The True Price of Leadership is Putting the Needs of Others Above Your Own
The People Formula Book Study # Four “Leaders Eat Last” By: Simon Sinek
Background:
“Leaders Eat Last” first caught my eye a few years ago because of the title. As a veteran Marine Corps officer, it is a concept I knew well but took me awhile to embody. Back in 1993 while on my first deployment on a field exercise the Marine Corps cooks set up a hot meal for our unit. The senior officers promptly organized all the other officers along the serving line. Not only did we eat last, but we served our Marines ourselves. At the time, understood the action but it would still be some time before I could put the concept into practice. The words, “leaders put others first” are truly just words until you are forced to make the choice of, “them or me?” It took me a few more years and a few humbly moments to be faced with that very dilemma. The situation wasn’t life or death, but it was a moral and ethical one as well as potentially career ending for me. I made the choice to put my Marine first. It became my first TRUE leadership experience. From that point forward the words had meaning, and those situations became very recognizable in the future. Simon does a fantastic job of not only capturing the Marine Corps ethos but expanding it into many aspects of everyday leadership for all. The book focusses strongly on the bedrock of leadership, TRUST. Simon offers that organizations have never been managed out of a crisis but led. The true price of leadership is putting the needs of others above your own.
About the Author:
Simon Sinek is an unshakable optimist who believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together. Simon's WHY is to inspire people to do what inspires them so that, together, each of us can change our world for the better.
With a vision to change the way businesses think, act, and operate, Simon and his team work with leaders and organizations in nearly every industry to help transform company culture and create a better working world.
As a trained ethnographer, Simon has discovered remarkable patterns about how the greatest leaders and organizations think, act, and communicate. He is fascinated by the people and organizations that make the greatest, lasting impact on the world. He has devoted his life to sharing his thinking, and leading a movement to inspire people to do the things that inspire them.
Simon may be best known for popularizing the concept of WHY in his first Ted Talk in 2009. It has since become one of the most watched talks of all time on TED.com, with 37+ million views.
Simon is a bestselling author and shares his ideas in the books Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together Is Better, Find Your Why, and The Infinite Game.
Part One: Our need to feel safe
The book starts with a compelling story of an A-10 Warthog pilot in the Afghanistan war following the events of 9/11/2001. Simon describes the pilot’s unrelenting compulsion to pout his own life in jeopardy in order to protect the Special Forces operators pinned down on the ground because of empathy. Empathy is the single greatest asset that enabled him to do his job.
The emphasis throughout part one of the book is that employees are people too and that great organizations understand and embrace that in order to earn trust, you must extend trust. Truly human leadership protects an organization from the internal rivalry that can shatter a culture.
The human mind is still hard wired to perceive threats to our safety and opportunities for prosperity. When we struggle to feel a sense of belonging and being valued at work, we inevitably bring that same struggle home with us and it permeates every aspect of our lives. Companies that thrive do not see people as commodities to drive revenue they see money as the commodity to help grow their people.
Research has shown that having a job that we hate can be as detrimental as not having a job at all. When people at work care about how we feel, stress levels decrease, and a healthier more prosperous person emerges and engages.
Simon provides a great example of the transformation that takes place at Marine Corps Boot Camp that I have personally witnessed. Young Marine Recruits arrive at training feeling insecure and only responsible for themselves. When they graduate, they feel a deep commitment and responsibility for their fellow Marines and those Marines feel the same for them. This feeling of belonging and shared values and deep sense of empathy dramatically enhances trust, cooperation and problem solving. As a result, they are better equipped to face danger because they fear no danger from each other and form a circle of safety.
Challenge: Whether you are in a leadership position or not, how safe do you feel where you work.
Part Two: Powerful forces
When we are focused internally for survival, we ultimately miss opportunities outside. Genetically we know that it is in our best interest to cooperate, and our brains reward us for this behavior.
As humans, we will always protect our own and we take trust extremely seriously. This is one reason that treason is often treated as seriously as murder. Ultimately, the more familiar we are with each other the stronger our bonds.
Simon does a great job explaining the four chemicals that reward our body for the actions we take:
- Endorphins
- Dopamine
- Serotonin
- Oxytocin
Endorphins and dopamine are the reason we are driven to hunt, gather and achieve, but it is the selfless chemicals of serotonin and oxytocin that make us feel valued. They keep our circle of safety strong. With these two our bonds of trust and friendship increases and our stress declines. Our desire to serve others flourishes. These great binding chemicals also boost our immune systems.
Those who work hardest to see others succeed will always be seen as the leader and is also a prerequisite for leadership. When leaders create safety and trust internally communication and transparency skyrocket and productivity follow exponentially. This is how great leaders gear their organizations for success.
Unless someone is truly willing to sacrifice to serve others, there are no true leaders. Leadership is a choice to serve, without any rank or authority.
Part Three: Reality
The reality is that systems are never perfect and humans place trust in people, not systems. We look for leaders to do the right thing and to know when to break the rules to keep us safe. People trust people, not rules.
Our intelligence gives us ideas and instructions, but it is our ability to cooperate that actually helps us get those things done. Trust and relationships are the bedrock of all of life. It’s not how smart people in organizations are but how well they work together that is the measure of success. Nothing on Earth of value was built by one person.
Part Four: How we got here
Maintaining the focus on our people rather than the bottom line is critical for the success of any organization. Simon discusses the generational shift from protecting our way of life to the way we prefer to live. Serving ourselves rather than a greater purpose took over in the 70s. There was a shift and we started to think of both things and people as disposable, thereby destroying the circle of trust and the short-term dopamine hits replaced our long-term relationship oxytocin.
