What makes a great leader? According to Simon Sinek, it’s all about courage, integrity, and communication.
From finding courage in external support to building integrity by doing what’s right (not just what’s legal), and mastering the art of communication, these lessons will transform the way you lead.
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.
This question comes up a lot.
And you read articles, and they're like, charisma.
I've known a lot of great leaders who you wouldn't even
know they're the leader.
They walk with their shoulder against the wall.
So those things, I've seen yes and no.
But the few things that I've seen universally
about amongst the great leaders I've met, number one,
and these things, number one and number two, go together,
number one is courage.
Number one is courage.
The courage to speak truth to power.
The courage to be honest about my own failings,
my own capabilities.
The courage to be open about my failings and my capabilities.
These things are excruciating.
The courage to tell somebody something that you know
is going to hurt their feelings.
Leadership is an incredibly difficult thing to do.
And courage, which then begs the question,
where does courage come from?
And I do not believe for one minute
that courage is a deep internal fortitude
where you dig down deep and find the courage.
Courage for me is social.
I have the courage to jump out of a plane
because the parachute on my back.
The external thing gives me the courage.
And so you need at least one person in your life,
professionally or personally, to say, I believe in you.
You've got this.
And if everything goes south, I'll still be there with you.
That'll give you courage.
Number two, closely tied is integrity,
which is to do the right thing.
Weirdly, we all know what the right thing is,
rather than doing the expedient thing.
I can't stand it when companies do unethical things
and all the CEOs are dragged in front of Congress
and they all say the same thing.
We broke no laws.
No, you didn't break a law by raising the price
of your essential drug by 1,000%,
but it's pretty unethical, right?
We all know what right is, and the law is a lower standard.
And so the courage to have integrity
and integrity driving my courage,
like, those things go together.
And the third one, I'd say,
you're a student of communication.
And there's a huge part of leadership
is the skill of listening and the skill of speaking
in a way that allows people not only to feel,
listening in a way that allows people to feel heard
and speaking in a way that people can hear,
as opposed to triggering people, et cetera.
