Mindset

The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, Ph.D

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In Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck describes fixed and growth mindsets and how each can have a profound impact on how we strive to reach our goals from childhood through adulthood. Dweck shares a significant amount of fascinating research that supports the idea that intelligence and talent are not fixed traits, but can be grown with perseverance and practice. She provides helpful tips for how to adopt and maintain a growth mindset as well as foster it. Dweck clearly illustrates the impact of each mindset with inspiring, true success and failure stories of some of the greatest sports, education, and business icons of our times.

Here’s what you’ll learn about in this summary:

• The profound differences between growth and fixed mindsets

• The power of the growth mindset

• How to change your own mindset from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset

Summary in a Sentence

Your capabilities are not fixed. You can advance in every area of your life if you’re willing to work hard and grow.

Crucial Quote

“Although people may differ in every which way – in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments – everyone can change and grow through application and experience.”

— Carol Dweck, Mindset

BIG IDEAS

1. Your brain is malleable.

2. Fixed mindset vs growth mindset.

3. People with a fixed mindset see effort as negative.

4. Early achievement (or lack thereof) is a poor indicator of what the future holds for a person.

5. The growth mindset builds character—a key component to success.

6. The growth mindset is essential for business leaders to have success.

7. The growth mindset is an important ingredient for any healthy relationship.

8. Mindsets develop from childhood.

9. The greatest teachers and coaches provide students with high standards and a nurturing environment in which to achieve them.

10. The growth mindset is based on the belief that all people can change.

1.
YOUR BRAIN IS MALLEABLE

“… scientists are learning that people have more capacity for lifelong learning and brain development than they ever thought.” — Carol Dweck, Mindset

The nature versus nurture debate has been going on for a very long time, but recent studies suggest that hereditary and environmental factors work together throughout our lives to make us who we are.

Although people do start out with certain natural strengths, the amount of training, practice, and effort they dedicate to improving their intelligence or skill level can have a major impact on their ability to become experts.

There are two mindsets or ways that people think about themselves and their abilities.

• The fixed mindset. The belief that the intelligence and qualities a person is born with remain the same throughout his or her life. People with the fixed mindset view failure as intolerable, and spend much of their time trying to prove to themselves and others how smart and/or talented they are. They do not believe in the power of effort.

• The growth mindset. The belief that with hard work and experience, growth and development occur. This mindset creates a desire to learn. Those with the growth mindset see failure as an opportunity to learn, and they value risk-taking.

The power in recognizing the mindsets lies in the fact that our beliefs lead to our thoughts and actions.

Those that believe they’re born with the only strengths and talents they will ever have will avoid growing those strengths and talents.

Those with a growth mindset will make completely different choices.

Luckily, if you have a fixed mindset, you can take important steps to change it — read on to learn how…

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by Maxwell Maltz

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Important note: This audiobook contains explicit language.

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Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday is a book about success and failure. Reflecting on personal experiences and drawing on a wide array of historical stories, philosophy, and modern examples, Ryan Holiday sets to prove that true success comes from the ability to master one’s ego. Success, he argues, comes despite our egos, not because of them. For success to last, it can’t be built on a foundation of egoism.

The book is structured into three sections: Aspire, Success, and Failure. In each section, he provides examples of ways that our egos can hold us back from producing our best work and the ways that we can master them to achieve our true potential.

His aim is to help his readers suppress their ego early on — before bad habits become inescapable, to replace the temptations of ego with humility and discipline, and to cultivate the strength and fortitude to survive failure.

In short, Ego is the Enemy teaches us to be ‘Humble in our aspirations, gracious in our success, resilient in our failures’ …By mastering our egos, Ryan argues, we can master our impulses and our drive and begin to produce our best work, free from narcissism, contempt for others and unfounded paranoia.

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Here’s what you’ll learn about in this summary:

• Aspiring for greatness. The journey to success is fraught with challenges. Keep your ego in check by understanding that inflated self-image and boastful talk will get you nowhere, while the only route to success comes from hard work and humility.

