job, but also like you need to take care of yourself because all the things you just mentioned are gonna happen if you don't stop to actually take care of yourself too. Right. Where's the balance between that and how do you foster that?

Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm not gonna micromanage someone and say, hey, it's November, why haven't you put in your PTO yet? Uh, you know, I'm not gonna force somebody. But what I what I do oftentimes is when we are having a group call, if somebody's going on vacation, like we'll talk about where they're going, what they're gonna do. If they just got back from the vacation, we're gonna talk about where'd you go? What'd you do? That way it's it's almost it becomes part of uh the conversation. Yes, we're talking about work and we're talking about all these other things, but we're gonna make time to acknowledge that this person went on this vacation, they had a great time, where they're getting ready to go. Um, you know, somebody's kids are getting married, we talk about all of those things so that it just becomes as big a part of the conversation as anything else we're talking about. Um, and I think when when people see other people taking the vacations, uh going on the fun trips, and we're all celebrating it and excited about it, they feel very like, okay, well, this is this is part of the climate here, and and I'm gonna take advantage of it.

Yeah. Also, I think being remote that helps too, because that's I mean, that's typical talk when you're in an office setting. You're gonna talk with your coworkers and hey, oh, hey, you just went to Hawaii, how was it? Right? Oh, I went last year. You know, you're gonna have that typical like water cooler talk. So I think that's really cool since you said you're all remote, that you're actually bringing in that personal experience um over Zoom or FaceTime. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Now, you obviously have worked away your president. Now, I'm wondering, um, was there a point where uh in our pre-call, you you mentioned chasing the dragon, right? First one in, last one out. Um, I always think of the movie dating myself here, the movie Working Girl, where she's riding the train to work in her tennis shoes, and then she gets to her desk and she puts her high heels on. Do you remember that? Right, yes, pulls them out of the drawer. I love it so much. But um, was there a point where you were like you felt confident enough that you didn't have to do that anymore? Because clearly, you know, you're very successful successful, you're a great leader, and so teams to fr to take the the time that they need from okay. I just I uh again, back to the glass ball. Like the ball's gonna break if I don't do something.

Right.

Um I think I mean, I I definitely was in that environment where it was, you know, who was working the most hours. Um, I can remember sharing a cube with someone that actually brought in uh this was when IV fluids became a big thing. Yes. And so he the IV fluid people came to him. Uh-huh. And it was like we were all just like, wow, you're so dedicated to this place and this job that you're bringing in this third-party group to hook you up to an IV in the office while you're on a call. That's how dedicated you are. Yeah. Um, and you know, that's that's how uh success maybe was kind of uh measured there of you know, how willing, how far are you willing to go to be successful here? Um after a while not to simplify it, but you get tired, you get worn down, you just you stop enjoying it. And for me, I it was always like this Sunday afternoon anxiety. Oh, yes, the Sunday series worked in an environment where you were so unhappy, even if you like the people, but you were so unhappy that Sundays, and I swear it's like one or one thirty in the afternoon. Yeah, it's something about after lunch, you know the weekend's coming down, and we're about to have to start this all over again. And I did that for three years just Sunday afternoon, just being such high anxiety, yeah. Uh knowing another work week. And when I walked away from that, I was amazed. Number one, at just the difference in just my own well-being, but absolutely like blown away that I allowed myself to do that for three years. Yeah, I don't know why. Still, I'm not sure exactly why, except that it just felt like the thing to do, yeah. Chasing the dragon, chasing, you know, that next success. Um so I I I tell people if you're ever in a position, whether it's work or whatever, where it starts to impact you to that level, where you're you're spending time being anxious about it. Like you gotta, you have to cut that out. You gotta change it, you gotta leave, you gotta do something. It's not worth it.

Yeah, that is a great analogy. I I hear about the Sunday scaries all the time. I've experienced it. I had a job once many lifetimes ago where it the Sunday scaries would start on Saturday, and I would be thinking, okay, it's Saturday. I I gotta make the most of today because tomorrow's Sunday, which basically means the weekend's over because then Monday comes. Like, I would really in it bad. So I totally relate to that. It's rough. It is rough.

