Leadership Has Nothing to Do With Rank | Simon Sinek

leadership has nothing to do with rank right i know many people who sit at the highest levels of organizations who are not leaders we do as they tell us because they have authority over us but we would never choose to follow them and yet i know many people with no formal rank and no formal authority who've made the choice to look after the person to the left of them and made the choice to look after the person to the right of them and we would follow them anywhere we call you leader not because you're at the top we call you leader because you went first because you took the risk to head towards the danger you took the risk to express uncertainty you took the risk to ask for help that's why you earn the rank of leader because you literally led by the behavior you led by example when this person says my leader is not taking care of our team i get that the question is who's taking care of the team you can be the leader you wish you had it does not require rank or authority to pick up the phone and say how are you and it can come from anywhere inside the organization where one person may take responsibility to take care of the mental health of everybody congratulations you are a leader what's also fundamental is that whoever that person is must remember to act with others in other words don't just make this unilateral decision that i'm going to just go take care of everybody because my leader isn't effective blah blah blah blah blah one talk to colleagues and say hey i think what i need to do i think our team is struggling i think i'm going to reach out to everybody make sure someone knows what you're doing leadership is a team sport because things will go wrong things will get difficult some people may not appreciate it you've got to have somebody that you can call them and be like uh what do i do also don't assume the leader is ineffective use the same empathy that we expect down the chain of command up the chain of command maybe my leader is stuck maybe my leader is confused maybe maybe my leader is stressed out of their mind maybe my leader is dealing with trauma we have no idea what's going on in that person's private life maybe my leaders got marital issues or struggling with their kids like we don't know and so sometimes part of that check-in is to call our boss and hey boss you were really hard on us on the zoom call the other day i just wanted to see are you okay and giving a leader a safe space might be everything and also don't expect that you're going to get the reaction you want immediately some people are reactors some people need time to think and to process before they before they react so we can't expect people to react the way we would react um and so and so if somebody now now let's take the other scenario which is there actually is a leader who is completely ineffective and this is why i talk about telling people what you're doing i'm going to chicken on everybody because you could ruffle the feathers of a big ego right you could ruffle the feathers of someone who's insecure and so it could come down on you this is the risk of leadership remember read it leadership comes with risk which is if you're willing to stick your neck out even if it's to take care of your folks it can sometimes backfire and hurt the question is it worth is it worth it and for most people who want to be a leader that risk is worth it this is why we so admire leaders who put their careers on the line to do the right thing because they were willing to risk it and so you could risk getting in trouble you could risk getting yelled at you could risk being told stop doing my job all true and if you're alone in that you're going to have to bear that stress if some other people know what you're doing you'll find comfort and security and confidence just knowing that there are other people have your back as well so make sure you got a leadership buddy leadership is a team sport you would never go scuba diving by yourself it's too dangerous don't be trying to be a leader by yourself too dangerous too difficult um and i and like i said sometimes leading up is is what's necessary you could we can actually help our leaders be better leaders because we're going to demonstrate the behavior we're going to express empathy we're going to see how they are we're going to support them hey boss i got your back whatever you need i'm here if you want to vent i'm here and give them a safe space also it goes up and down [Music] you

Channel: Simon Sinek

Views: 95,555

Rating: 4.9839272 out of 5

Keywords: simon sinek, start with why, inspiration, motivation, leadership, career, inspire, leader, empathy, teams, companies

Id: LDQj-sU9Opw

Length: 4min 21sec (261 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 04 2020