• Achieving success. Once you have become successful the real work begins. Personal diligence and humility are incredibly important to maintaining your success. Never assume you know the way things should be done and take the time to learn from every opportunity that presents itself. Proper management of yourself will lead to the successful management of your business or institution.

• Recovering from failure. Failure is an inevitable part of living a full life. Make the most of this stage by choosing to use failures as an opportunity to learn and better yourself, and draw a hard line about how far you are willing to go in compromising your morals in the quest for success.

Summary in a Sentence

Drawing on a vast array of historical stories, Ego is the Enemy sets out to prove that true success comes from mastering one’s ego.

Crucial Quotes

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Leaders Eat Last

Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t

by Simon Sinek

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About

The main message of Leaders Eat Last is simple — the buck stops at the leader’s desk. In other words, those of us that lead may not always understand the impact that our leadership roles actually have on those we lead. The depth and breadth of leadership cascades down from the executive board to management, which in turn cascades down to the soldiers that march in and out of the battlefield of the organization on a daily basis shaping the culture of the environment… which comes full circle back up to the one that leads, as a direct reflection of his or her leadership.

Here’s what you’ll learn about in this book summary:

• The key to inspiring those you lead to want to come to work.

• The Dos and Don’ts of effective leadership.

• How to create an environment of trust and safety within your organization.

• And much, much more…

Summary in a Sentence

Empathy and trust are the keys to leadership—show it to those you lead, and it will be reciprocated.

BIG IDEAS

1. RECOGNIZE THE HUMAN NEED FOR SAFETY

2. CULTIVATE YOUR CIRCLE OF SAFETY

3. EMPATHIZE

4. GET TO KNOW YOUR “HAPPY CHEMICALS”

5. MANAGE THE CORTISOL, MANAGE THE STRESS

6. IDENTIFY + ELIMINATE ABSTRACTION

7. IT AIN’T ABOUT THE MOOLAH

8. PASS ON THE POWER TRIPS

9. DO NOT PLAY THE BLAME GAME

10. BECOME A LONG-TERM LEADER

1. RECOGNIZE THE HUMAN NEED FOR SAFETY

“If certain conditions are met and the people inside an organization feel safe among each other, they will work together to achieve things none of them could have ever achieved alone. The result is that their organization towers over their competitors.”

— Simon Sinek

Provide cover from above

Simon kicks off part one with a story about a US soldier named “Johnny Bravo” who courageously risks his life, day in and day out, for his fellow comrades. When asked why he would sacrifice his life in the line of battle for other people, he answered: “Because they would have done it for me.” Point being: “I look out for others because I value other people —whether they’re in my ‘inner circle’ or not— like I value myself and those I’m closest to.” The role of leadership is to provide cover from above.

Put people first, profit second.

It’s important that we value people over profit, and not the other way around. When this is done, it helps people feel valued and trusted. When people trust each other, all sorts of great things happen… things like “Synergy” — the term originally popularized by the late great Dr. Stephen Covey in his classic book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Synergy occurs when people create something greater when they’re together than they could’ve ever created on a solo basis. Synergy only occurs when trusted collaboration is in place.

Actionable insights

• Put people before profit.

2. CULTIVATE YOUR CIRCLE OF SAFETY

“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. It’s the same reason we lock our doors at night.”

— Simon Sinek

Sinek’s Circle of Safety tells us that we should focus on helping each other rather than “one-upping” each other to make management happy. It also tells us that when we know + trust that the people inside the Circle of Safety will look out for us and protect us from the dangers of the outside, we’re more likely to freely exchange information and ideas that will move the organization forward vs keeping things to ourselves because we’re afraid someone might “steal” our idea.

So, what’s amongst one of the biggest habits you can develop in order to cultivate your Circle of Safety?

