Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek (2023)

Introduction

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The New York Times bestseller by the acclaimed, bestselling author of Start With Why and Together is Better. Now with an expanded chapter and appendix on leading millennials, based on Simon Sinek's viral video "The Millennial Question" (150+ million views).

Imagine a world where almost everyone wakes up inspired to go to work, feels trusted and valued during the day, then returns home feeling fulfilled. This is not a crazy, idealized notion. Today, in many successful organizations, great leaders create environments in which people naturally work together to do remarkable things.

In his work with organizations around the world, Simon Sinek noticed that some teams trust each other so deeply that they would literally put their lives on the line for each other. Other teams, no matter what incentives are offered, are doomed to infighting, fragmentation and failure. Why?

The answer became clear during a conversation with a Marine Corps general. "Officers eat last," he said. Sinek watched as the most junior Marines ate first while the most senior Marines took their place at the back of the line. What's symbolic in the chow hall is deadly serious on the battlefield: Great leaders sacrifice their own comfort--even their own survival--for the good of those in their care.

Too many workplaces are driven by cynicism, paranoia, and self-interest. But the best ones foster trust and cooperation because their leaders build what Sinek calls a "Circle of Safety" that separates the security inside the team from the challenges outside.

Sinek illustrates his ideas with fascinating true stories that range from the military to big business, from government to investment banking.

Video

When people have to manage dangers from inside the organization, the organization itself becomes less able to face the dangers from outside Captain Mike drowley and his wingman, provided air cover for a team of 22 men who were operating deep inside enemy territory and had just captured a high-value Target hvt.

The team needed to escort the hvt to a safe house, but they must go through a horde of terrorists in a deep valley in a mountainous part of Afghanistan.

They were trapped.

The cloud cover was thick and no one in their right senses would fly an A-10 through that kind of cloud, except for Johnny Bravo.

The nickname Captain drowley was given his courage and empathy on that August Night made the difference for the 22-man team.

All of them got home alive.

Empathy is what drives great leaders to do the things they do.

Most folks want to be recognized when they pull off heroic acts.

But people like Johnny, Bravo have a culture of sacrifice and service, which makes them see themselves as just pieces of a much bigger puzzle.

The knowledge that others would do the same for you as what drives most people to give their best and even risk their lives for the good of the organizations that they work for leaders must learn to provide cover from above.

And the people on the ground must look out for each other.

If any organization hopes to become exceptional recognize that employees are human too and listen to them, your employees will work without coercion and work together to advance the company when they feel valued to truly human leadership, protects an organization from the internal rivalries that can shatter the culture of trust and cooperation, returning from work, feeling inspired safe fulfilled and grateful is a natural human right to which we are all entitled and not a modern luxury that only a few lucky ones are able to find leaders should be responsible for the lives of their employees.

Every single employee is someone's, son or someone's daughter, like a parent.

A leader of a company is responsible for their precious lives leaders of organizations who create a working environment, better suited for how we are designed do not sacrifice Excellence or performance simply because they put people first quite the contrary, these organizations are among the most stable Innovative and high-performing companies in their Industries.

Sadly, it is more common for leaders of companies to see the people as the means to drive the numbers.

The leaders of great organizations do not see people as a commodity to be managed to help grow the money.

They see the money as a commodity to be managed to help grow their people when there is a sense of belonging of shared values in a deep sense of empathy.

There will be trust cooperation and problem solving with come naturally letting someone into an organization is like adopting a child leaders must create a circle of safety where the child employee feels protected from dangers outside the circle.

The circle of safety must continue to grow larger.

The smaller the circle of safety, the more susceptible, the organization becomes to dangers outside where there is no circle of safety paranoia, cynicism and self-interest prevail.

The whole purpose of maintaining the circle of safety is so that we can invest all our time and energy to guard against the dangers outside misery may love company.

But it is the companies that love misery that suffer the most people need to feel safe at work.

More importantly, people need to love their work.

Our ability to provide for our kids make ends meet or live a certain lifestyle.

Sometimes comes at the cost of our own joy, happiness and fulfillment at work, much of the Stress and Anxiety people feel at work is due to weak management and Leadership, rather than the work.

We do knowing that there are people at work who care about how we feel reduces our stress levels.

According to a Gallup poll conducted in 2013 called state of the American workplace, when our bosses completely ignore us, 40 of us actively disengage from our work.

