“Who do you think you are?” Kris takes on the most important question in leadership and core values

Behind the Billboard

(0:00:01) KL: Who are you?  No, really. Who are you? Are your actions matching your words? Hey, it’s Kris Lindahl and welcome back to Behind the Billboard. I want to cover something completely different that I think is so critical in your success as a business leader. The core values. Who are you at your core? Who is your organization at their core? You know, I look back to when we first started our organization and I’m like most people and I went on Google and I copied down someone else’s core values. We posted them on the wall. We had them on plaques. And no one lived them, including myself. We said them and no one could remember them. You know, I look back on those days and I really didn’t know who I was as a person but also as a leader. And so as you are looking to grow your organization and grow yourself as a business leader, do you know exactly who you are? Because when you find out exactly who you are it is going to eliminate burnout. You are going to get very clear on why you wake up every morning and why you go to work and why you lead and inspire others. It makes everything better. So, I challenge all of you to go deep. Really deep and figure out who you are at the core and what does your business stand for? And when you do those things, you will start to attract the same type of people that stand for the same things you do. I mean, these are your values and you don’t want to sacrifice them for anything. Like, this is what you live by. Like I said at the beginning, it is not the words, it is the actions. If you stand in front of your organization and you tell people this is what you stand for but then your actions are something different, they are not going to follow along. So let’s make sure that at the core, you know exactly who you are and you can answer it and you can live it. It is going to make such a big difference in your life, not only professionally, but personally if you get hyper focused on who you are at the foundation. You know, I look back to when I was starting my organization and I was very unclear of who I was personally and also what our organization stood for. We really didn’t know. What’s really interesting is as I look at the evolution of our organization as it changes. You know, it is so interesting how what we started with almost becomes a working document or working values and as you evolve they turn into something completely different over time. So, don’t feel this pressure that you are inventing core values today and that’s what you have to live by forever. Some are going to rise up and some maybe are not going to fit you. It doesn’t make it right or wrong. But your organization is going to start to grow and take a life of its own. When you start to attract the same type of people for what you stand for and your core values your culture gets stronger. Your culture gets way better and it takes a life of its own. When you are attracting people that stand for the same type of values you do, it’s fascinating how much better everything gets. We attract people who believe in being generous. Our number one value at Kris Lindahl Real Estate is to be generous and to give back our time, treasures, and talents. Those can be different things for different people but that is what we live by. That one really is a list of seven others that we had. Be generous has really taken a life of its own. It is really just doing the right thing and giving back. We have a unique opportunity in our organization. We have been extremely successful and had a lot of success and now it is time to give back our time, treasures and talents and they are different things for different reasons but we are so focused on that now. Everyone is our organization is focused on that. And we live by it. I don’t just stand in front of our organization and say, “Hey, today we are going to be generous.” I actually show up and show them I am going to be generous and I live by it in every single thing I do at all times. Remember, as business leaders, and quite honestly anyone in this society today. We are always on stage. People are always watching. Rather we are successful, rather we are up and coming. Whatever it is. People are watching and we don’t know when we can truly make that impact. Right? Someone might be having a rough day, a rough month, a rough year. Personal things might have show up in their life, maybe even professional things. But when we can show up and make a different and for us it is being generous and giving back. We don’t know how we are going to change people’s lives. We have done this for multiple years now of really truly living by our values and hiring to our core values. In the messages and the phone calls and the emails that I personally get for other people in our organization and the things they are doing in our community at home, with their friends, with their family, with their clients. You know what the beautiful thing is? They didn’t know anyone was watching. They had no idea that someone was watching that act of kindness or their choice to volunteer. Whatever that may be for them. I love the stories I get. It is so fascinating how much growth you can have in an organization when you are really clear at the foundation. You have to get down to the core. Like, what do you stand for? And you have to live it. People have to see it and they have to feel it because you can’t talk about good culture. You feel it. You feel good culture. You feel the core values. You feel what is going on in an organization when things are clicking on all levels. So, whatever point of business you are in. Personally, professionally, whatever that mindset is, I want you to take some time and dig really, really deep and figure out who you are at the core and why are you doing this? Why are you doing what you are doing? I promise you it will make a huge difference. The first time I came up with our true set of core values it took me six months. Six months of defining what do we stand for? What do I stand for? What type of people do I want in this organization? And like I said, over time some have kind of taken a life of their own and some have kind of not fit where we are today. But then we also hire to our core values. We make sure people are a culture fit and they match our core values before anything else. Period. That’s what matters the most. As you grow your business and you grow yourself as a leader and as a person I challenge you to find out what are you at the core? I promise you once you do that exercise you will have a breakthrough. Thanks for tuning in. I look forward to connecting with you next time!