In a word:

EMPATHY

Empathy is a crucial commodity these days, and we need leaders like Johnny Bravo in our corporations and companies; in our businesses and organizations… To truly lead.

Because when people know that their leaders are providing protection from above, they can work hard on the ground, without being concerned about the dangers of the outside. (Empathy = the ability to recognize or share the feelings of another.)

• Treat your employees with respect and dignity and you’ll see the benefits (as results) in every dimension of your life and business.

• A core tenet of workplace management, human relations, leadership, and basically everything else in life, is that when we feel hopeless and devastated (like many of us do with our work situation) about some area of life, and we feel like we have no control, then the result is rarely positive (at least until we overcome it).

AUTONOMY MATTERS

Lack of control at work = stress + emotional strain. One in three employees considered leaving their jobs in 2010-2011 (according to reports from consultancy firm Mercer, LLC). This tells us two things:

1. That there are A LOT of people that want to quit their jobs, and/or

2. People feel like they’ve got no other option but to stay put (due to money, family, and insecurities about being unable to find other work)

ENVIRONMENT IS EVERYTHING

• When the environment at work is one of encouragement, and one that meets the basic human needs to live, to learn, to feel valued and significant, we do more than just survive — we thrive. We soar higher than expected. It’s the leadership’s responsibility to set up the right conditions/environment for this to happen. We do not have the power to “change people”. We must enhance the environment. “Change”—whether good or bad—is the result of environment. And if we want to see “change,” we need to focus less on ourselves and more on others/“the team”/organization/etc…

Actionable insights

• Remind yourself consistently to exercise your empathy muscles.

3. EMPATHIZE

“Exceptional organizations all have cultures in which the leaders provide cover from above and the people on the ground look out for each other. This is the reason they are willing to push hard and take the kinds of risks they do. And the way any organization can achieve this is with empathy.”

Empathy is a crucial commodity these days, and we need leaders like Johnny Bravo in our corporations and companies; in our businesses and organizations… To truly lead. Because when people know that their leaders are providing protection from above, they can work hard on the ground, without being concerned about the dangers of the outside. (Empathy = the ability to recognize or share the feelings of another.)

A core tenet of workplace management, human relations, leadership, and basically everything else in life, is that when we feel hopeless and devastated (like many of us do with our work situation) about some area of life, and we feel like we have no control, then the result is rarely positive (at least until we overcome it).

Lack of control at work = stress + emotional strain. One in three employees considered leaving their jobs in 2010-2011 (according to reports from consultancy firm Mercer, LLC). This tells us two things:

1) that there are A LOT of people that want to quit their jobs, and/or

2) people feel like they’ve got no other option but to stay put (due to money, family, and insecurities about being unable to find other work)

When the environment at work is one of encouragement, and one that meets the basic human needs to live, to learn, to feel valued and significant, we do more than just survive — we thrive. We soar higher than expected.

It’s the leadership’s responsibility to set up the right conditions/environment for this to happen. We do not have the power to “change people”. We must enhance the environment. “Change” —whether good or bad — is the result of environment. And if we want to see “change” — we need to focus less on ourselves and more on others/“the team”/organization/etc…

Peter Drucker once said:

“The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say ‘I’. And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say ’I’. They don’t think ‘I’, They think ‘we’… They think ’team’. They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but ’we’ gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.”

We believe Drucker’s statement encapsulates the central point that Simon tries to drive home with the Circle of Safety idea that this book is based around.

Actionable insights

• Treat employees with respect and dignity and you’ll see the benefits (as results) in every dimension of your life… including business!

• Work daily on making sure you contribute + cultivate an attitude that embodies “WE” before “ME” within your organization, team, business, etc.

4. GET TO KNOW YOUR HAPPY CHEMICALS

“Some believe we should always put others first—that if we don’t look out for the group, the group won’t look out for us. Others believe we should always put ourselves first and that if we don’t take care of ourselves first, then we would be of no use to anyone else. The fact is, both are true.” – Simon Sinek

Based on the quote above, Simon sets the stage for an all-out analysis on why we do what we do. And with his background in biology + anthropology, he starts explaining what makes us tick through the four chemicals in our bodies.

