By Simon Sinek
Why some teams pull together and others don’t …
I am a big fan of Simon Sinek, who is probably best known for his best-selling book ‘Start with Why’. Like myself, much of the author’s experiences of understanding leadership are from the world of business leadership, however, also like me, he has also worked in leadership in other areas of life.
If I was to condense what this book addresses, in a single sentence, I would say …. “This book explains why the most effective and enduring leaders are leaders who prioritise serving others ahead of themselves with an emphasis on empathy and building trust with people!”
Interestingly, the author goes into detail throughout the book in explaining the importance of hormones in human behaviour. Unlike any other book I have previously read on leadership, the author provides numerous insights into effective leadership from the perspective of hormones like Oxytocin and Dopamine.
‘Leaders Eat Last’
The title of this book is derived from the fact that in a natural hierarchy, such as when we were hunter gatherers, leaders would have the position to eat first. In those early communities the order brought by group cooperation was essential and it revolved around the recognition of a hierarchy where those higher up would get to eat first. However, sustainable leadership requires leaders to take on the responsibility to put the interests of the group above themselves, including if the situation demanded it ‘to eat last’. In the days of hunter gatherers, the tribe would want the leaders who also the hunters to eat first and be well fed, so that they were strong enough to both hunt and to protect the tribe.
The author points out that the modern equivalent expectations of most people is that they would almost find it offensive if the president of their country was carrying their own luggage and traveling cattle class, they would expect their president to be well paid, to travel first class and to have their luggage carried by others. However, there is also an expectation that if the country was facing a crisis that their president might be working 18 hours a day dealing with a whole range of challenging situations in service of the people who elected them.
Empathy, Trust & Belonging
The real life stories the author shares are about stories of leadership which involve ‘command and control’ leadership, which almost always involve little or no empathy resulting in diminishing levels of trust of the leaders from employees and other stakeholders. This creates team environments where people were ultimately not happy in their work and less productive. The author also shares many examples of leaders who have both promoted and demonstrated empathy, this empathy becomes infectious and builds increased levels of trust where people want to go the extra mile to help their colleagues, their teams, and their organisation.
The stories Sinek shares illustrate that to earn trust you must extend trust. When people trust the leaders and the group, they will feel that they belong and feel ‘safer’. When people feel that they belong and feel that they are in ‘a circle of safety’, they will do more for the group and the group’s leaders.
Sinek explains that depression at work has more to do with leadership than anything else, in fact there is research that shows that from a mental and emotional well-being perspective that having a job we hate, is usually worse than having no job at all! ….. “When we know that there are people at work who CARE ABOUT HOW WE FEEL our stress levels decrease!”
Until I read this book, I had never fully considered the impact of hormones on human behaviour in the context of ‘leadership’. Many parts of the book explain how the leaders of any group of people, team or family have a profound influence on the hormonal related behaviours.
Hormones that significantly affect relationship and leadership dynamics ….
Below, I thought it would be useful to provide some links in addition to the summary of 5 of the key human hormones that greatly influence human behaviour that the author emphasises throughout the book:
1-Serotonin – This hormone stabilises our mood, it is activated when we feel that we are ‘in a circle of safety’ and deactivated when we feel threatened. People who are in ‘hire and fire’ teams will have lower serotonin levels.
People in groups where they feel appreciated and feel safe will usually have consistently higher Serotonin levels and as a result will usually be more creative, more productive, and more effective communicators.
What is Serotonin and what does it do? https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-serotonin-5189485
2- Oxytocin – Is sometimes referred to as the ‘love hormone’ or the ‘cuddle hormone’ and is well known to be highly present in new mothers enabling the rapid building of a strong emotional bond between mother and baby. However, as well as it’s upside, oxytocin can also accentuate feelings such as jealousy and envy.
What is Oxytocin and what does it do? https://www.healthcentral.com/mental-health/oxytocin
3- Dopamine – Is a quickly released hormone that creates a brief high, the challenge is it facilitates many addictive behaviours that generate a dopamine release, these range from exercise and eating habits to getting likes on a post on social media to constantly being on-line or playing videos games, to the consumption of drugs or alcohol to exercising power over others and so on. Many dis-empowering leadership and team member behaviours can be attributed to the concept of ‘dopamine addiction’.
What is Dopamine and what does it do? https://www.healthline.com/health/dopamine-effects
4- Cortisol & 5- Adrenaline – Both Cortisol and Adrenaline are linked to our ‘stress response system’ and our ‘Fight or Flight response’.
Moderate levels of cortisol are essential for good health in terms of metabolism/blood sugar levels, lowering inflammation, memory formation, salt and water balance, however when we are in ‘fight or flight response excess cortisol is produced with lots of negative consequences. For thousands of years throughout human evolution, the release of additional cortisol and adrenaline would often save our lives by giving us a temporary state of increased alertness and increased strength enabling us to outrun a tiger or fight off an attack from another tribe. Today, however with no threat of tigers and tribal wars, Cortisol and Adrenaline production can be triggered when we hear fear-based news stories, perhaps about a newly discovered illness or an economic issue, leadership styles that
When leading and when working in an environment where there are consistently high levels of Cortisol and Adrenaline there are numerous consequences that are associated with excess stress or distress which include poor health, poor mood, poor communication, low morale and lower levels of innovation and creativity, all of these are massively damaging to the morale and productivity of any team.
What is Cortisol and what does it do? https://www.verywellhealth.com/cortisol-what-it-is-its-functions-associated-conditions-5208916
What is Adrenaline and what does it do? https://www.healthline.com/health/adrenaline-rush#What-is-adrenaline?
The Leadership of Millennials
The author realises that, like it or not, millennials (those born from around the year 2,000 onwards) are the new workforce of today and the leaders of the future and that they have a very different world view to those born in previous decades. Millennials have only ever known the internet and an online world world filled with computers and mobile devices.
Many older people accuse millennials of behaving as if they are ‘entitled’. There is much evidence to show that this is true, however, to balance this it is also true that millennials are more ‘tech savvy’, and more empathetic with people who are different to ‘the norm’. They are generally more sensitive particularly to criticism, but they are easily swallowed up by the on-line world to the detriment of being able to foster deep meaningful relationships. Many millennials have what is referred to by some as ‘a dopamine addiction’ driven by the small dopamine hit that a ‘like’ can get them on social media and a general craving for positive feedback and an aversion to negative feedback.
Towards the end of the book the author emphasises the importance of adapting leadership such that it brings out the best in millennials. Sinek points out something I have found to be true in many organisations, which is that many leaders and managers have not received any training on ‘how to provide both positive and negative feedback to others’, often it is not the content of feedback that disrupts flow within a team, but the manor and timing of the feedback.
The author points out that many leaders in the world are clearly not interested in this progressive ‘leaders eat last’ philosophy, but they prefer the high adrenaline, high cortisol, dopamine rush, ego driven, command control leadership which may produce some degree of results in the short-term but will ultimately fall short in the medium to long term.
All in all, this is a valuable book for anyone interested in understanding the consequences of poor leadership and some of the essential qualities of effective leadership.