SIMON SINEK
Simon Sinek and I met at a conference where I first heard him talk about his “Start with Why” philosophy. The clarity of his thinking really impressed me. Then when I read his book Leaders Eat Last, I knew we were soul mates. I am elated that he agreed to participate in this book. I knew whatever he chose to write would be creative and would stimulate new thinking. This essay did that for me, and I’m sure it will do the same for you. —KB
LEADERSHIP IS HARD. So why should an aspiring leader add the extra burden of service to their role? A strong argument can be made that the additional work is worth it based on the results servant leadership can achieve. The problem is, any authority who eschews the servant part of the leadership role can line up case studies to prove their point of view that they can achieve strong results without it. The real answer to why we should make an effort to practice servant leadership requires an understanding of where servant leadership comes from and why it matters. The reason servant leadership matters is, in fact, firmly grounded in our anthropology.
Homo sapiens have roamed this planet for about fifty thousand years. During the Paleolithic era, the world was full of uncertainty and great danger. Whether it was lack of food or resources, extreme weather, or wild animals, around every corner were unpredictable and often violent forces that could—and often did—kill us. As we were neither the strongest nor the fastest animals on the planet, there was only one way we were going to survive and thrive: together.
It wasn’t just our big brains that gave us an edge in those dangerous times; it was also our ability to cooperate. And trust was the name of the game. The more we trusted those with whom we lived and worked, the more likely we were to coordinate our efforts, align around common interests, and work together to take care of the tribe. If someone fell asleep at night, for example, they could trust that other members of the tribe would wake them and alert them to danger. That’s a good system for survival of individuals and the group as a whole. If they hadn’t been able to trust each other, no one would ever have gone to sleep at night. That’s a bad system for survival.
Nothing has changed in our modern world. Though the dangers are different, our brain chemistry and how we work together remain the same. A lack of food and wild animals, for example, may have been replaced by the uncertainty of the stock market or the unpredictability of economies and world events, but our ability to survive and thrive in our modern world is still based on how well we cooperate. And that depends on how much we trust those in our tribe.
But there is a problem. Trust isn’t an instruction. We can’t just tell people to trust us. Leaders can’t simply order their employees to trust them. It doesn’t work that way. Trust is a feeling. And that feeling is a biological reaction to the environments in which we live and work. That’s why we have leaders in the first place: leaders shape the environment.
As social animals, we respond to the environments we are in. If we take a good person and put them in a bad environment, the odds increase that that person will do bad things. If we take a person who is considered untrustworthy, who may even have performed bad acts, and put them in a good environment, they are capable of turning their lives around and becoming a valuable and trusted member of the group. When a leader gets the environment right, the normal human response is trust and cooperation. When they get it wrong, cynicism, paranoia, mistrust, and self-interest prevail.
In a toxic work environment, trust is replaced by fear or anxiety. When we fear making mistakes or fear losing our jobs if we miss our numbers, for example, the natural human reaction is to put ourselves before anyone or anything else—including ethics and sometimes the law. This is what happened at United Airlines on April 9, 2017. The airline had oversold the flight, a common practice. After they boarded all their ticketed passengers, the crew asked for volunteers to give up their seats for four United employees who needed to travel to work other flights. No passengers volunteered, so the crew did what the rule book said to do: they randomly selected passengers and demanded that they leave the aircraft. One of those passengers was Dr. David Dao, who was flying home to Louisville, Kentucky. A paying customer, Dr. Dao refused to leave his seat. And again the crew did what the rule book stated: they called security guards to forcibly remove him. In the ensuing melee, Dr. Dao lost two teeth, suffered a significant concussion, and got a broken nose at the hands of four security personnel. Other passengers captured the incident on video, which went viral online, forcing United Airlines to admit their failure and change their policies.
Policies, however, were only part of the problem. Other airlines have similar policies but don’t end up assaulting paying customers in the course of following those policies. The bigger problem at United Airlines was the culture. It was a fear-based environment in which employees were more afraid to break a rule than to do the right thing. I can almost guarantee that no crew members on that flight thought what they were doing was a good idea or even fair practice. But given the culture in which they worked, I expect many defended their actions with “I was just following the rules” or “I was doing what the company told me to do.”