It chills kind of when you relive it.

You're like, yeah, how did how did I live that way? Oh, it's so hard. Yeah. But um so on the flip side of that of working too much, how do you um manage maybe like coasting or someone who could be taking advantage of the the the thought that, oh, I'm supposed to use my PTO, I'm supposed to do all these things. I'm just gonna kind of co do all that and I'm gonna coast along.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it it's it's easy to for some people, I think, to kind of fall into that uh that habit of you know, things are so relaxed, we do have so much autonomy here. Uh I I find that that people that have that mindset don't want to be in that environment for very long. Um they s again, my experience, they seem to coast for a while, and then after a while it's like the coasting just doesn't it doesn't lead to anything. So I find that people are more likely just maybe it's the quiet quit, you know, people just don't coast for very long, in my experience. They they will coast for a while until they realize like, okay, this is just not for me. And then, you know, they leave and go somewhere else. Or maybe it's just a different role that they needed to be in. Um, but I think you that's that's visible pretty quickly. And when it is, you have to you've got to acknowledge it. You can't just kind of go, oh, you know, they're just doing the minimum to get by and we'll deal with that later. You've got to, you do have to address it pretty quickly. And that's tough. Um to think in leadership, some of the hardest things are when you have to have the tough conversations.

Yeah, the hope is that they'll just kind of self-select out, right? Because it's not fulfilling to not be successful, you know, in in anything you do, right? And I do see I agree with you. I think that's hard to maintain, even though it's like, oh, I got a cushy job, I got I work from home, I'm in my gym, you know, whatever the story is, right? Um, that's only fun for so long until you're like, what am I actually contributing? You know, or this is not fulfilling for me. So yeah, I agree. What when it doesn't self-when it doesn't happen, then yeah, then the tough conversations have to happen. That is really hard. That's not the most fun part of leadership. For sure. Yeah. Um, how do you, for yourself, how do you personally measure success for you, for your team, when it's not about, you know, the amount of hours worked and who's in first and last and all that. How are you measuring success?

Um I think that you can best measure success in your team by how freely and openly they give you feedback. I think that if employees feel good about where they are, they feel good about what they're contributing, there's a certain level of confidence that comes from that. And with that confidence, you will find people that are very quick to come up and say, hey, I noticed something. I'd like to make a change on this, or I noticed this, this could potentially be a problem. I think when you see that, when you see that real proactive feedback, and not just proactive, positive, but but real looking ahead, problem solving that high level of autonomy. To me, that's when you know that people are happy, they feel good about it, they feel confident enough to say something. And they feel confident knowing that someone's gonna listen and probably take action on it. Um, I think that's to me one of the clearest ways to measure it.

It's a great feeling as a leader when someone comes to you with something like you just mentioned, either positive or negative. But to me, it signals like they care. They have the forethought to, oh, this could be a problem, or here's an opportunity we're missing, or you know, something. That feels so great as a leader because you know that they care enough about the company, about their success to come to you and say, this is what I'm seeing. You know, I just wanted to share this with you. I I love that.

I think that's a great indicator that they're they're it's not always it's not always about turnover, you know, how long people stay with you. Um, I mean, that certainly can be an indicator, but I think when you have teams that will openly contribute proactively, uh, that's when you know you're you're heading in the right direction.

Yeah. How do you so how do you teach that? How do you teach someone that it's okay to make a decision or it's even if it's the wrong one, um, you know, you've got their back. Like you're in it for them.

