Landlord recourse for enforcing lease length terms

[Cindy Descamps]

I have been working at being a landlord for about 5 years now, in Illinois. I am small with only 12 units in three buildings thus I am doing all the land lording myself. My lease is a 12 month lease. My lack of understanding is how to enforce the terms of the lease length. I don’t quite understand how the land lord can force a tenant to stay the full term? Or what the landlord’s recourse is if a tenant leave before term end? With or without proper notice. I have some very long term tenants but there are a few units that seem to have a revolving door on them. This brings me to wondering if a month to month would be a better option. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.