Simon Sinek Thoughts on What Makes a Great Leader

Simon Sinek (1973) is a leadership guru, a professor at Columbia University, founder of SinekPartners (Corporate Refocusing) and author. He is best known for popularizing the concept of “the golden circle” and to “Start With Why“. Simon Sinek is also an adjunct staff member of the RAND Corporation. He discovered patterns about how a great leader and organizations think, act and communicate.

Sinek is an unshakable optimist who believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together. He discovered remarkable patterns about how the greatest leaders and organizations think, act and communicate.

He may be best known for popularizing the concept of WHY in his first TED Talk in 2009. It rose to become the third most watched on TED.com, with over 40 million views and subtitled in 47 languages.

Simon is the author of multiple best-selling books including Start With Why (global best seller), Leaders Eat Last (New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller), Together is Better (New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller) and Find Your Why. His latest book, The Infinite Game, will be available early 2019.

From the TED website: What makes a great leader? Management theorist Simon Sinek suggests, it’s someone who makes their employees feel secure, who draws staffers into a circle of trust. But creating trust and safety — especially in an uneven economy — means taking on a big responsibility.

Here is a short video by Scott himself on this topic.

A simple reminder is that leadership skills, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it. It takes lots of consistent practice.  You need to dive into the pool as soon as possible.

Great leaders know that every step they take, every decision they make, matters in the end. They know they must strategize carefully, and then act decisively. They know they must think ahead — not just to their next step — but to the many steps after it.

Practice these leadership behaviors often and think ahead for your greatest leadership advantages.

It’s up to you to keep improving your leadership learning and experience from all around in your environment.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.

When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?

More reading on continuous learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

Build an Effective Team by Being a Talent Hound

Success Enablers of Highly Creative Leaders

Secrets to Becoming a Remarkably Mindful Leader

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.