When we start protecting money rather than protecting people the behavior ultimately destroys trust. When leaders eat first and gain more, they share less. Lost was the notion of “ancient tribal hospitality.” This collapse happens when there is an unbalance of focusing on ourselves. Ultimately, the more we have, the less we value what we have, and dehumanization follows. Nature will always add a correction if people do not.
Part Five: The abstract challenge
Simon uses the term abstraction to describe the preoccupation and disconnectedness human beings can exhibit for each other when greater distances or numbers of people are involved. The more abstract people are the more susceptible to inhumanity they are. If we are to counter the potential devastating effects abstraction can have it is imperative that both individuals and companies uphold a moral code of conduct. Personalization is the key to keeping our circles of trust strong and countering the abstraction effect.
Here are five rules to assist in managing abstraction:
- Keep it real; Bring people together
- Keep it manageable; 150 is the ideal top number in a group
- Meet the people you help; It’s imperative we see the positive impact of what we do, it increases results exponentially
- Give them time, not just money; Money is an abstraction and has no real value like time. Focus solely on others to build trust
- Be patient
When groups have a destructive imbalance people focus more on the “score” and not on the people they will inevitably collapse.
Part Six: Destructive abundance
It is bad cultures that breed bad leaders. Great cultures embrace all ideas and never throw one out, even though the idea might not fit the current challenge. Simon tells the story of the “sticky note.” The original goal was to create a new super strong adhesive and it fell really short. The company, 3M, held onto the idea and a few years later another employee had a need the lesser adhesive fit and the sticky note was born.
The goal of every leader should be to provide no specific orders. They give directions and intent and allow others to figure out what to do and how to get it done. The responsibility of everyone is to not do what you are told, instead what is right.
During Marine Corps Officer Candidate School, they focus and evaluate candidates for integrity. Integrity is about being honest not just when we agree and it is convenient for us, but when we disagree, and it might not serve us personally as well. A people first attitude and commitment to integrity are at the core of Marine Corps culture. One of the first lessons I learned in the Marine Corps was this quote, “Mission first, people always.”
Building trust is nothing more complicated that telling the truth, being transparent and humble always. Leaders must be present in order to be effective. The Marine Corps calls this “eyeball leadership.” When we become disconnected from those we serve, we inevitably become more self-serving. Cooperation doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing it means working together to serve the common good.
Part Seven: A society of addicts
The addiction to self and social media is much like the addiction to alcohol. Many attempt to find strength from alcohol and the short-term dopamine hits they both produce instead of the long-term positive effects of relationships with the related serotonin and oxytocin release they both produce. The cultural shift from service to profit fueled this short-term addiction.
Simon discusses the shift in news coverage and the related regulation that fueled the shift from news to inform to profit with the 1987 elimination of the fairness doctrine. The networks could then give their own perspective on the news rather than being mandated to give a balanced account in the public interest. The drive to be first became more important than to inform the public.
The drive to win should not proceed the need to serve in any leader. This addiction has a terrible ability to enable us to lose sight of reality. Based on this fact, the circle of safety to protect the country has been dismantled over time. Adding to the challenge is the amount of abundance we currently have compared to past generations and it has impacted the current younger generations in the workplace. Our amount of abundance and access to information and resources instantaneously has created the impression that we can multitask much better than past generations. In a Stanford study they proved that to be false. Multitaskers actually remembered less and made more mistakes than those who don’t multitask and focus on one challenge at a time. The study demonstrated that multitaskers were worse at analytical reasoning and simply better at being distracted. This is our current distraction and addiction, and it is harmful to our wellbeing.
This addiction to media is the same as any other biological addiction and is the reason that Simon invokes many tenants of Alcoholics Anonymous as a path forward to breaking the destructive habits we have formed. It is only the feelings of true safety and relationships that move us up the mountain to our summit. There is no app to fix the problem of the need for human interaction for our coping strategies.
Part Eight: Becoming a leader
Simon paraphrases Alcoholics Anonymous step 12, “Service to Others” as a great cure for our addiction to dopamine and the short-lived benefits it gives us. Both serotonin and oxytocin are critical for us overcoming our addictions, whether they are substance abuse or our electronic devices. The best way to get both of these is through acts of service and sacrifice. Our circles of trust must be in person as much as we can and not virtual if we are to perfectly form our circle of safety. Consider that when we are asked about our best day of work that we have had, the typical response is not the day we were given a raise or promotion, but it was a time when we banded together to overcome a tough challenge through mutual shared suffering and comradeship. This is one of the driving factors that makes military units such as the Marine Corps rich with a circle of safety. There has been great amounts of shared suffering. Both my experiences in the Marine Corps as well as my time in New York City with the FBI during 9/11/2001 created the same rich shared suffering effects that bonded me to the people I shared them with.
People and organizations typically do not function nearly as well when they have abundance. It is during times of scarcity of resources that makes us bond together and brings about not only greater cooperation but much greater innovation. An effective thought it to consider profit as a fuel for innovation rather than the destination. Humans have thrived because we are inspired to serve others and not ourselves. All we need are leaders to give us a good reason to commit ourselves to each other.
Empathy is something we owe to everyone if we want to call ourselves a leader. Leadership is not a license to do less it is a responsibility to do more and a commitment to human beings. The self-centered leader creates a rollercoaster of success and failure and relationship and safety focused leaders create stability. Many of the changes you implement are useless unless you do them consistently.
Ultimately, great leaders find great pride when their people achieve things others didn’t think they could.
