Interview with Kay Koplovitz, Founder, USA Networks
" I like to tell them to understand the sound of their own voice and by that I mean, what are your beliefs? What do you really believe? What are your values?
Because when you understand your own core values and you can then express those to other people. To be a leader. To get the people to follow you. To get the 'A' team following you, you have to be able to express your core values and they have to believe them.
It seems simple but a lot of people don’t even think about that. They think about all these little skill things that they should have and of course you should be thoroughly knowledgeable to the degree that you can learn about the field that you are going into.
You should know your product and service very well, you should be..we use the word “passionate” so often, but to really feel that you would go extra miles to see that you are successful and its gonna cost sacrifice. You understand all that, but basically, to really bring the people that you need around the table, the advisers, the board members, the investors, the team members, the management, you have to be a person who is driven by your core values and that people really believe in you.
Because that’s how people invest. They invest in individuals, people invest their careers on individuals. They want to work for people they believe are really going places and they want to believe their core values. So it’s something I think is really important for people to think about, even early on in their lives.
To me, it’s one of the most specific determining values of leadership."