Interview: How Simon Sinek Leads With Strengths
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About the Leader
Simon Sinek
Founder of The Optimist Company
- Ideation®
- Futuristic®
- Strategic®
- Communication®
- Restorative™
Described as "a visionary thinker with a rare intellect," Simon has devoted his professional life to helping advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist -- a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work they do. A trained ethnographer, Simon is fascinated by the people and organizations that make the greatest and longest-lasting impact. Simon may be best known for his TED Talk on the concept of WHY, which has been viewed over 60 million times, and his video on millennials in the workplace -- which reached 80 million views in its first week and has gone on to receive hundreds of millions of views.
Sinek approaches ideas the way he approaches his entire life -- as a student. He believes there's always more to learn and that all ideas evolve over time. He sees "big idea moments" as the culmination of a process of putting smaller ideas together over a longer period of time.
When examining ideas or making sense of the world or his life, Sinek processes verbally, using speech to think. It's just as natural for him to verbalize a thought immediately as it is for him to write about deeply personal elements of his life when exploring ideas in a book.
Always thinking at least one to two years into the future, Sinek delights in establishing ambitious goals, developing attendant subgoals, then working toward their accomplishment. Relying on high-performing partners to determine the myriad details that progress the vision from one subgoal to the next, Sinek relishes contemplating and communicating the final outcome.
Strategy, according to Sinek, is about big-picture thinking situated in the future. Sinek asserts that a widespread misunderstanding of what produces great strategy leads many people to claim they are a skilled strategist when, in fact, they're a great tactician. In contrast, many great strategists readily admit to being a poor tactician.
Sinek is drawn to exceedingly complex problems that require the expertise of many individuals -- problems that, if solved, serve the maximum number of people. In pursuit of answers to these problems, he's willing to admit his ignorance on any topic if doing so unearths new solutions and furthers his mission.