Why Traits Alignment Determines Who Thrives in Your Business

I'm your host, Amy Dardis. And today we're continuing our seven-part series on creating alignment with your people. In this series, we're exploring the three dimensions of alignment: culture, capacity, and contribution. We're currently focusing on the culture dimension. So far, we've covered the alignment overview, values alignment, and work style alignment. If you've missed those episodes, you can check out episodes 12, 13, and 14 respectively.

Today we're diving into traits alignment, which is identifying the inherent traits of people who will thrive in your business based on the elements we've already talked about: values and work style. Business is about people. You will hear me say that over and over again. What we believe, how we operate, our personalities, our backgrounds, who we are as individuals, it shapes how we show up. You cannot remove the individual from the work. You can't remove the individual from the role. We are the business, we are how things get done, how we operate.

When we're looking to create alignment with our people, we have to look at who people are. We are not just looking at work experience or skill sets or capacity, which we're talking about in the next episode. And no amount of coaching or training or performance improvement plans will ever change our innate character or our innate personality. So when we talk about traits and personality traits and characteristic traits, we're really looking at two lenses: their character and their personality.

What is character? What are those character traits? Character traits define a person's moral and ethical code. This is their internal compass for what they believe to be right and important. Someone's character traits are how their values show up in their life. Character is a blend of how we're born, how we're hardwired, how God designed and created us, and this moral sensitivity we're born with. Different types of people are born with stronger or weaker moral compasses. But then there's also what we believe, our faith, and how that shapes our understanding of right and wrong and how we act based on what we believe. And then life experience: what has life taught us about perseverance and humility and growth, and what experiences have shaped us?

The thing about character is it grows and develops over time through choices, through experiences, through discipline, through maturity. Just think about what you were like as a teenager or in your early twenties or when you became a parent. Those experiences developed your character. You grew, you matured over time, and different paths have shaped what that looks like in each of us.

In a spiritual sense, character is given to us. We see this through the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:22 says: but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is fruit we get to bear in our life based on what we believe, based on how the Holy Spirit shapes and guides us, whether we're abiding in Christ or whether we're trying to forge our own path. It's not about our personality or natural temperament. It's about who we're becoming through the work of the Holy Spirit, based on what we believe. This character reflects our moral and spiritual maturity.

The character traits of an individual are going to reveal whether that someone aligns with your values as a company, whether they believe what you believe, and their actions in their life will prove it. Some examples of character traits: humility, being respectful, being courageous and bold, being generous and stewarding well, being responsible and dependable, self-control, whether that's a strong characteristic or something they struggle with, whether they're kind and gentle, whether they're teachable and coachable. These are all things that can be developed. But I believe innately there has to be a seed there already. What we're looking for in alignment is not a development project.

In addition to character, we're also looking at personality. Personality describes how a person is naturally wired to think, to react, and to relate to the world. This is what we can better understand through personality tests. They're consistent patterns in how we process information, how we make decisions, how we interact with others. And each of us has a unique personality. Yes, it's affected by character and by backgrounds and experiences. But personality is something we're born with. We see this come out as kids, and our personality doesn't change much over the course of our life.

My son has been extroverted, super curious, loves to learn, and very charismatic since he was a toddler, and that has been consistent throughout his life. Whereas his sister is introverted, kind and compassionate, creative and empathetic, very emotionally intuitive, reflective and observant. Those have been obvious since she was two years old. Being a six-year-old, being a ten-year-old, she hasn't changed much in her personality. It's growing and developing, but it's very distinct and very consistent.

These personality traits that we have are going to reveal whether or not someone is going to thrive within our work style, whether they'll thrive in the role and the seat they're in, whether the pace and structure and rhythm of how you operate as the business is going to match and complement how they operate as an individual. Some personality traits we might look at: whether they're introverted or extroverted, assertive or more easygoing, analytical versus creative, detail-oriented versus big picture and strategic, someone who is curious, someone who seeks experiences, wants to be very expressive. When we look at a Myers-Briggs or a DiSC test or an Enneagram, we're looking at what characteristics seem consistent across this personality type.

When we're looking to add people to our team in this clarity, alignment, accountability framework, we first clarify who we are, what we stand for, what we believe, and who is going to align in our business. Traits are going to be what we're looking for in individuals that are going to reflect success in those areas. It's a very objective and tangible thing we can look for and hold onto.

When you have your traits defined, it changes your interview process. It changes what you're looking for. It changes the questions you ask. It changes how you evaluate a candidate. You'll be able to recognize a fit much faster. You won't waste time on a candidate who seems nice and has great qualities, but doesn't have the right qualities for your specific business. Right now, when we don't have these traits defined, we're going into an interview process not knowing what it is we're looking for. When someone is dependable, detail-oriented, creative, outgoing, humble, these are all really good things. We're like, what's the problem? Well, there isn't a problem with them as a person. The issue is that it does create misalignment when there's a mismatch, and misalignment creates friction and tension.

