Simon Sinek: Leadership and being a Leader

to be a leader requires one thing and one thing only followers that's it it has nothing to do nothing to do with the rank or title it has to do with whether others are going to choose the volunteer raise their hands and volunteer to go in the direction that you set we can force people to do things we can whip them into shape or offer them all kinds of carrots and sticks to get them to do things but the end of the day a true leader is the one where others raised their hand and says and say I will follow you the question is why should anyone follow you now the human animal is like a company if we want to get certain behaviors out of the organization out of people we give them certain incentives or disincentives we are exactly the same if you want someone to perform if you want them to hit a goal we set the target we set the goal we offer them some sort of bonus if they get there and we incentivize the behavior if we threaten someone with a punishment we disincentivize the behavior wait till your father comes home you know anyone who's a parent with gold stars or bonuses or all kinds of things we're used to this this is normal the human body works exactly the same way if you've ever had a feeling of love trust joy fulfillment status pride those are all chemically produced feelings they're chemically produced incentives trying to get us the human bodies trying to get us to do certain things to get us to cooperate tangible matters we can only we can only see the things we have words for right and this is why the leader must provide a clear vision why are we doing this why are we in business in the first place what is the point of growing the company that you're growing everybody talks of what's your growth what's the point of the growth in other words you have a company why do you have that company what is the value your company is offering to others and and what what do you want your company to leave behind when you're gone there has to be a purpose for why your company exists beyond the things you make beyond the things you do beyond the money you make you had the purpose when you founded the company otherwise you wouldn't have taken the crazy risk to start with the overwhelming chance of failure and people wouldn't have given you blood sweat and tears if they didn't believe in you because you were the Alpha you had the vision you had the strength and they wanted your protection and they joined you and I gave you their blood sweat and tears because you gave them a sense of purpose and belonging and protection you have to know why you do what you do and this is what the leaders do and the more they can put it into words the clearer they can put it into the word the more we can see it again we can only see the things we have words for and so when you can put these things into words other people can see them I have a dream Martin Luther King put into words the vision seeing he had the rest of us could see it too and now could focus all of our attention all of our efforts on getting it done and every metric and this is the purpose of metrics every metric we use is to is it's not about the metric metrics are supposed to measure progress in other words each metric is the tree getting a little bigger each each metric is us getting a little closer to the gazelle we get another little shot of dopamine each metric shows us that we're getting closer to the vision it's not just about the numbers at the end of the year how do we do we're up good towards what towards what we don't know what we're getting closer to and it makes work unfulfilled don't know what we're working towards dopamine we don't care if we let down the goal like if we have a goal that we have to achieve for work and we miss the goal do we feel bad that we let the numbers down no we feel bad that we let somebody we love down we feel bad that we let down our boss we let down our parents we let down our coach we let down our drill instructor we feel bad and we let down as human being accountability is never to a number accountability is to a person and if there is no relationship with the person who's supposed to look after us on a postman we're supposed to be working for then we don't feel accountable and this is where leadership becomes really really important you see when we give selflessly to those in our tribe offering them protection because that's all anybody wants at work they want to feel safe comfortable protected think about it as a parent you know back in those days there were no countries they were corporations there were no companies they didn't exist there's only one thing that pre-existed all of those things the family that's all we had each other think about it what do we say to our children you don't get to choose your children some of them are funny-looking some of them not that smart okay those the kids you got sorry you get to pick your employees we don't get to pick your children and yet it doesn't matter who your kids are whether they're the best looking or not whether the smartest or not whether they're strongest or not you give them undying love and you don't point out their weaknesses if you're a good parent you point out their strengths if you're a good parent you encourage them to do the things that they're good at and you hold them up and sometimes you let them fail and learn for themselves and sometimes you discipline them and sometimes you prop them up and sometimes you push them and sometimes you let them go and more than anything else all we want for our children is to achieve more than we could have achieved and we will do that by providing them support a feeling of safety a feeling of protection well guess what it ain't no difference at work stop saying our company is like a family it is a family and you are the mother and you are the father and the minute you hire someone you must give them undying love and you must work tirelessly to see that they can achieve more than you could ever have imagined yourself achieving those are the best leaders that's what it means to be a servant leader any company any CEO that says to me proudly we put our customers first I always say then that means you put your employees at least second we put people first human beings come first not numbers we sacrifice people to save the numbers but we don't sacrifice the numbers to save the people a little bit backwards and yet when we are willing to sacrifice the numbers to save people you watch what happens to people there's a guy by the name of Bob Chapman in st. Louis Missouri who runs a company called barry-wehmiller so 1.6 billion dollar private company with 20% year-over-year growth for the past 20 years Warren Buffett has 6% what is Bob's secret he is obsessed about people he doesn't even talk about what his company does it happens to be heavy manufacturing large capital expenditure machinery when kimberly-clark wants to buy a machine to make toilet paper they make the machine huge huge blue collar you know sort of good old-fashioned American manufacturing when the when the financial crisis hit Bob's company lost thirty percent of their revenues off the top boom gone they could not afford their labor pool at all and so they sat down and they said oh my god do we have to have layoffs and Bob refused and so they implemented a furlough program where every employee from CEO