Only when people feel trusted by and are able to trust their leadership; only when people feel they can make mistakes without fear of dismissal; and only when people feel they can break a rule because it’s the right thing to do without fear of humiliation or retribution will a company ever inspire their people to work at their natural best—our most productive, innovative and cooperative selves. In a strong leadership environment, leaders don’t trust their people to follow the rules—they trust them to know when to break the rules. Rules are there for when things run normally. But sometimes, when things go wrong, following the rules to the letter can actually make things worse.
In weak leadership environments, all the decision-making power is focused at the top. Leaders in these environments expect information to be pushed up to those in authority positions. Servant leaders do the opposite. They push authority down to those with the information. And in that kind of environment, people feel accountable for and trusted to do the job for which they’ve been trained without leaders putting undue pressure or stress on them or using fear to drive them.
If giving people authority makes an organization run better, then why not get rid of the leaders altogether? It seems like a logical conclusion. But leaders exist for a reason. For 40,000 of the 50,000 years our species has inhabited this planet, we lived in populations of about 150 people. And given the times in which we were living, there were some obvious challenges. If hunters and gatherers brought food back to the tribe, for example, who would get to eat first? I mean, if you were built like a professional wrestler, you could shove your way to the front of the line. However, if you were the “artist” of the family, you were one of those who got shoved to the side. But odds are, if you elbowed someone in the face that afternoon, they probably wouldn’t wake you and alert you to danger that night. That’s a bad system if we are stronger as a cooperative group than we are as individuals.
To avoid this reality and better equip us for cooperation, we evolved into hierarchical animals. We constantly assessed and judged those around us to figure out who was more dominant or senior. We tried to figure out who was alpha. Instead of fighting to be the first to eat, we would defer to the hierarchy. If we assessed that others were more senior in the social hierarchy, we would voluntarily step back and allow our alphas to eat first. And though we may not have had first choice of meat, we would have been guaranteed food and we wouldn’t get an elbow in the face. This is a much better system to promote cooperation in the tribe.
Though the standards may be different in our modern day and age, we are still constantly assessing and judging each other, trying to figure out where we sit on the social hierarchy. Sometimes the standards are informal. Among scientists, for example, greater respect may be shown to the scientist who has been published more, won more awards, or made a more notable discovery than their peers. Among movie stars, the alpha treatment may be given to the actor with more awards or greater box office success. In most organizations, however, that hierarchy is more formal. We have titles—and even when we don’t, there is still a hierarchy based on experience or levels of responsibility. For example, we all know a vice president is more senior than an intern.
This is why few people turn down promotions. Rising through the hierarchy often comes with perks—more money, a bigger office, or a better parking space. We show deference for the most senior people in organizations. Often, we are willing to do basic tasks for them simply because of their high status. If you’re senior and you leave your coat in the other room, for example, someone will probably volunteer to get it for you. If you’re junior and you leave your coat in the other room . . . you get your own coat. As Mel Brooks aptly pointed out in his film History of the World, Part I, “It’s good to be the king.”
However, these perks do not come for free. A deep-seated social contract is hardwired into all human beings. There is an expectation that when danger threatens, the alpha—the person who is often smarter, stronger, or more confident—will rush toward the danger to protect the tribe. It is this anthropological requirement that defines the essence of servant leadership. Leadership, it turns out, is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge. The closest thing I can equate to servant leadership is the responsibility of a parent. We all know Mom and Dad are in charge. We all know they have all the authority. They set rules and enforce them. However, parents also have a responsibility to their children. Any decent parent would gladly sacrifice for them. Money, time, the kind of car they buy, the kind of vacation they take—the list goes on—are all elements of sacrifice: putting one’s interests aside to benefit the life of another human being.
Just as we are morally offended by a parent who would put themselves before their child—leaving the child in a car while the parent goes gambling, for example—so, too, are we morally offended when people in leadership positions are willing to sacrifice the lives of their people to advance their personal interests. Trust cannot exist in a culture in which people fear—or know—that their leaders would sooner announce a round of layoffs to protect the numbers than sacrifice the numbers to protect the people. This is the reason why so many people are viscerally offended by some banking CEOs. It is not their huge bonuses or salaries that upset us—we are okay with our alphas getting paid more than we do. It’s the knowledge that they would sacrifice their people to protect their salaries and bonuses that is so inconsistent with the anthropological requirements of leadership. Few if any of us would be offended if we heard Nelson Mandela was given a $50 million bonus. Few if any of us would be offended to learn that Mother Teresa was given a $100 million bonus. It’s not the money that matters. It’s the knowledge that our leader would, and does, sacrifice to protect us.