Yeah. I mean, again, we're not in the in in my environment, we're not in the same office, we're remote, but we are pretty open about talking about what someone's really good at and what somebody's not great at. In a joking way, but I I've got I've got incredibly talented people on my team, but I know if there's a particular problem, somebody on the team is gonna know how to better solve it than someone else. Right, of course. Everyone's good, very good at certain things. And it it's it's funny sometimes somebody will do something. It was like, I cannot believe you did that. And then, like, I have no idea why I did that. And so we'll all talk about it. Like, if this ever comes up again, y'all don't let him do it. Because you know what I've been like, so it becomes a very open thing where everybody knows that they're very good at something, and everybody knows that there's something that maybe they need to work on, and it's just it's an open dialogue. Um it can catch people off guard sometimes where they're like, Did you just say that about him? Like, he knows or she knows, she knows that that is not if if you've got to uh you know handle uh an upset investor, don't let her talk to him. You know, it just becomes it's an open dialogue. Yeah. Um and I think that also contributes to the confidence where you're acknowledging, hey, you do not have to be good at all the things, but you do need to be really good at a couple of things.

Right. We hired you, you're part of the team for a reason. There there are things you are excellent at, but like your Ivy Drip guy, like you don't have to be excellent at every single thing. Something we always ask people too, uh new hires or in interviews, like, what do you not like doing? Like, what are the things that if it's on your task list, you're gonna put to the bottom because you're like, I don't want to do this. This is not my in my wheelhouse or my unique ability or whatever. Like, I think that's important to know too.

Yeah, I mean, when I was a property manager, the thing that I dislike the most was showing apartments. That's a huge part.

Kind of. I mean, that's kind of success.

And I can remember like it would be like 5 45, and this was, you know, the office was closing at six, and I'd be like, I cannot wait to lock that door. Please, I'm here by myself, please don't let somebody come in. I just disliked that so much. And I'm and because I disliked it, I was also not great at it. Uh, so I knew I had to have people in that office that were excellent at it because they had to pick up my slack. Uh, I mean, my closing percentage was like 9%, or it wasn't good.

But look at you now. Look where you are now.

You made it through. You surround you have to surround yourself with people that are better at what you are not good at. Otherwise, you'll never you'll never make it.

So, on our pre-call, uh talking about this podcast, you told me a story about a manager you had came up with an idea to give a concession on rent to help people get get caught up on rent. Do you mind telling that story? Because I thought it was so impactful. And it demonstrates um how everything we've just been talking about, how she felt comfortable coming. She knew it was kind of a fail-safe environment. Maybe you were a little nervous about it, but you Do you mind telling us that story?

Yeah. Um, this was uh actually fairly recent. It was in the past six to nine months. Uh, you know, in multifamily right now, it's you know, the environment right now is, you know, rents aren't growing like we got used to post-COVID. We're giving away concessions. You've got you've got staff really that if they're new to the industry, maybe they were hired on when concessions weren't a thing, and now concessions are a thing. So with that, it's led to, I think, an increase in uh delinquency. And this manager came forward and she said, you know, look, I've got 16 people or whatever the number was that I'm gonna need to file eviction on. And I feel like if I could waive the late fees and maybe give them a one-time concession of$500, whatever the dollar amount, I think they can get caught up, and I think they'll stay caught up. And not something that we had ever done before. Uh, but we knew we didn't have 16 evictions. So she did that. Um, and this was like I said, about six, nine months ago. And half of those 16 were able to come current and are still current. You know, there was something in their life that was impactful, caused them to get behind. They couldn't get caught up. But you know, once you add on someone's late fees, the legal fees, and then they have to pay the next month's rent. There's not many people in any uh area that that can come up with that. Um so I thought it was a really great suggestion because it showed me a couple of things. Number one, she was actually thinking about the business of it. So if this person owed me$2,000 and they came to me and they said, okay, I'm I I can't give you$2,000, but I can give you$1,500 or nine, what would you personally do if that person owed you$2,000? You would probably just say, just give me the$1,500 and you know, we'll just consider the other$500, just we're not gonna see it. And I loved that thought process because it just showed this person's truly thinking about it. And also being aware of just the reality of someone's situation that when you get that far behind, that sometimes you need to do just a simple thing like, hey, here's a one-time concession. And at this property, if this person was evicted, we're gonna turn the unit, we're gonna write off the rent. I'm gonna give a month's free concession to get it leased to another person coming in. So why not take a fraction of that and keep a current resident? Uh it worked out great. We've done it at two or three other properties. Extremely, extremely well received. Um, and I'm just very grateful and thankful that she felt comfortable enough to bring that forward. Because that's a pretty, you know, it's a little the craziest thing, but it's a little out there. It's it's very different from how you would typically approach something like this. Um, and it was it was a great suggestion and it worked well.