80% of the book is based around these four chemicals and how they drive those of us in leadership roles.

Get to know the four “happy” chemicals in your brain + body

• Endorphin: the pain-masking chemical

• Dopamine: the goal-achieving chemical

• Serotonin: the leadership chemical

• Oxytocin: the chemical of love

We have four chemicals in our bodies that work towards driving our behavior.

Simon calls the first two “Selfish” and the second two “Selfless.”

• “Selfish” chemicals: Endorphins and Dopamine. These work to help us get things done.

• “Selfless” chemicals: Serotonin and Oxytocin. These work to help strengthen our social bonds, fostering connection and collaboration.

Endorphins + dopamine

Endorphins + Dopamine are the chemicals of progress, as they make us feel good when we achieve goals and accomplish various things. So what’s the problem? Most leaders operate with fear-based tactics like the old “command + control” model of management — which has not only been proven NOT to work, but has also been shown to spike our egos and get dopamine surging through our bodies. This often makes US feel good at the expense of others. And that’s bad. Really bad. It’s so bad that it usually bites us in the butt… What’s worse, Endorphins + Dopamine are highly addictive.

ENDORPHIN (The runner’s high)

Ever hear of a “runner’s high”? That’s just endorphin surging through your body. It’s there to mask the pain we’re putting our bodies through when we beat up our muscles in the gym, or run for long periods of time. Endorphin was useful back in the Paleolithic era when hunters would go all day long in the grueling heat or freezing cold, hunting for food… Endorphin would kick in at just the right time to mask the pain and make us feel good enough to get our bodies to keep moving, and eventually, to capture the prey… It’s likely that hunter-gatherers became addicted to hunting, much like some of us become addicted to weight-lifting.

DOPAMINE (The goal-achieving chemical)

Dopamine is “the dangerous” chemical — but only when abused. Cocaine, nicotine, and alcohol all send dopamine surging through your system... The reason we get addicted to this stuff is that it provides near-instant gratification/pleasure — which, again, is just dopamine making you feel good.

You know what else sends dopamine surging through your system? A sense of completion. (That extra burst of feel-good vibes that arise when we’re approaching the finish line).

Achieving Goals. Completing Tasks. Getting things done…

The gratification of crossing off that jar of almond butter on your grocery list.

That awesome feeling you get when you click that little box and see the check-sign show up on your favorite productivity app.

Dopamine is that compelling force that makes you feel like you absolutely NEED to reply to that little buzz, bing, or flash coming from your phone, notifying you of that text you just got from Lucy … and regardless of how many miles over the speed limit you might be driving in — by golly you’ll nudge your thumb towards that little green icon marked ‘messages’ and reply to that text you just got from Lucy, regardless of how much of a drunk it makes you look like on the road because you just feel uneasy if you don’t. This reaction is the result of your good friend dopamine surging through your body in anticipation of achieving some task; which, in this case, happens to be reading and replying to that text… even if you have to put yourself at risk of getting into an accident to do it.

Dopamine isn’t always rational.

Dopamine was put into place by Mother Nature to incentivize us to move forward with what we’ve committed ourselves to doing by giving us little bursts or “hits” of the dopamine chemical whenever we take a small step towards achieving a desired outcome of some sort.

The problem though is that even the “good” things about dopamine can get addictive.

For example, consider your to-do list…

Do you add obviously easy tasks to the list just to make it seem like you’re getting stuff done?

Imagine you’re at the grocery store with a list of items to get, and as you’re strolling down the aisles picking up your goodies, you see almond butter on the shelf and remember that you’d actually forgotten to add it to your grocery list. No problem. You grab it and put it in your basket—and then you write ‘almond butter’ down on your grocery list and immediately cross it out.

