Simon Sinek
Simon Sinek
Simon O. Sinekis an author, speaker, and consultant who writes on leadership and management. He joined the RAND Corporation in 2010 as an adjunct staff member, where he advises on matters of military innovation and planning. He is known for popularizing the concepts of "the golden circle" and to "Start With Why", described by TED as "a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question "Why?"'. Sinek's first TEDx Talk on "How...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth9 October 1973
Over 90% of people go home at the end of the day feeling unfulfilled by their work, and I won't stop working until that statistic is reversed - until over 90% of people go home and can honestly say, 'I love what I do.'
People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
There is not a single one of us with a job that is not completely reliant in some way shape or form on others.
Leaders who fail are the ones who do it by themselves. Leaders who succeed are the ones who allow others to help them.
The lives we live are a bit of a straight-hair vs. curly-hair thing. We often want what we don't have. In reality, it's not about better or worse; it's just perception.
At the end of the day, humans are social animals and we are at our best when we get to do things with others who appreciate and enjoy what we enjoy. It's what keeps us human.
The leader's job is to lead and protect. Not have all the answers, not know everything to do, not to micromanage and tell people what to do or how to do it. A leader's job is to lead and protect. That's their job, and it's the people within the organization - their job is to get the work done.
What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try again. Change the world.
I can't stand those people, speakers in a room, they say this all the time, "If I can just help one person in this room, I've done my job." You have an audience of 500 people and your standard of success is one person? That's terrible. If you help one person in the room, you're an abject failure. You have to change something.
We invest in things like the future, like our children, like education. In other words, we invest in things that we understand we will not see an immediate return of investment but everybody knows it will have a positive impact and you can easily measure it over the course of time. Your why is exactly the same thing.
The reality is that fulfillment, success and all of these good things comes from trying to help those that we care about to achieve those things. How can I help somebody I care about find the job they love? How can I help somebody I care about find happiness in their work? And when we commit to service it actually biologically and anthropologically is more likely to lead to our own success and our own happiness.
I'm very prescriptive about who I work with. I'm very clear about what I believe. If they believe what I believe I will work with them. If they say things like, "Convince me we should do this." I walk away.
I think most people are inherently interested in how their brain works, in what makes them tick.
Leadership is a way of thinking, a way of acting and, most importantly, a way of communicating.