Yeah, that's amazing on a lot of different levels. Like you you mentioned, she was thinking uh of it in a business sense, right? Does this make sense for the business, but also human? Like you said, uh life happens, things happen. And when you're not only when you get behind, but then you're adding on late fees and like you said, legal fees and all these things, it can feel so overwhelming. And for her to be able to identify that and and say to herself, okay, you know, these are just humans, these are people, these are our residents. Like, how can we make it a win win for everyone? I think that's great. Was it scary for you when when she first came to you? Like you said, you'd never done this before, kind of not out there, but like not typical as for you as a leader, where you're like, okay. Glass ball, rubber ball, what happens if this doesn't work?

I looked at it as the absolute worst thing, like the worst thing that could happen, is they all get a$500 concession, they pay their balance, and they get laid again the following month. I mean, I was just trying to weigh it out what is the absolute worst thing that could happen. Uh, I joke with my team, you know, every quarter I like to do a uh, you know, ask for forgiveness thing. That's a I've learned that from my children, just ask for forgiveness later. And I joke, you know, I can do that once a quarter. I can't do it any more than that. Um, and I kind of tell them the same thing, just you know, sometimes it's just have the confidence and the mindset, you know, we we overcomplicate so many things in multifamily. The software is complicated, the leases are complicated, the processes are complicated. Um, we're going back to handwritten guest cards with a copy of the thank you cards they will do it. I haven't done that since 2006. But I really believe that if a prospect gets a handwritten note in the mail, it will be the only handwritten note they get from any tour that they did. Um, and so we're going, we're kind of going backwards a little bit. We still rely heavily on technology, but you know, that was another suggestion that was made. Just a very simplified approach to something. Um, when you provide housing to people, that is one of the most personal things you can provide. Uh, it's it's where they sleep, it's where they raise their family. It's it's a very personal thing. And if you lose that personal mindset of these are people, uh you you can get in a little bit of trouble, I think.

Yeah, absolutely. And you're managing you've got class A, you've got student manufactured, right? What else? You got you got a lot going on. Right.

Um, we cover manufactured housing, student housing, and then all the way up to the garden style. That's a lot going on. It is, it's a lot. Um, but I will tell you the similarities between those things from a human level. It's the exact, there's really no difference. Really? You have similar, the expectations are the same. I'm paying rent for an apartment. These amenities are included. I expect them to be available to me. I expect them to be working. Um we will have as many job losses in a class A luxury as we might in manufactured housing. It's all the same mindset, different level, obviously, but it's it's all the people are all impacted by the same thing. And anything that's gonna impact somebody in a luxury mid-rise is going to in some way impact someone else. Um, it's all, I think when you look at it and you start thinking, okay, well, that's that's an A plus deal, we're gonna run it a little bit different. You got is is there's basics that have to be applied. Um, and remembering that human touch, you're still providing a roof over someone's head. Your office, you work where they live. And if you can remember that, um I think people find more enjoyment in the job when you start to appreciate that.

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. What is what's the most challenging part across those different assets?

