AUTUMN RITTER
Minnesota State University - Mankato, Class of 2022
COLDWELL BANKER COMMERCIAL FISHER GROUP

In my second-to-last semester of my college experience, I accepted an internship at Coldwell Banker Commercial Fisher Group (CBC). I had not been planning on interning at the time, but this organization was looking for an intern and personally contacted me to ask if I would be interested. I stepped out of my
comfort zone and accepted, and I am extremely thankful that I did. Not only has it allowed me to make some valuable connections within the Mankato business community, but I also recently accepted a full-time position which I will officially start in May 2022.
CBC is a commercial realty firm, meaning that they buy and sell/lease various office, retail, and industrial properties to help continuously provide opportunities for Mankato businesses. My position as an intern involves running the company social media pages (Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn), organizing various community events, assisting the finance team, and an assortment of other tasks that may be necessary. I will continue doing a lot of the same work when I transition to a full-time role as a Brokerage Assistant, with the addition of working as an actual agent for the company, as I am currently working on getting my Minnesota Real Estate License.
I was drawn to this company immediately at my first interview. I felt like all the employees had personality traits that complimented my own, and I felt very comfortable as a part of the group. They showed a work environment that was fun and accepting - where everyone comes as they are and that is more than enough. I also sensed right away that I was in the presence of some very strong leaders, which is partially why I accepted the internship despite originally not wanting one. I felt like these were people that would be able to teach me a lot about what it means to be a leader, and they made it very clear from the beginning that they wanted to help me grow in this way as well. They asked what the company could do for me rather than what I could do for the company, and they built the internship around my personal goals as an upcoming business professional.
Throughout my time at CBC, I now know that I was right about a lot of my initial opinions of the employees and organizational culture. The employees do share a lot of my leadership values, like communication, empathy, and passion, but each person is unique in a way that still compliments the team as a whole. I do believe that this made it easier to find my place in the team and observe how they utilized their leadership skills to help improve my own. They have strengths in many of the areas that I consider my weaknesses and simply by observing them, I have already seen improvements in those areas of myself. One example of this would be my inclination to micromanage. I have struggled with this in the past, but everyone at CBC shows enough trust in other employees to the point where micromanagement is unnecessary. Everyone is trusted to do quality work, so they do.
Prior to starting my internship at CBC, I learned that the leadership style I felt was the best fit for me was servant leadership. This leadership style focuses on putting the team and organization first, above any other personal priorities. Although it seems like an obvious practice in the business world, that is really not true for many organizations. At CBC, any of the employees, but most definitely the upper management team, practice servant leadership. The nature of the organization makes it a necessity to work collectively, but there is also extreme independence within the agents and brokers as they individually try to sell or lease properties themselves. I feel that especially in my role as an intern, where I'm doing work for all departments, servant leadership is the best style for this organization. I am constantly jumping into different tasks to help various team members, and I try to always start my day by asking waht the highest priority is and what I can do to help.
Practicing servant leadership has also set me on a very clear path towards my leadership philosophy, which is that helping individuals with even the smallest tasks benefits the greater good of the team. By assisting everyone in putting their best foot forward, you are actively working towards the successful fulfillment of organizational goals as well. One example of this is my assistance in organizing networking events for CBC. These events are typically organized by Vice President Cate DeBates, but with my help, the team has been able to put more time into other departmental goals while still maintaining a successful event to introduce clients to the organization.
I did not always know that servant leadership was the best fit for me until I began to learn more and more about it in various leadership classes. I realized that servant leadership was centered around a lot of my personal leadership values, and therefore fit well my personality and desire to help others. I do firmly believe that serving individual team members is the best approach to helping the team flourish, and that has become increasingly evident throughout my work at CBC Fisher Group. Even on a personal level, it is important to make sure I am looking internally to see what areas may need the most attention (like mental wellbeing) and how I can tend to it in order to practice my best self when working towards my goals.
Now that I have found a group of people and an organization that compliments my own leadership, I believe that I will continue to experience an abundance of personal growth within this company. As I transition to a Brokerage Assistant and eventually an agent, I hope to continue actively practicing servant leadership. I believe the combination of a supportive team and a clear vision will help bring the most success and fulfillment to the organization, and therefore myself.
COMPETENCY FULFILLMENT: Values - All Levels, Teams - All Levels