Leader of the Week | 08/12/20
This is our second installment in the new “Leader of the Week Series”. Last week was a great way for me to learn how to analyze the lessons of leaders and try to apply them to my own life. I also want to say to the readers, I am not an expert in leadership, but this blog serves as my experimentation and trial of new strategies to be an effective leader. Think of these posts as small steps in the journey to leadership for all of us to walk together. With that being said, let’s get into this week’s leader!
This week’s leader we’re learning from is Simon Sinek.
(From simonsinek.com)1 “Simon is an unshakable optimist. He believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together.
Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Simon has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do.
Simon is the author of multiple best-selling books including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together is Better, and The Infinite Game.”
3 Practical Takeaways from Simon:
1. In his viral TED talk, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”2, Sinek introduces what he calls the “Golden Circle” (Figure 1). He summarizes the way successful businesses are operated by saying, “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. Most businesses start from the outside in by marketing what they make, then how they make it, and lastly why you should buy one. However, Simon Sinek gives examples of Apple and the Wright brothers’ purpose and explains that they operate from the inside out. They start with their why, then move to how they do it, and lastly revealing what they make. This is the model he discovered for successful organizations, companies, and teams across the globe. This lesson of starting with why has been extremely helpful for me and my dad starting this blog. Instead of just saying we are bloggers and we make content for leadership, we started by focusing on creating content for “becoming champions in athletics and leaders in life”, and everything else stems from that. Oftentimes, it can be difficult to decide what to create if you don’t first find what your purpose for doing it is. So, if you are an athlete, you need to discover your underlying motivation in order to be successful in the future. For more information on finding your motivation to do something, you can refer to one of our previous posts, “Finding Your Why”.
I highly encourage you to use these tips from Simon Sinek to discover your why and become successful in whatever you pursue in life.
Figure 1-The Golden Circle3
2. The next lesson we’ve learned from Sinek is leaders must create a “Circle of Safety” for their organization. In his book Leaders Eat Last4, Sinek talks about the role of leaders protecting their teams and demonstrating a servant mindset to the members of the team. Here’s a quote that sums up this idea fairly well. “By creating a Circle of Safety (see figure 2) around the people in the organization, leadership reduces the threats people feel inside the group, which frees them up to focus more time and energy to protect the organization from the constant dangers outside and seize the big opportunities. Without a Circle of Safety, people are forced to spend too much time and energy protecting themselves from each other.”4 I witnessed the effect of creating safety in a team when I was working in college. I work as an intern for the Sports Performance department at my university and there were many times, I was put on the spot to lead a session for a whole team and be evaluated by the head coaches. I know the coaches did this to allow me to learn from my mistakes and make progress by doing, not just observing. This is something I am so thankful for because it showed me that the coaches trusted me and allowed me to learn, which in turn made me want to buy into what they wanted to teach me in the future.
I would encourage you to use this tactic of making your team feel safe and see what it does for their buy-in and commitment to the organization you lead.
Figure 2-Circle of Safety5
3. The last lesson of many from Simon Sinek is that the authority should be given to those who are closest to the information, not those who have the highest role in the organization (See figure 3). “Those at the top, explains Captain Marquet, ‘have all the authority and none of the information. Those at the bottom’, he continues, ‘have all the information and none of the authority. Not until those without information relinquish their control can an organization run better, smoother and faster and reach its maximum potential.”4 This is such a counterintuitive way to run an organization, but very effective. In my personal experience, I have not seen an organization that was run this way, but I will definitely use it in the future in order to show my team I care about their opinion because they are on the frontline every day doing the work that is given to them. Not only does this make the team members feel that they are trusted by the leader, but it allows the leader to see who understands the mission of the organization by asking input from the employees. This creates a cohesive environment for everyone to succeed in and I can see it being very effective.
Next time you are in a leadership role, I encourage you to first ask the employee’s opinion, who have all the information at the bottom, rather than giving blind commands before getting feedback from the team.
Figure 3-Authority vs. Information6
I hope this article was helpful for you and gave you a snapshot of who Simon Sinek is and some lessons that can help you this week.
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For more information on Simon Sinek, check out simonsinek.com
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Resources
3. https://simonsinek.com/commit/the-golden-circle
4. Sinek, S. (2019). Leaders eat last: Why some teams pull together and others don't. London: Penguin Business.
5. https://medium.com/@chris.eldridge0/leaders-eat-last-a-review-and-initial-thoughts-11f2fa1e23cb
6. https://www.businessofsuccess.co.uk/blog/2019/6/17/why-does-it-really-matter
