Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
In 2009, Simon Sinek started a movement to help people become more inspired at work, and in turn inspire their colleagues and customers. Since then, millions have been touched by the power of his ideas, including more than 28 million who’ve watched his TED Talk based on START WITH WHY — the third most popular TED video of all time.
Sinek starts with a fundamental question: Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over?
People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers had little in common, but they all started with WHY. They realized that people won’t truly buy into a product, service, movement, or idea until they understand the WHY behind it.
START WITH WHY shows that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way — and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.
I’ve been a follower of Simon Sinek for years. This book as well as Leaders Eat Last have probably been the two I’ve applied most to my leadership style. For me it showed up in changing from looking at tasks or products as just deliverables, but ways to create a connection point with constituents. Forging something at a higher level than a transactional consumer. But instead functioning as a creator. I will be up front and that it took alot of energy to move in this direction. Some days it was just honestly easier to fall back on established habits and act like the “Superman”. But having that mission be the lens really helps to prioritize where you spend your resources and the appropriate metrics to look at to gauge success.