Simon Sinek Top Leadership & Psychology Skills

Middle managers are the most difficult job in any organization, um uh, because when you're a junior your only job is to do your job, that's all and they train you to do your job, I mean, everyone has to have a license and go to school and learn how to do accountant work and if you're really good at it, you'll eventually get promoted and eventually you'll get promoted to a position where you're now responsible for the people who do the work you used to do, but the problem is that They don't give us any training on how to do that, you know, and the high-level people think about completely different things, they think about the company, they think about the strategy and the problem is that you have this middle group that is in this type. of a strange mix where they are not, they have to be strategic but not majority and they have to be tactical but not majority tactical and they have to translate what happens here up down and here down to Up here and most things break in the middle because I know companies where the

leadership

is amazing and they're visionary and they care about people and they want to do the right thing and then I go down to the front line and they're like, this place is the worst and then I think about what happened. between here and there and it's the middle, most things break in the middle, so I think there are two there are two there are two factors one is not training people on how to lead correctly, like I said before, when you were junior, we have to know what to do, we just do our job, we would be good at it and as we become leaders in this middle management, now we are transitioning to this. work now we are responsible for the people who do the work we used to do but no one teaches us how to listen no one teaches us communication

skills

no one teaches us effective confrontation no one teaches us how to give and repeat receiving feedback no one teaches us

leadership

so That's why we have managers and not leaders and you would never ask someone to do something in accounting without showing them how to do it.

It's never a bad idea, why do we think we can just promote someone to a leadership position and hope they know what to do without showing them how to do it, so the number one problem is complete emptiness in some cases or just minimal amounts of leadership training and must be solid. The other problem that I meet very often with some really wonderful self-taught leaders in middle management who read books, they themselves go to conferences, they watch Ted Talks, I mean, they are students of leadership, they have mentors, I mean, they really do. We are trying and they complain that upper management all they care about is quarterly profits, so the problem we have is that they are trying so hard to do the right thing, but management doesn't really care.

So that's the opposite, correct, and in those cases, I generally recommend that they do the right thing. I mean, quitting smoking is always an option, but it's not necessarily the best option or the first option, but I always recommend being the leader. you wish you had what's the question that I get, it's one of the most common questions that I get, what is what do I do when I'm trying to do the right thing and my boss or my boss's boss or my boss's boss's boss um just doesn't. I get it, you know all they care about is money before people and the answer is you can't control what you can't control so worry about the people around you, worry about the people on the sides of you the level below you even the level above you and you will be the leader that you wish you had and what you start to find in those pockets are these little magical diamonds in the rough that appear.

We work with a large technology company and we work. with a group uh where that's exactly what we did, we developed this whole leadership thing just for this little group in the middle and yeah, they started doing better and their numbers improved and the group expanded and blah, blah, blah, all The things we expected to happen, but one thing we didn't expect is that the phone started ringing off the hook because other people in the company were asking if I could get a job in their group because when the people who worked in this group went to lunch. with their friends who work in other groups, you know what work is like nowadays, different, incredible stories, different stories and suddenly the words are spreading around this company of 80,000 people and this is just a group of 150 people, the words spread throughout this company of 80,000 people and everyone I was trying to get into this group just because they wanted to work in it because you had it good.

I was writing that leaders eat last. It got to the point where I couldn't do it. It was too difficult. Could not. I couldn't organize all the information, it was too complicated. I couldn't do it and I had been trying for months. I had probably missed several deadlines and was sitting in front of my computer and decided I had to give up. I couldn't do it, so I got up and went for a walk and was literally planning my exit. I was following the steps. I was following the quit smoking checklist. I knew I had to return my advance to the publisher. because technically I'm in default.

I knew I would be humiliated but I was preparing for it and that I would get through it. I was also rationalizing that it was okay to quit. I told myself that there are thousands, ten thousand books published every day. In just one year no one will miss this book and I literally followed the steps to prepare myself for what I needed to do to quit smoking. I'm not sure why I did this, but I called a friend of mine who was in the air force special forces at the time and I don't even think I said hello when he answered the phone, I just asked him what do you do when you can't complete the mission and, as is his custom, he began to tell me a story.

He was a helicopter pilot and they had a mission in Afghanistan that was a suicide mission. All the intelligence showed that the air defenses were too big and none of them were going to make it out alive and it wasn't going to be one of those. kill hitler missions where we are all going to die but we will kill hitler this is like we are all going to die and the mission will also fail and he was preparing his helicopter for this mission um and his companions turned him around and told him what to do we do it we have handcuffs We have children we refuse to go what do we do and my friend converted him and I told him this is what we signed up for let's go, he asked me, he said, is this book more or less powerful?

I have to start with why I said the research has impacted me more, it's more powerful, he says, okay, I'm going to tell you a funny story before I met you, I became disillusioned with the air force, I was going to quit and I found this little and eccentric book called it starts with why and it completely inspired me again and I decided to stay and now I am a better leader than before because of that book and if you are saying that this book is more powerful than the first one then we need this book he said this is what you signed up for you have no choice clearly your mission was scrapped at the last minute the underlying message of this is what you signed up for you have no choice was not a bad message the underlying message was and I'll be here with you the underlying message was No matter what you can call me at any time I've got your back and that's the important part I turned around I went back to my desk and finished writing that I didn't book that night I mean it took me months but I never thought about quitting again as soon as I knew someone was there, someone had me, someone had my back.