If you can relate to doing something like this, you’re not alone. And the reason it’s common is because we tend to become addicted to the short burst of dopamine that results from checking tasks off our lists—regardless of whether it actually makes any logical sense to do so… that’s dopamine.

Serotonin + oxytocin

Serotonin + Oxytocin are the chemicals of contribution, trust + belonging. When we include these two chemicals in our 4-way cocktail, the result is a healthy (and necessary) synergy that results in more cooperation and more collaboration… but those are just poo-poo office words to some people. “What about the tangibles”, they say. Well, if you’re looking for measurable results and “tangibles” that show up in the “numbers” — you’ve got to STEP AWAY from the spreadsheets and the computer screen; you’ve got to get out of the board room, you’ve got to do more than blast off a memo here and a memo there — you’ve got to show em’ that you care and show em’ that you’re there. You’ve got to be there not as a cheerleader for the good times, but as a leader that gives a damn – regardless of the peaks and valleys of the economy.

How do we put these chemicals to use?

Sinek tells a great story about a company named Barry-Wehmiller, and their losing battle against a series of economic blows that sent the company tumbling into a financial crisis they just couldn’t shake.

Although they were advised to begin instituting massive layoffs to keep their business above ground and help them weather the economic storm – they kept pushing back and refusing to sacrifice their employees in hopes that they could come up with something – anything – that could help them survive this financial hardship and continue to provide the members of Barry-Wehmiler with the job-security they deserved.

Unfortunately enough, the day eventually came when they were left with no other choice but to start laying people off.

Until someone came up with a better idea…

Side note: did you notice how lay-offs were an absolute last resort with this particular company, as opposed to a quick-fix resolution that CEOs of today jump at without a flinch or hint of hesitation?

The CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, Bob Chapman, decided that he wouldn’t be going down the same road most of his peers – both past and present – usually tend to go down when faced with similar situations, which is a massive onslaught of layoffs in the name of “balancing the books“… This particular CEO however, cared about his people and he decided to demonstrate that by coming up with an idea that would avoid layoffs — and even bring the organization closer together in the process.

Want to know what he did? He instituted a ‘furlough’. This means that every employee (CEO included) was required to take four unpaid weeks off from work per year in order to balance the inevitable financial blows that threaten the survival of any thriving business or company. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? Everyone takes four weeks of unpaid vacation time and the company becomes stable again. Boom.

After reading about this furlough idea, we couldn’t help but think, “Wow. Duh. Why haven’t more of us thought of that idea?”

And then we realized why it’s so important for leaders at every level to read this book — Leaders Eat Last is more than just a catchy title filled with inspiring stories — it’s a testament to the few true leaders in the business world today, and a blueprint filled with example after example of how these principles of conscious, caring leadership can be cultivated and applied in the modern businesses of today.

Because of leaders like Bob Chapman, who refused to let his people go when his company hit hard times, the people in the company came together as a unified team to see to it that the organization would make it through the tough times and prosper once again.

And it all began with one person: the leader.

• As a leader, it’s important to understand that the buck stops at your desk. That said, it’s crucial to ensure you foster an environment like the example we just went over, so that those you lead feel safe, secure, and inspired at work.

• If you’re the decision-maker: when it comes to lay-offs, remind yourself that it doesn’t have to be the only option if your organization is in a financial bind. There are other options. There are always other options. Reserve lay-offs as THE FINAL option—NOT the first.

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5. MANAGE THE CORTISOL, MANAGE THE STRESS

When we’re under extreme pressure—whether at home or at work—our bodies blast off a chemical known as Cortisol… and this is our worst enemy.

Cortisol is a good thing in VERY small doses, but in today’s high-demand workplace environment where the shareholders are putting pressure on the executives and the executives are putting pressure on the managers and the managers are putting still more pressure on the soldiers that make the whole place tick in the first place—you’re looking at a disaster.