Our species started farming around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Only then could we sustain populations that were larger than about 150. Living and working at this scale, a scale for which we were not designed, produced a whole new set of leadership challenges that we continue to face today. These challenges make servant leadership not just more important but also the only viable, long-term solution.
All good leaders practice servant leadership. It is a teachable, learnable, and practicable skill. And the more the servant leader practices that skill—the more they create an environment in which people can feel vulnerable at work—the more trust, loyalty, and cooperation thrive. Where weak leaders demand trust be given to them, servant leaders inspire it.
Creating a space in which people can feel vulnerable means a person can walk into their boss’s office to admit a mistake without fear of losing their job. It means someone can raise their hand and ask for help, admit they have been given a responsibility they don’t feel prepared or knowledgeable enough to complete, or admit they are scared without any fear of humiliation or retribution. We trust that the servant leader will come running to our aid. This is what happens inside great organizations. In contrast, in a work environment that lacks good servant leaders, people will go out of their way to follow the rules at all costs, cover up mistakes, and deny accountability. Remember United Airlines?
The daily practice of servant leadership is less grand than people tend to think. It is based not on a series of transactions, but on the promise of being there when someone needs you most. Individuals don’t fall in love because one is rich and the other stands to benefit. The same is true in an organization. A leader who offers money or the potential for future riches is not earning loyalty. They are setting up a transactional relationship that is likely to promote self-interest. Individuals don’t fall in love simply because someone remembered their birthday or bought them flowers on Valentine’s Day. The same is true in an organization. A few scattered, well-intentioned actions by a leader can’t hurt, but they won’t breed loyalty. They won’t be enough to earn trust. Just like any relationship in which trust is the basis, it is the accumulation of a lot of little things that makes all the difference.
Servant leaders practice putting their interests aside in order to enhance the lives of those around them. For example, if you’re standing in an elevator, running slightly late for a meeting, and just as the doors start closing you see someone running toward the elevator, what do you do? The act of holding the doors for someone even if you’re running late is an act of servant leadership. If you pour yourself the last cup of coffee at work and instead of putting the empty pot back you spend a few minutes making another pot of coffee, that is an act of servant leadership. If one of your people has missed their numbers three quarters in a row and instead of walking into their office and saying, “You have to make your fourth quarter numbers otherwise I don’t know what’s going to happen,” you walk into their office and say, “Are you okay? You missed your numbers again. I’m worried about you,” that level of empathy—concern for the person before the numbers—is an act of servant leadership.
As I said before, servant leadership is not a rank or an event. It is a practice, and the servant leader will remain a student for their entire life. They will always want to learn more about the practice, talk about it, read about it, and hear what others have to say about it. They will constantly be on the hunt for new tactics, new perspectives, new ways to hone their skills. Every parent, partner, spouse, and servant leader knows that the act of caring for another is very hard work, the results of which are impossible to predict according to a timeline. The impact of servant leadership isn’t conveniently parsed into quarters. It is a human experience.
Like going to the gym or eating healthily, servant leadership is a lifestyle. We can get into shape if we go to the gym regularly and improve our diets. And we can turn an unhealthy culture into a thriving one, filled with trust and cooperation. But we have to commit to the lifestyle. Once we achieve our goals, to stay fit we have to keep working out and eating smart. And to maintain a servant leadership culture we must keep caring, serving, trusting, and earning trust.
Though someone may choose servant leadership for the results, the reason we continue to practice the discipline is for the joy of the journey.
Simon Sinek (www.startwithwhy.com) is an unshakable optimist and the author of three bestselling books: Start with Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together Is Better, and his most recent, Find Your Why. A trained ethnographer, Simon has a bold goal to help build a world in which the vast majority of people go home every day feeling fulfilled by their work. His first TED Talk in 2009 is the third most watched talk of all time on TED.com.