If our bosses criticize us on a regular basis, 22 of us actively disengaged, meaning, even if we're getting criticized, we are actually more engaged simply because we feel that at least someone is acknowledging that we exist.

And if our bosses recognize just one of our strengths and reward us for doing what we're good at only one percent of us actively disengage from the work, we're expected to do added to the fact that people who go to work unhappy actually do things actively or passively to make those around them unhappy too and it's amazing that anyone gets anything done these days decades ago, scientists in Britain set out to study the link between an employee's place on the corporate ladder in stress.

Presumably in order to help Executives deal with the toll stress was taking on their health and their lives known collectively as the Whitehall studies, the study's findings were both astounding.

And profound researchers found that workers stress was not caused by a higher degree of responsibility and pressure, usually associated with rank.

It is not the demands of the job that cause the most stress.

But the degree of control workers feel.

They have throughout their day it's possible.

In other words that the feeling of being in charge of one's own life, more than makes up for the greater amount of responsibility that accompanies higher rungs on the social ladder, wrote Max McClure of the Stanford news service in announcing the findings, creating Circles of safety, taking responsibility, rather than blaming others and coming together to achieve a greater.

Good can help solve the problems of stress insecurity and misery that bedevil the workplace, some things in our biological framework can also serve as powerful forces to help us with these problems, a sense of community and certain chemicals are the forces that drive most of our actions and feelings when we feel like we belong to the group and Trust the people with whom we work.

We naturally cooperate to face outside challenges and threats when we do not have a sense of belonging, however, then we are forced to invest time and energy to protect ourselves from each other.

And in so doing, we inadvertently make ourselves more vulnerable to the outside threats and challenges.

One of the things that make us Superior as Homo sapiens is the neocortex are complex problem-solving brain, which gives us the ability for sophisticated communication.

Our success, as a species was not luck.

It was earned we worked hard to get to where we are today.

And we did it together we're built to work together.

We are at a deeply ingrained and biological level, social machines.

And when we work to help each other, our bodies reward us for our efforts so that we will continue to do it.

There are four basic chemicals in our body that are responsible for our positive feelings.

These happy chemicals are endorphins dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin.

They are not just feel good chemicals, but they are essential to our survival, endorphins and dopamine are selfish chemicals because they get us to where we need to go as individuals 15.

Dopamine is the happy chemical that is released when you seek reward from your environment.

It provides the motivation to go for things that are rewarding you work so that you can be rewarded with food.

The motivation to do that work comes from dopamine.

When physical pain is involved.

Another happy chemical endorphin sets into action.

It seeks to numb the pain so that you can continue to your goal.

Endorphins were a survival strategy for our ancestors when an athlete surpasses their limit.

There is a rush of endorphins that makes them feel like superhumans for one brief moment, instead of feeling zonked serotonin and oxytocin are selfless chemicals because they incentivize us to work together and develop feelings of trust and loyalty.

Serotonin is the leadership chemical when we are revered in society or achieve a feat that others have not been able to achieve serotonin is the happy chemical that is released in US.

It comes from the feeling of domination when people respect or admire us for what we have accomplished.

We feel Superior to them the ability to afford certain luxuries and necessities of life makes us feel powerful the feeling we get when we realize that we can control what others get.

And what they do not get comes from serotonin.

Oxytocin is the chemical that is responsible for feelings of friendship, love and deep Trust a sense of belonging is essential for survival.

When you feel that you belong somewhere, you are happy.

You are happy because your amygdala released oxytocin, the bond between a mother and child is built by the release of oxytocin in their brains.

The mother is motivated to care for her new baby and the baby responds to the touch of the mother as there are happy chemicals.

There are also unhappy chemicals unhappy chemicals, provide the balance we need for long and good life.

Cortisol is the chemical that alerts us to danger to do things that enhance survival.

You need happy chemicals to know when you need to do these things you need unhappy chemicals.

The sensation of hunger is motivated by cortisol.

This drives you to put food in your stomach.

It has been found that cortisol is released by the brain as soon as happy chemicals are done with you.

This is why you feel the need to do something even when everything seems all right when Leaders Eat Last, they are repaid with loyalty and hard work when the time is taken to build proper relationships and When leaders choose to put their people before their numbers when we can actually feel a sense of trust for each other.

The oxytocin released in our bodies can reverse many of the negative effects of operating in a high stress, cortisol-soaked environment.

In other words, it's, not the nature of the work.

We do or the number of hours we work that will help us reduce stress and Achieve work-life balance.