Having your traits defined is going to help you know who you're looking for so you can build alignment and the right team of people. It helps you communicate your expectations clearly so your team knows exactly what behaviors and attitudes are expected. And because of that, you can hold people accountable fairly. Instead of subjective opinions, you have clear behavioral standards to measure against. Your feedback and coaching and measuring of performance becomes objective, consistent. That specificity eliminates confusion, eliminates double standards, eliminates friction. It gives you something to hold onto. It creates guardrails for your business. And all of these elements create guardrails that help us be consistent, be authentic, and really pick up momentum, build trust and loyalty, and grow the way we want to.

Bringing it back to our tale of two brands, we have two different home building companies with contrasting cultures, both good in their own way. Company A is Precision Builders, and they value precision, integrity, and safety. Their work style is very structured, methodical, and by the book. They are very big on documentation. They love the process and they trust the process because that's what gives them consistent results.

Company B is Vision Builders. They value innovation, flexibility, and creativity. They operate in a very fast-moving, collaborative, and idea-driven way because their goal is to find better, smarter ways to build.

For Precision Builders, with values like do what's right, safety first, unimpeachable character, and a structured, detail-driven, process-oriented, risk-averse work style, the traits that thrive here would be: being dependable, someone who follows through on their commitments with no surprises. Someone who's conscientious, who pays attention to details and takes pride in doing things right the first time. Someone who is calm under pressure, who maintains composure in safety-critical situations. Someone who is disciplined, who stays consistent with routines, checklists, and safety procedures. And someone who's accountable, who owns their mistakes, corrects them, and communicates clearly.

During the interview process or when assessing an existing employee, you're looking for specific examples where you see these traits in this individual. The beauty of this is that traits are about the person, not the role. These traits show up in all areas of their life, or they should. It should be how they parent, how they are at home, how they serve at church, how they're involved in the community, how they act with their friends. These are traits inherent to who they are, who God created them to be. We can't force them, we can't make them up, we can't coach them up. They either have them or they don't. They are either prominent driving characteristics in this individual's life, or they're not.

If you're interviewing a candidate for Precision Builders and they're talking about how they love spontaneity, they're all about the big picture, they love flexibility, they don't like to feel restricted, you can tell very clearly: oh wow, this person is great. They might have really great experience. We might like them a lot. But because they have these driving characteristics, we know we're just going to be putting them into a company where there will always be friction, there will always be tension. It'll be okay for a little bit. You might get a year or two out of them. But eventually these frictions become roadblocks. They detract from contribution, from meaningful work, from unity and cohesiveness. And that becomes a problem: it hurts performance, it hurts retention, it hurts the team's ability to trust each other and collaborate.

Then if you're Vision Builders, with values like challenge the ordinary, stay curious, win as a team, and a fast-paced, collaborative, adaptive, entrepreneurial work style, the traits that thrive there are: adaptability, someone who pivots quickly when plans change. Creativity, someone who wants to bring fresh ideas and problem solve, throw things up on a wall and see if it sticks. They want to experiment and they want that to be celebrated, not downplayed. Self-motivation, someone who doesn't need consistent direction to make progress. They just need to know the goal and they'll find the best way to get there. Collaboration, someone who wants to work well with others, share ideas, hear different perspectives, and come up with a plan better than anyone could have come up with alone. And resilience, someone who keeps the momentum going even when there are roadblocks: okay, here's a problem, here's an obstacle. Now what do we do? Let's push through this to find a solution.

So these two companies are very different, even though they do the same thing. All of these values are good and all of these traits are good. But they each have their place where they're going to thrive in one environment far more than the other. That's what we're doing here: maximizing contribution and impact through alignment. It's looking at who that individual is at their base level, their character, their personality.

When you know your values, when you know what you believe, and you understand your work style and how you operate, that helps you define the traits that are going to fit in your culture, not just fit but thrive, flourish, contribute in a meaningful way. And when you know what those traits are, you know what you're looking for. You can attract accordingly, message accordingly, interview accordingly, hire accordingly, and create this alignment. And this alignment becomes a place where people have these shared values and traits and beliefs. You're building unity, building trust, building a team that is super clear on their mission, knows what they're going after, and enjoys the process along the way. That is the most magical thing that happens in business.

We have another component to the culture dimension still to cover: non-negotiables. We've covered values, work style, and traits. Non-negotiables is the fourth element. Those four components are what makes up whether someone aligns with your culture. As always, you can learn more at clearauthenticbrands.com. That's all for this episode. I will see you in the next one.