Um, I would say that in manufactured housing, um that's typically real estate that's more susceptible to the the things that happen economically. You know, a lot of times they're in seasonal employment, hourly jobs, you know, hourly jobs, those those hours can fluctuate bi-weekly. Um, and that's when we will work with people, like the you know, maybe the one-time concession to allow them to get caught up. Um, on the luxury side, I think you you see more challenges around um job relocations, more so than job loss. Um I think you also see we see a lot of family dynamic changes a lot of times that will impact that that we maybe don't see on the manufactured housing side. So on manufactured housing, the average uh tenant time frame is usually seven to ten years. Wow. So very low turnover, um, but high expectations of community. So you've got to keep the community uh environment is very important there. They know when they move in, they're not leaving for you know, seven to ten years. On the luxury side, it's an expectation of lifestyle. Um, you know, if they're going to be renting, they're gonna be renting now one to three years. They're more conscientious about what their monthly payment is, what's included, what amenities are offered. Um, they look at it as a lifestyle and a convenience, kind of meeting a short-term need that they have.

That's really interesting. Um, I didn't even, I didn't I didn't know that about the manufactured housing, the longevity longevity. Um, but that makes sense. If they're gonna be there seven to ten years, they want to have a great community and and for you to foster that and keep that going, that is really interesting.

Right. Yeah, because they're they're looking at it as their neighbor is going to be their neighbor, uh, you know, through maybe a time period where their kids are in elementary school together. So you have to acknowledge that you've got to foster it because that's that's an expectation and it's a realistic expectation.

Yeah. Yeah. So you have said that you know, people don't want to be well, they want to feel appreciated, of course, but they also want to be trusted and they want to know that they can trust you. And this is not just for your employees or your associates, but also I think your residents, you know, they can trust that the, like you said, the amenities are gonna work or that the community community building is there. What do you do internally to foster that trust uh across the board?

I think with residents, you have to communicate. And I know people always say that, you know, you got to communicate. You have to communicate the bad in the same manner and the same sense of urgency that you would, the good. You know, whenever we have something great going out on a property, we're very quick to send something out to the residents. Oh, guys, great news, X, Y, Z. And it's exciting, and we'll and then we'll send email blast follow-up from it. And so they see that and it's and it's great. You know, we like to communicate the great. But then when you have something unfortunate that happens on property, we try to think of a way of like, okay, do we really need to send something out about this? Right. What if we don't send something? Let's wait and let's wait a couple of days, see if the dust settles. If the dust doesn't settle, then we'll send something uh just to meet, you know, whatever minimum expectations. And that is I fall into that all the time. I mean, and more often than not, if we would just proactively send something out, hey, it happened, here's what we're doing about it, uh, here's what you can do about it, and then a follow-up. Hey guys, just following up from the notice we sent last week. Here's where we are, here's some reminders. Um most people understand, they know where they live, they know the environment they're living in, they know the neighborhood, they know it's an apartment. People, I feel like for the most part, have a very um, you know, sensible expectation. And I think when we treat them like they don't, that's when you start to kind of start having some issues. Um, from an employee standpoint, it's similar. I mean, it's it's communicating the bad as often and as frequently as you would communicate the good. Um it it helps people have realistic expectations of you as a leader and themselves. Um, and then it makes them comfortable to say, okay, you know, we're communicating the good and the bad frequently. So I can, I can, it's acceptable for me to do the same thing.

Yeah, I think about that um in terms of kids as well. You know, you have to I think it's for me personally, I fall into the trap of communicating, oh, this grade isn't where it should be. Uh, you know, you didn't do your assignments, whatever the thing is, you know, now there's so much. I actually feel bad for my children. I don't know if all school districts are this way, but I see up to the moment grades. Anytime I log in, I can see exactly what's missing. Like when I was growing up, my mom saw the report card at the end of the quarter and was like, oh, here's your signature, right? But I can see and go from a B to a D to an A, you know, all in real time. Um and so I get sucked into that trap where it's like, oh, you gotta do this, do this, do this. And then I have to remember, like, we I have to communicate the good as as well. And that's the same with our employees too. Like you can, oh, we didn't hit this goal or whatever, but also remembering to communicate the good. Um and I I think I'm not working, I don't know where I'm going with that, but I mean, I think you made a great point with the residents because sometimes it can be like, uh, do we really need to tell them, you know, that the pool's gonna be closed for two weeks? You know, yeah, we do. And how do you do that and balance it good and bad to get the point across, you know?