Its increased amounts of oxytocin and serotonin, serotonin, boosts, our self-confidence and inspires us to help those who work for us and make proud those for whom we work.

Oxytocin relieves stress increases our interest in our work and improves our cognitive abilities, making us better able to solve complex problems.

It boosts our immune systems, lowers blood pressure increases our libido and actually lessens our cravings and addictions and best of all it inspires us to work together.

Leadership is the choice to serve others with or without any formal rank.

There are people with authority who are not leaders.

And there are people at the Bottom Rung of an organization who most certainly are leaders, it's, okay for leaders to enjoy all the perks afforded to them.

However, they must be willing to give up those perks when it matters trust is like lubrication.

It reduces friction and creates conditions much more conducive to Performance.

The responsibility of a leader is to provide cover from above for their people who are working below when people feel that they have the control to do what's right? Even if it sometimes means breaking the rules, then they will more likely do the right thing.

Courage comes from above our confidence to do what's right is determined by how trusted we feel by our leaders.

If good people are asked to work in a bad culture, one in which leaders do not relinquish control.

Then the odds of something bad happening go up.

People will be more concerned about following the rules out of fear of getting in trouble or losing their jobs than doing what needs to be done.

And when that happens, Souls will be lost.

There are fundamental things that leaders of organizations must do to build deep trust and commitment.

Among the people they lead these things, take time, energy and willpower for them to work too many of the environments in which we work today, frustrate our natural inclinations to trust and cooperate.

The baby boomer generation was a selfish, individualistic and materialistic generation that prioritized the needs of the individual ahead of the needs of the many by their sheer strength in numbers.

They were able to Snuff out the voices of the generations before them.

And those after them, they came up with New Economic theories and embraced products with shorter lifespans.

The Boomers prioritized things over people ND were more interested in disposable items.

This tendency for disposability perhaps accounts for their proclivity for laying off workers since the Boomers took over the running of business and government we have experienced three significant stock market crashes, 1987-2000 and 2008.

It would appear as though nature seems to be resetting.

The balance when Leaders Eat First, dehumanization becomes inevitable.

We no longer see each other as people we are now customers shareholders employees, avatars online, profiles screen names, email addresses and expenses to be tracked the human being really has gone virtual now more than ever.

We are trying to work and live be productive and happy in a world in which we are strangers to those around us, the cycle of abstraction endemic to our brand of capitalism is easily seen.

When we take a broader view of milgram's experiment, milgram's experiment was designed to evaluate the extent people will go to obey a higher authority and knowingly inflict pain on another person as a form of punishment for wrongdoing.

The experiment involves a scientist dressed in a lab coat who asks volunteers to shock, a student.

Another scientist with an increment of 15 volts every time they provide a wrong answer to questions asked, even though the volunteers who stood in the position of teachers did not know there was no real shock.

They continued to deliver the shock at the behest of the scientist.

The further removed, the teachers were from the student receiving the shock, the more likely they were to continue to deliver the shock.

This kind of abstraction is similar to what happens in most offices and companies today.

The bigger companies get the more physical distances created between the top management.

And the people who work in the company, people become reduced to just numbers in a report.

And it becomes much easier to make decisions that may impact.

These people negatively businesses need to hold themselves to a higher moral standard, rather than just trying to spot loopholes in the rules and evade responsibility the standards for doing business today seem to be exploiting the loopholes until the rules catch up sometimes companies even pay lobbyists to help influence a change in the rules as social animals morality ought to matter to us despite the letter of the law, the very Foundation of Civil Society demands that we do things that are ethical and not just legal the moment we are able to make tangible that which had previously been a study or a chart.

The moment a statistic or a poll becomes a real living person.

The moment abstract concepts are understood to have human consequences is the moment, our ability to solve problems and innovate becomes remarkable.

The following rules might help to reduce the level of abstraction in the workplace.

Rule 1, keep it real by bringing people together rule 2, keep it manageable by obeying dunbar's.

Number rule, three meet the people you help rule four give people your time and not just your money rule five be patient.

It takes more than seven days, but less than seven years to trust.

Someone destructive abundance is what happens when selfish Pursuits are out of balance with selfless Pursuits when the levels of dopamine, incentivized behaviors overwhelm the social protections afforded by the other chemicals, when protecting the results is prioritized above protecting those who produce the results.

Destructive abundance happens.

Destructive abundance happens when the players Focus almost exclusively on the score and forget why they set out to play the game in the first place, replacing challenge with temptation leads to destructive abundance in a weak culture.