to secretary had to take four weeks of unpaid time off they didn't have to take it consecutively and they could take it whenever they wanted those who could afford it more would trade with those who could afford it less it was remarkable and Bob told the company it's better we should all suffer a little that any of us should have to suffer a lot as human beings we are biologically designed to cooperate and we want to help each other when you give someone the responsibility when you put them in a position of power or authority for their responsibilities they rise up why because we all want to feel that our lives have value we all want to feel that our lives and the work that we do is valuable to the tribe we all want to know that our company needs us but we don't make people feel need as needed and we don't make their work feel necessary because we take all the responsibility we don't let them have it and when people feel fulfilled when we make them feel necessary they feel proud because something got done because they were a part of it they will give more and more and more and more people in the Marine Corps are willing to give their lives for people they barely know because they've learned to trust each other when you show up at Parris Island or in San Diego for the first day of boot camp and you're standing there the yellow footprints the drill instructor will yell in your face this far away from you the first word they hear the words I me my are no longer in your vocabulary they will be replaced with we together and us they are taught that success does not come by yourself it only comes in a group there's an old African proverb to go fast go alone to go far go together we're all talking about how quickly we're growing our companies but how long will your company last 80% of the Dow index are 35 years or younger sure we build fast growing companies but they don't last I watched it I watched I went to the crucible and watched these Marines the crucible is their final test before they become Marines they're out for 56 hours they get three meals a total of eight hours sleep the entire time they're exhausted they're tired they're dirty they're working hard and you watch a fire squad of four guys making their way under barbed wire and shots fired and all of this mayhem ins dirt and sand and it's crazy and they're dragging themselves across the dirt and one of the guys is tired and starts falling back but they have to achieve the mission they've got to get to the other side but what do they do they stop they go back they grab his webbing and they pull they slowed themselves down because they'd rather slow down with all four then go fast with three to go fast go alone to go far go together next time somebody says what are your goals stop saying to increase top-line revenues by a million dollars and ten million dollars or whatever you want to do next year and start saying we're building a company that's going to last a hundred years watch the changes that happen inside the company devote yourself not to firing people but to give them an opportunity to contribute and if they fail help them up and if they fail help them up and if they fail help them up and if you really think they're incompetent and you really don't believe they fit your culture why did you hire them because of their resumes or because they belong we should treat hiring like adopting a child we don't adopt children were saying well I'd like a blonde haired blue-eyed kid yay hi and I want to make sure that they've done well in preschool before I take them well that's how we hire people I'm looking for somebody with experience in our industry with at least five years with this kind of niall you mean it will take you no that's not what we do when we adopt a child we're going to give them the keys to our house we let them run around by themselves maybe even give them responsibility over our other children it's a slow decision we want to get to know the kid we want to spend a little time with the kid see if there would fit in our family if our other kids would get along with them hiring is exactly the same you cannot judge the quality of a company by the good times we cannot judge the quality of a crew when the when the seas are calm we judge the quality of a crew and the seas are rough and numbers will never come to your aid ever people will if your things are going great and everything is growing and you feel that everyone is disposable guess what they think the same about you it's reciprocal it's always balanced time and energy roam the halls implement policies where if you have something to say somebody not just the exchange of information if you want to pay someone a compliment if you want to ask somebody a question about their work not about some fact like what time's the meeting you do not send emails you stand up you walk the 35 feet and you walk into the ref and say hey quick question for you that thing that you did for the client can you just tell me a little more about it because I have a client meeting I promise you the relationships that will form simply because people are giving time and energy it's too quick to send an e mails too easy if you come over if I come over to your house for dinner and a day later I send you this beautiful email how grateful I am for the dinner that you made for me or if I sent you a handwritten note with the exact same words which one makes you feel better a handwritten note it's not the words it's not the intention it's the time and energy we take and if you think you're too busy to give time and energy to your people then they're too busy to get time and energy to you it is a balanced equation I imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspire to go to work and come home every single day fulfilled by the work that they do I believe that loving our jobs is a right a not a privilege why should it be just a lucky few who get to love going to work it is an entitlement that we all have and by saying love our jobs doesn't mean to like them every day we love our children every day we don't like them every day right we don't have to like every day but it can be hard but we get to love it every day and the thing that makes us love our jobs is not the work that we're doing it's the way we feel when we go there we feel safe we feel protect we feel that someone wants us to achieve more and is giving us the opportunity to prove to themselves and to ourselves that we can this is the world that I imagine this is why I do these talks because I'm just a cog in the wheel cog in the machine I'm just a small piece of the jigsaw puzzle I come to this to speak to them the nice people like yourselves because you're the ones who are running companies you're the ones who are in control of the cultures that you're building you're the ones who determine who you hire and who you don't are you hiring based on skills you're hiring based on culture I come and share these ideas with you with the hope that some of you will try some of these things and over the course of time you will watch your own cultures improve and the people love coming to work oh and by the way it's good for innovation is good for progress and it's good for profit aside so I thank you very much you

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Length: 14min 13sec (853 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2017