There is too much debate about what the difference is between vision and mission. standardized definitions of these things some people have one of them some people have both no one's sure which comes first uh and I'm not willing to get into that debate I think it's nonsense um so I believe in just cause what is this affirmative statement of a future state that doesn't yet exist that I will commit my business to helping build the right thing. You can call it vision if you want, but I like the term just cause because it has a higher standard.

It's such a just cause. I would be willing to sacrifice myself for it. Sacrifice could mean turning away a customer. That's free money. It could be because they don't believe in what I believe. Sacrifice could mean spending time away from my family. It could mean taking business trips. It could mean rejecting. a job somewhere else that might pay me more money because I want to do this, I believe in this and if any of you have vision statements for your businesses, if you have a just cause, a cause so just that your people would sacrifice for it, I have a test is a very simple test of three things that if you can pass all three of these things you have a vision, you have a just cause worthy of a gay playing in the infinite game, so I'm going to go through them quickly and explain to you. them your vision your just cause must be resilient it must be inclusive and service-oriented okay so resilient means that your vision your just cause can withstand cultural, political or technological change true, which means that when I hear people say be the best technology, well that's not going to be sustained through technological change, think about how many companies were like that simply because the internet was invented correctly, so your cause has to be written in terms that are lasting, that are resilient through of technology, politics and, uh, and culture. change, that's number one, number two, it has to be inclusive, meaning that the very words you choose are an invitation to those who believe what you believe, whether internal or external, they are an invitation to anyone. who wants to contribute to what you create, for example, if you talk about creating the best travel website, let's say well, that means that the only people who would want to volunteer to be a part of this are the people who create travel websites. trips or people who build websites that means if you're an accountant, if you're someone in the back office, if you're somewhere in support, you've literally made me feel like a second-class citizen in my own company, so it has It has to be written in terms that Anyone, no matter what job they do, feels they can directly contribute to that clause, so it has to be inclusive and the third one is my favorite, it has to be service-oriented.

In all relationships there is always a benefactor and a contributor. and a benefactor, so if I go to my boss for career advice, I hope his advice will benefit me, right? I want to be the benefactor of that contribution if they are giving me advice, if she only gives me advice that benefits her career well, that means that the main benefit of her advice was her, not me, so service orientation means that the main benefit goes to those who are not the taxpayer, so if you are the leader, that means the main benefit of leadership has to go. for those other than the leader, you can't make decisions to get rich, you have to make decisions to help those you lead now, you absolutely can make money, you absolutely can have ambition, those things are fine, but not as the main benefit, right? right?, a salesman.

They can't make a sale just to generate their own bonus, they have to make the sale to help the person get what they are trying to buy the main benefit if you are an investor the main benefit of your investment the main benefit of your investment has to go to someone other than you, i.e. the company you are investing in and if you are the company, the main profit of one of your companies is sold, the main profit has to go to someone other than the taxpayer, which is yourself, it means you have to go to the customer, you have to go to the customer, so your vision statement has to approve all of those first of all, uh, you have to know what the definition of introversion is, extroversion is correct. , socially awkward, no, I know, socially awkward extroverts, right? no, if you're uncomfortable, it's not social awkwardness, that's not introversion, I like in terms of Susan Kane's definition, it's about energy, which is um, an introvert loses energy from social interaction, an extrovert gains energy from social interaction, so an introvert wakes up in the morning with five coins in each social interaction they spend a coin in the end they are exhausted an extrovert wakes up with no coins in each social interaction they receive a coin and in the end they feel rich as if they went to a party they get energy going versus going going to a party sucks your energy, so I'm an introvert, so I'm a big introvert, and what I've learned is that I have a great personality, but I'm still an introvert, so What I've learned is that no matter who you are, the question is how to build on what you did well, so I go to parties with an extroverted right because that way they can talk and I can stand there and eat the cheese.

That's great, by the way, you can always see me, you can always tell yourself you're going to a party with me and you'll see me standing on corners or stopping when there's a barbecue, I'm always the chefbecause then I don't have to talk to anyone, right, but if you notice, I've learned to take advantage of what I have, so being an introvert makes me a much better public speaker because I don't like being courted, it scares me, but I like to talk to people so you'll notice that when I talk I talk to you and then I talk to you and then I talk to you and I give everyone an idea or a whole thought that actually what I learned helps me connect with a person. much better audience, but it's because I'm an introvert, so if you're an introvert, of course, you can be a leader.

It has nothing to do with it. Some of the best leaders. Have you ever heard of Jim Senegal? Most people haven't because he's awkward and shy. he's a phenomenal leader, he's the founder and Costco pharmacy, like there are phenomenal leaders. Richard Branson introvert, he's really awkward. re extrovert introvert is an eternal belief in your cause, it's true, and charisma is not how much energy you have, charisma is how much you are willing to devote to it.