And you wanna know the sad part? A huge chunk of the American workforce (over 50%) is subjected to this type of cortisol-inducing management.

This results in worker dis-engagement, stress, emotional instability, lack of performance, heart-problems - the list goes on and on. But the real question here is this: so how do we deal? Well, for starters, we can STOP complaining and commanding and controlling people and START working together. One of the most effective ways to combat stress is to find a way to collaborate and connect with someone else.

How to keep the evil cortisol at bay (as much as possible)

A great example of this is when the author tells the story of two opposing politicians who barely knew each other, that is, until they were placed in an environment (one of those typical “collaboration” conferences/summits) that was conducive to their mutual capability to connect without feeling like they’ve got to keep their guard up to block any political punches from the other side. The result? Well, once they got back to DC after the summit, they continued the bond they would’ve never formed if they’d never attended the event that brought them together. They ended up working together on a number of successful bills and pieces of legislation. Though they didn’t have to agree (obviously), they were able to draw mutually beneficial agreements for their respective parties. Cool stuff eh?

So, what can YOU do to instill this type of stress reducing, cortisol eradicating, good-vibe inducing environment in your own place of employment?

Actionable insights

• More face time (no, not on your iPhone). Strive to have as many face-to-face interactions as possible.

• Back away from your email client. Walk down the hallway and have a face-to-face no-strings-attached conversation with your team. Understandably, this isn’t something you can do all the time, but the bonds that form when you stop by a team-member’s desk just to say hello—well, now you know it means a lot.

• Drop the Command and Control style of leadership. People resent it when we try to control them.

6. IDENTIFY + ELIMINATE ABSTRACTION.

“Cooperation and mutual aid work better than competition and rugged individualism.”

Treat people like people—not like statistics. When people are represented as numbers and percentages on a spreadsheet, it gets a heck of a lot easier to lay-off 4,000 employees. GET FACE-TO-FACE. Don’t let growth stifle your ability to lead. Get to know your people. Doing this prevents us from treating them like metrics.

Distance leads to abstraction… which in turn can lead to aberrant behavior. We have a tendency to do things at a distance that we normally wouldn’t do in a face to face interaction. Consider this: people tend to be quick to flip you off while they’re driving on the highway, because to them, you’re just another driver on the road that got in their way… do you think they’d do that if you stepped on their shoe by mistake while you were both waiting in line at the bank? Probably not. That said, what makes us think we’d act any other way when we decide to lay people off during a “business review”?

Actionable insights

• Use the magic number: 150. A key study by professor Robert Dunbar from Oxford, as cited in the book, asserts that peeps work best in groups that cap out at around 150 people. Any more than that, and it gets hard for us to remember each other, build rapport, and form the bonds of trust that we need to form in order to be effective as groups, organizations, and/or businesses. If you have thousands of people working with you in your business/organization, chunk those thousands down into groups of 100-150. Same protocol for all teams/groups: cap em’ off at 150.

• Empower your management. Leaders can manage at scale by empowering management to STOP managing by control and START taking on the role of leadership. This means they’ve got to start taking responsibility for—and developing trust amongst—the teams of people they lead.

• Show people that they matter. When people donate to companies like charity: water (charitywater.org) — an organization that brings clean water to people in need — they send supporters a photo of the well their money is helping pay for. Cool, eh? As human beings, we love this type of thing. Why? Because when people can SEE what type of difference they’re making, they’re likely to do and contribute more. We’re cooperative by nature. It’s in our biology.

7. IT AIN’T ABOUT THE MOOLAH

“Money is an abstraction of tangible resources or human effort. It is a promissory note for future goods or services. Unlike the time and effort that people spend on something, it is what money represents that gives it its value. And as an abstraction, it has no “real” value to our primitive brains, which judge the real value of food and shelter or the behavior of others against the level of protection or safety they can offer us. Someone who gives us a lot of money, as our brains would interpret their behavior, is not necessarily as valuable to our protection as someone willing to commit their time and energy to us.”

