Leadership, Passion, Belief and WHY by Simon Sinek

When it comes to inspiring and motivating great business leaders, Simon Sinek is well and truly an authority. He has consulted for some of the world’s most notable businesses, including Microsoft, Pfizer and Disney, and his TED talk: How Great Leaders Inspire Action is the third most popular TED presentation ever.

At a time when the major focus of businesses and employers is on profits, Sinek is urging them to focus on something else – Why. It seems like an abstract, almost cliché focus to have any question to ask, however, business owners and leaders who can answer their own question of Why? are among the most successful and inspiring today.

Although many small business owners may say that profit is their main purpose for having a business, profit is not recognized by Sinek as a valid answer to the question of “Why?”. In Sinek’s eyes, profit is always a result which stems from why a small business exists, why a small business owner gets out of bed every morning and why people should be interested in a small business and what it offers.

Applying the Why to your business

This requires small business owners to be leaders, and not simply just owners. A key difference between a leader and an owner is that others will willingly follow a leader because they want to, and not because they have to or are paid to do so. A major way to getting motivated employees to willingly follow a leader is by inspiring them and giving them reasons to stay motivated beside their paycheck.

As Sinek says, “Unless you give motivated people something to believe in, something bigger than their job to work toward, they will motivate themselves to find a new job and you’ll be stuck with whoever’s left.”

He believes that this belief and loyalty from employees can come from a few different things, but the top two are passion and family. A family may initially sound odd, however, employees often thrive in a work environment where they feel like their colleagues are like a second family.

Passion, on the other hand, is derived directly from the leader/s who work hard doing what they love. “Working hard for something we do not care about is called stress, working hard for something we love is called passion.”

Sound words from a sound mind in the area of business, leadership, and life.