We Veer away from doing the right thing in favor of doing the thing that's right for me, the performance of a company largely depends on the personality and values of the person at the top.

This person defines the culture of the company, Jack Welch, ran GE in a way that made people compete against each other.

They were driven to do whatever they could to make themselves.

Look good, James, Senegal, the co-founder of Costco, didn't, hog, any glory to himself He gave His People Credit, rather than himself.

Some don't even know who he is at Costco.

Longtime employees are promoted to Executive positions, rather than hiring an outsider or looking for business school graduates, the circle of safety that Costco had built over time makes people want to go there to work, despite the extraordinarily low turnover of the company customers will never love a company until the employees love it.

First only when a critical mass of employees feel like their leaders are working to help defend them from dangers outside can the company then invite customers into the circle too.

It is usually the people at the edges, the Infantry so to speak, who are the most vulnerable to the external dangers? They are also the ones who tend to have more contact with clients and customers if they feel protected.

Then they will do all.

They can to serve the customers without fear of repercussions from the company's leaders.

It is a given that profit is the goal of any business.

But to suggest it is the primary responsibility of a business is misguided.

It is the leaders of companies that see profit as fuel for their cultures that will Outlast their dopamine.

Addicted cortisol-soked competitors.

Leadership is about taking responsibility for lives.

And not numbers managers look after our numbers and our results and leaders.

Look after us.

All managers of metrics have an opportunity to become leaders of people today decision making depends on metrics drive for efficiency, lean Six, Sigma calculations of Returns on investment and empirical data as the preferred means to guide decisions.

Our inability to see the forest for the trees also makes it difficult to see beyond the system or the resource to be managed the people doing the real work become increasingly insignificant as the scale becomes bigger, corporate cultures are now addicted to a new kind of dopamine, driven called performance.

Just like people began to find Escape in alcohol, gambling binge eating and smoking.

The business World also became highly dependent on performance to feel good about themselves for the most part.

The incentive structures we offer inside our companies do not reward us for cooperating sharing information or Reaching Across the company to offer or ask for help.

In other words, there is little positive reinforcement when it comes to behaviors and actions critical to maintaining the circle of safety for over 75 years.

Alcoholics Anonymous double A has successfully helped people beat the dopamine addiction of alcoholism.

Most of us have heard of their 12-step program to recovery.

And most of us know, the first step, admitting we have a problem step 12 is a commitment to help another alcoholic beat the disease step 12 is all about service.

And it is service that is the key to breaking our dopamine addictions in our organizations too.

This is not talking about serving our customers employees or shareholders.

It is not talking about abstractions of people.

This is service to the real living, knowable, human beings with whom we work every day.

Oxytocin is so powerful that the bonds of trust and love.

We form not only help us beat or ward off addiction.

They actually help us live longer.

According to another 2012 study.

This one conducted by Duke University, Medical, Center couples live significantly longer than single people.

The Duke investigators found that individuals who never married were more than twice as likely to die during midlife than individuals who were married throughout their adult life.

It is not the work.

We remember with fondness, but the camaraderie how the group came together to get things done Whenever.

There is a human Bond involved.

A real true honest, human Bond, where neither party wants anything from the other.

We seem to find the strength to endure and the strength to help.

It is not when things come easily that we appreciate them.

But when we have to work hard for them, or when they are hard to get that those things have greater value to us those in the military often speak with fondness of their time, deployed it seems strange that a group living in austere conditions with real threats of danger.

Would have fond memories of these times.

They probably won't say they enjoyed it.

They might even say they hated it.

But a surprisingly High number will say they were grateful for the experience if the leaders of organizations give their people Something to Believe In, if they offer their people a challenge that outsizes their resources, but not their intellect.

The people will give everything they've got to solve the problem conclusion.

Human beings have thrived for 50 000 years, not because we are driven to serve ourselves.

But because we are inspired to serve others that's, the value of Step 12.

All we need are leaders to give us a good reason to commit ourselves to each other.

Everything about being a leader is like being a parent.

It is about committing to the well-being of those in our care and having a willingness to make sacrifices to see their interests Advanced so that they may carry our Banner long after we are gone leadership.

True.

Leadership is not the Bastion of those who sit at the top.

It is the responsibility of anyone who belongs to the group.

Try this changing.

The culture of an organization is easier said than done.

It requires being intentional find inventive ways of making the employees in your company feel a sense of belonging and see what happens foreign.