— Simon Sinek

If someone told you that they donated $1,000 to a charity last weekend — you’d probably think to yourself, “Great, yah want a cookie?”

But if someone mentions they volunteered a few hours of their time at a homeless shelter last weekend — you’d probably think to yourself, “Hey, that’s really nice, maybe I should do more.”

Actionable insights

• As leaders, we must volunteer our time and energy into showing those we lead how much we care. Setting goals and measuring results is great, but before we pay out those bonuses, it’s just as important that we couple those dopamine-based drivers with our own time and energy.

8. PASS ON THE POWER TRIPS

“I can’t delegate my legal responsibilities, I can’t delegate my relationships and I can’t delegate my knowledge. Everything else, however, I can ask others to take responsibility for.”

— Captain Marquet

Simon tells a story about the Captain quoted above and the leadership lessons he learned as he underwent a transition from the “command and control” style of leadership to a more sustainable style of leadership that involved everyone within his scope influence.

“What is so remarkable about these three responsibilities” Sinek says, referring to the captain’s quote, “is that though they cannot be handed off, they can all be shared. And that’s what the best leaders do.”

Interested in taking a deeper look at how Captain Marquet transformed his leadership style from “command and control” to “inspire and empower”?

FlashBooks founder Dean Bokhari breaks it all down in this video:

Club 12 with Dean Bokhari

Inspire others to lead

Welcome to the fourth and final installment of Lead Like You Give a Damn, a Club 12 series on becoming an effective leader both in your professional life as well as in your personal life…

Listen now

13 days ago · 13 likes · Dean Bokhari

Actionable insights

• As leaders, we don’t concern ourselves with hoarding what we know; we share it. We don’t concern ourselves with taking the spotlight; we share it. We don’t waste our time pretending like we know it all; we ask someone who does. And when we’re rewarded for what we’ve done, we do not take the lion’s share and throw a bone to our subordinates… we share it.

9. DO NOT PLAY THE BLAME GAME

“Some current members [of Congress] blame “the system” or the speed with which news is able to spread in a wired world for their struggles and low approval ratings. However, they ignore the fact that they are the system and the internet doesn’t do them harm; it simply reports on the harm they do.”

— Simon Sinek

Leaders of any organization are just as responsible for taking accountability as the members of Congress are — for profit or non-profit — it doesn’t matter.

By now, it’s obvious that taking on the role of leadership means a heck of a lot more than wearing a shiny little badge.

The organization you lead is a DIRECT reflection of your capabilities as its leader.

Actionable insights

• Lets not play the blame game with one another—let’s start taking accountability instead. Lets not point fingers anymore. Lets take charge and begin to hold one another responsible for the results of what we do. Progress rarely comes about when we say things like “it wasn’t me, it was them or him or her or X’s fault”.

• The only thing that results from playing the blame game is collapse... Sometimes it’s slow and steady, other times it happens over night, but when people don’t take responsibility, the organization’s credibility goes straight out of the window along with everything else they stand for.

10. BECOME A LONG-TERM LEADER

“Good leadership is like exercise. We do not see any improvement to our bodies with day-to-day comparisons. In fact, if we only compare the way our bodies look on a given day to how they looked the previous day, we would think our efforts had been wasted. It’s only when we compare pictures of ourselves over a period of weeks or months that we can see a stark difference. The impact of leadership is best judged over time.”

— Simon Sinek

We love that little nugget of wisdom. Leading for the long-term is a win-win-win for everyone because short-term fixes, though they may seem like the best decisions at the time, are nothing more than shortsighted means of immediate gratification.

And when so many CEOs only hold their positions for no more than a few years, they base their decisions on their OWN best interest for their OWN short tenure as leader of the organization.

In other words, when Mr. Joe the CEO leaves his position after only three years — he’s more concerned about short-term gain at the cost of the company’s long-term health and prosperity. It’s selfish.