Yeah, when people see something that they know this is not right, and you don't communicate about it, they will look at it as either we're looking at it as this is totally acceptable. The pool's down, we haven't really communicated about it, which means we think it's okay. Right. And then residents will lose their mind. Yeah, rightfully so, because how can you think this is okay? Um, you know, speaking uh about kids, that is having that immediate invisible or visibility into grades, performance, behavior is so dangerous because I do the same thing. I'm like, why is this a zero? Have you turned this in? And my daughter was like the epitome of turn it in, just grading it.

Yeah, I love that. I hear it every day.

Like, what is your teacher doing? How do you have and she graduated and she's in college, and you know, apparently the teacher hadn't graded it yet. But now I look at it, and my son, I'm just I don't, I I try to not pay attention to it because at some point he's going to have to know whether or not he turned something in. And it can't be mom riding him the very few hours that you have with them at the end of the day before it's time to take a shower, eat, brush your teeth, get in bed. I don't want to ride you on all of that stuff. Um and yeah, it's it's that it's and then and then you fall on track of okay. Now it's instant gratification. Yep. I always know how my child is doing.

Yeah.

And that I think is also dangerous because then we start making assumptions. Well, I'm looking at your grades and I'm assuming you're doing poorly. And so now I'm gonna act accordingly. Right. When in reality, if I would have taken the step back and said, okay, hey, tell me what's going on in math. My assumption could be way off. Yeah. Um, the the access that we have to information is it's great, but it's uh not an ideal way to raise children.

Yeah, it's tough. I I'm very much in that era of like, I'm just not even gonna check it. You know, I I don't even open it. I am my husband always are capable of doing all these things. Same with employees or team members. Like I will, I'm always trying to hold them. Then it's like connect happen, what's going on? But I'm going to lead with you are capable of doing this, you are a high achiever, you're going to do great, whatever you set your mind to. Um, you know, same in the workplace. Like, I think it's that just flipping the mindset. Because, like you said, the the right. Um, okay, so we're coming up to the end of our time. Um there are any final thoughts you want to leave with our audience, with our listeners today?

Yeah, I think um, you know, the the leadership mindset it has to start, you know, internally with yourself. Figure out honestly, completely, you know, set your ego aside. Uh, because leaders, you're you're gonna have an ego. You're a decision maker, you're calling the shots, people come to you for advice. Uh, it's easy to kind of let the ego run some of that. And when you do that, it's hard to really be honest about what's glass, what's rubber. Because, you know, as a leader, you want to think everything's glass. Well, if I drop anything at all, it's gonna shatter and I'm gonna have to clean it up because nobody's gonna be there to catch it. Um, and you know, just not to say like uh, you know, take it all though, but just you know, being confident enough and comfortable enough to just know there are things that I am not good at. That I've got these people over here that are good at it. And let them let them take it. You will enjoy your jaw, your life, uh, so much more.

I love that. I love that that you openly talk about what everybody's good at, maybe not so good at, and not the strength. I think that that is so important and makes for such a great.

Nobody's complained yet.

Well, there you go. There you go. I love that. That's great. Um, thank you so much, Jamie, for sharing this. I have been in the industry for a long time. You have a lot of wisdom. We might have to do this again, I think, because honestly, I didn't so maybe we'll have to do another one at some point. Yes. Might be a second run. Yeah, I love it. Well, thank you so much. Um all right, well, that wraps another episode of the Multifamily Women Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. Uh please share this episode with anyone who you think might benefit from Jamie's wisdom. Please send this. You can hear this and watch this on all your favorite channels. Also be sure to get signed up for the Multifamily Women Summit. You can do that at multifamilywomen.com. Can't wait to see you there. And we will see you in the next episode.