The following contains excerpts from the book, Leaders Eat Last (Simon Sinek).
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we believe that music is, in essence, relationships. You can’t deal with the subject of relationships without understanding the concurrent subject of leadership. Learning to be service-oriented in leadership is of the greatest importance in leading effectively.
We hope to inspire students in our music school in Odessa, Texas, to serve their community in ways that make a profound difference.
“Leaders are the ones who run headfirst into the unknown. They rush toward the danger. They put their own interest aside to protect us or to pull us into the future. Leaders would sooner sacrifice what is theirs to save what is ours. And they would never sacrifice what is ours to save what is theirs. This is what it means to be a leader. It means they choose to go first into danger, headfirst toward the unknown. And when we feel sure they will keep us safe, we will march behind them and work tirelessly to see their visions come to life and proudly call ourselves their followers.”
“It is the leaders who decide what kind of environment they want to build. Will they build an inner circle around those closest to them or will they extend the Circle of Safety to the outer edges of the organization?”
“The tyrant sees the world against them, which only compels them to shut out even more people. They set up more and more rigid controls around their inner circle. And as their isolation increases, the organization suffers.”
Captain Marquet was the captain of a nuclear-powered submarine. When he asked his subordinate to give the command to run the vessel ahead two-thirds and the subordinate relayed the command even when there was no two-thirds setting, it taught the captain a valuable lesson.
“‘Those at the top,’ explains Captain Marquet, ‘have all the authority and none of the information. Those at the bottom,’ he continues, ‘have all the information and none of the authority. Not until those without information relinquish their control can an organization run better, smoother and faster and reach its maximum potential.’”
“Captain Marquet came to understand that the role of the leader is not to bark commands and be completely accountable for the success or failure of the mission. It is a leaders’ job instead to take responsibility for the success of each member of his crew. It is the leaders’ job to ensure that they are well trained and feel confident to perform their duties. To give them responsibility and hold them accountable to advance the mission. If the captain provides direction and protection, the crew will do what needs to be done to advance the mission.”
Marquet said, “‘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.’”
One of our goals at our music school in Odessa, Texas is to help students learn how to teach themselves. We endeavor to train them in core competencies that will enable them to eventually become autonomous in their own artistic pursuits.
“And that’s what the best leaders do. They share what they know, ask knowledgeable people for help performing their duties and make introductions to create new relationships within their networks. Poor leaders hoard these things, falsely believing it is their intelligence, rank or relationships that make them valuable. It is not.
Marquet continues, “‘The goal of a leader is to give no orders…Leaders are to provide direction and intent and allow others to figure out what to do and how to get there…We train people to comply , not to think…If people only comply, we can’t expect people to take responsibility for their actions. The chain of command is for orders, not information. Responsibility is not doing as we are told, that’s obedience. Responsibility is doing what is right.”
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we value each student in their uniqueness, and give them the tools they need in order understand what to do based upon knowledge, not just by imitation.
The Sant Fe, Captain Marquet’s submarine, “once the lowest rated in the entire U.S. submarine fleet, became the best-rated crew in Navy history.”
“The more energy is transferred from the top of the organization to those who are actually doing the job, those who know more about what’s going on a daily basis, the more powerful the organization and the more powerful the leader.”
“To be a true leader, to engender deep trust and loyalty, starts with telling the truth…Integrity is when our words and deeds are consistent with our intentions. A lack of integrity is at best hypocrisy and at worst lying. The most common display of a lack of integrity in the business world is when a leader of an organization says what others want to hear and not the truth.”
We value truth and honesty at our music school in Odessa, Texas. Being honest with the student regarding their potential and core giftedness is the best place to start before embarking upon the journey of developing their artistic success.
“How you do anything is how you do everything.”
“A leader’s legacy is only as strong as the foundation they leave behind that allows others to continue to advance the organization in their name. Legacy is not the memory of better times when the old leader was there. That’s not legacy, that’s nostalgia.”
“Teams led by a directive leader initially outperform those led by an empowering leader. However, despite lower early performance, teams led by an empowering leader experience higher performance improvement over time because of higher levels of team-learning, coordination, empowerment and mental model development.”
The author compares the leadership models of GE versus Costco. Costco eventually outperformed GE’s leadership model. “When people feel good about working at the company, they will work harder for the company…in that order. Costco has succeeded because it recognizes employees are like family, not in spite of this fact.”
“Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.”
“It is a given that profit is the goal of any business, but to suggest it is the primary responsibility of a business is misguided.”
“In healthy organizations, as in a healthy society, the drive to win should not precede the desire to take care of the very people we claim to serve.”
The most important focus we have at our music school in Odessa, Texas is the student. We want the student’s internal journey of artistic growth and musical development to be so enriching and rewarding that they can’t help but give it to others. It is in this transfer of energy, from teacher to student to the community, that cultural transformation can happen.
“The Boomer generation, the very generation who through the 1980s and 1990s worked to reinvent business to suit the times, dismantled many of the protections we had in the name of individual advancement and corporate profitability.”
“There appear to be three dominant factors that impacted, and continue to impact, Millennials most significantly as they grew up: over-parenting, ubiquitous technology and greater opportunities for instant gratification.”
“Millennials have grown up, and…the youngest generation is now growing up, in a world that seems dead-set on denying them the opportunity to build…deep, meaningful relationships…The desire for instant gratification allows no time for relationships to develop.”
“The evidence is strong that a healthy release of oxytocin, through acts of service, sacrifice and selflessness on behalf of others, might actually reduce the possibility of a corporate culture becoming toxic in the first place.”
“The more oxytocin there is, the stronger the bonds of trust will be, the greater the risks people will take to do the right thing, the more they will look out for each other and the better the group will ultimately perform. A Circle of Safely is kept strong by those who live and work within it.”
“Leadership, true leadership, is not the bastion of those who sit at the top. It is the responsibility of anyone who belongs to the group. Though those with formal rank may have authority to work at greater scale, each of us has a responsibility to keep the Circle of Safety strong. We must all start today to do little things for the good of others…one day at a time…Let us all be the leaders we wish we had.”