Sinek solidifies his argument that leading for the long-term is better than leading for the short-term by comparing two such leaders of two large organizations — both of which you’ve probably heard of:

• The short-term leader: Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric

• The long-term leader: Jim Sinegal, former CEO of Costco

Sinek compares GE vs Costco by measuring profits via the rise and fall of their stocks and then connecting those ebbs and flows to the decisions made by each respective leader.

Here’s what he found:

GE / Jack Welch / Short-term leadership:

• Profits at GE were like a roller coaster ride due to irrational decision-making without regard for long-term implications

• Every year Jack would fire the bottom 10% of his managers at GE to balance the books

• GE did indeed make profits, but it was more like rolling the dice and gambling with the lives of employees for selfish gain — this is not a strategy, this is a man high on dopamine

Costco / Jim Sinegal / Long-term leadership:

• While Welch was striking fear into the hearts of his managers, Jim Sinegal was concerned about giving his employees a raise — at a time when the US was in an economic crisis… Sinegal would say that they should be helping the employees in bad times, not letting them go.

• Costco’s stock was (and still is) stable and predictable — nothing exciting about it, just great, clean, predictable progress, performance, and profit… when you’re the 2nd largest retailer in the country, predictability is better than spontaneity.

Actionable insights

• Judge leaders not on what they do while they’re leading, judge leaders based on what happens AFTER they leave.

• Recognize, as Costco does, that your employees are like family. Treat them accordingly.

• Lead with the best interest of the organization and its people, first and foremost, by cultivating a strong Circle of Safety through empathy + trust.

Closing notes

Simon Sinek hits another home run with Leaders Eat Last. The ultimate storyteller, his books do an excellent job at echoing the message he delivers in his speaking engagements.

And with Leaders Eat Last, the message is simple: the buck stops at the leader’s desk. In other words, those of us who lead may not always understand the impact our leadership roles actually have. The depth and breadth of leadership cascades down from the executive board to management, which in turn cascades down to the soldiers that march in and out of the battlefield of the organization on a daily basis, shaping the culture of the environment—which comes full circle back up to the one that leads, as a direct reflection of his or her leadership.

It’s worth noting that Sinek used almost every major financial institution as an example of corruption (Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, Citi Group, etc). Sinek also dives into example after example of how major corporations, like Goldman Sachs, lost touch with what originally served as the foundation of their success. This happens when the leadership sets up an environment that is the very opposite of the Circle of Safety, pitting employees against one another, which in turn sets up a scarcity-based “me-first” mentality that places priority on profits before people. Bad.

But it wasn’t all negative. In fact, almost every example of bad leadership was contrasted with an example of leadership one can aspire to strive towards becoming. Organizations like NextJump, 3M, and the US Marines were applauded as extraordinary examples of cooperation, collaboration, and creativity. And they weren’t just canned stories either. Many of them were stories of leaders (with and without formal authority) who exemplified the character traits, values, and ethics that many so-called leaders of today could learn a thing or two from.

Though there weren’t any new principles introduced in this book—the traditional leadership theories of yesterday were updated with examples and stories that illustrate the reality of workplace conditions today. And most of the principles were delivered with near-flawless impact. The Circle of Safety is very similar to Stephen Covey’s ideas, who, as Sinek mentions in the acknowledgments of his first book, Start With Why, influenced him quite a bit… BUT, if you look at who originally influenced much of Dr. Covey’s work, you’ll find that a great deal of it originates from books written by Peter Drucker. And if you look into who influenced Peter Drucker (which we haven’t), you may find that many of his ideas came about as a result of someone else’s influence.

The bottom line is, that very few ideas are actually new, but the way in which they’re actually presented is often worth reframing for the times. That said, Sinek has done a stand-up job at crafting stories based on real-life studies and situations that drive his points into the heads and hearts of the reader; they certainly did for us.

Thanks for reading!
— Team FlashBooks

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