T
here is no perfect
leadership style—no
prescription that will
work for every
CEO,
or every wannabe,
in every enterprise.
Check the back issues of the
Harvard Business Review,
and you'll nd a long history
of leadership fads, many of
which still have merit. But
for Renee Wasylyk, founder
and
CEO of large-footprint
property development and
construction rm Troika
Developments, the time of the
overbearing, my-way-or-the-
highway boss is long gone.
There are two reasons
for the change. First, every
new hire from the past 10
years has a box in their closet
over„owing with participa-
tion medals and trophies;
millennials have been told
their whole lives that their
contributions would always
be valued. As a result, "Mil-
lennials are more demand-
ing," Wasylyk says. "They
want a transactional boss."
Second, those new hires
have entered the workforce
at a time when the in„uence
of women has softened the
edges of traditional leader-
ship practice. That's both
noticeable and surprising in
the development industry,
which is well known for its
toughness and is still heavily
male-dominated. But it's the
world that Wasylyk chose,
and although she says, "I
don't think about being a
girl," she also knows that she
is, by nature, "more rela-
tional, more collaborative."
All this came into clearer
relief recently when
Wasylyk was having lunch
with a newcomer to the
70-person team at Kelowna-
based Troika, which spe-
cializes in residential and
commercial projects. "I asked
him how it was going, and he
said that he'd been watching
me. He said, 'I think I could
do what you do. But I'd be a
lot more savage.'" Wasylyk's
response reveals her self-
image and her own tough-
ness. She told him, "Then you
couldn't do what I do."
Troika's developments, in
44 BCBUSINESS NOVEMBER 2017 DARREN HULL
Home Truths
Renee Wasylyk forged her own
path in the real estate development
business by seeking advice from
others and choosing collaboration
over confrontation
L E A D E R S H I P
