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Today’s All About Real Estate edition of Atlanta Real Estate Forum Radio features an interview with leadership coach Katrina Johnson. Owner of KCJ Consulting, Katrina helps business leaders who are struggling with getting the best results from themselves or their employees.
A psychologist by trade, Katrina is a self-professed science nerd with a doctorate from Emory. She has spent a great a deal of time studying the brain, neuroscience and what makes people tick. After she decided to apply what she’d learned in the field to business, she created her company to provide her personal brand of workplace and leadership brain-based coaching.
Brain-based coaching takes advantage of what has been learned about neuroscience and how the brain works, including how it learns, how memory works, how we process emotions and the best ways to communicate. When applied to the business world, it can help leaders better understand how to encourage and communicate with their team, ultimately leading to more success for everyone involved.
For example, Katrina has studied how the brain responds to rewards. The brain lights up in the same way to social rewards as it would to food- or monetary-based rewards. Understanding this is important to being a successful leader who makes their employees feel valued.
Brain-based coaching also incorporates personality measures. Many employers use personality tests to determine how its employees are geared to handle and respond in certain situations, and what environment they’re best suited to. However, this information is useless unless you’re able to turn the data into actionable steps. Katrina is able to help leaders understand the data recorded from the personality tests, and then apply that information when interacting and communicating with their employees.
One question many people have about leadership coaching is what Katrina does each time she begins working with an organization. She states that it’s varied based on what the organization needs to improve, whether it is performance levels, cooperation or growth. She also points out that she considers each leader she works with as an expert in their field, so she is essentially coaching the coach. Over time, this helps them leverage the skills they already have, such as fine-tuning how to use basic leadership principles like positive reinforcement. While most leaders know this is a useful tool, they may not recognize the best way to implement it with their staff.
The real estate industry is one place where workplace coaching can be an important resource. Builders typically tend to have very different personality types than sales agents, who are usually outgoing, type A personalities. Katrina can help them to work together and relate better.
The first step is to find a shared goal, which is typically easy to identify but quick to be forgotten. Then, it’s important to recognize that each party will likely have different methods to achieve this goal, whether it is to make customers happy, increase referrals or build a quality home. Sales agents tend to immediately think in terms of relationships and people, while builders think about how to best get things done. To make these differing viewpoints work, Katrina suggests recognizing your best practices in making difficult relationships succeed, whether it be communicating effectively or thinking outside of the box. Applying these in relationships that aren’t as easily formed can still help you to be successful.
One misconception people often have about leadership coaching is that it’s only for executives or CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. However, every leader in a business environment can benefit from coaching, and her teachings can be applied to all levels of leadership, as all levels matter in the success of an organization. If you’re interested in learning more about how leadership coaching can benefit your company or organization, listen to the full podcast above and then visit www.KatrinaCJohnsonPhD.com.
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Atlanta Real Estate Forum Radio’s “All About Real Estate” segment airs on Fridays and highlights the movers and shakers in the Atlanta real estate industry – the home builders, developers, Realtors and suppliers working to provide the American dream for Atlantans. For more information on how you can be featured as a guest, contact 770-383-3360 or via the contact form on this site.
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