The book Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek initially caught my attention because of its title. It immediately sparks different images in your mind, and you start imagining what the author meant by such a title… so it was worth reading to find out.
I read it almost in one go and took more notes than with any other book I’ve read. However, I struggled for a long time to decide what rating to give the book, as well as what I really liked and what still needs further thought. That’s why I’m writing this review three weeks after finishing the book.
The book is about what it means to be a leader and what the right company culture should look like.
Perhaps the only thing that bothered me while reading was the constant reference to the U.S. Navy SEALs. The author claims that everything there is honest and transparent, with true culture and real leaders. On paper, this sounds good, but I know how things often work in the military, regardless of the country. We’ve had scandals, and the U.S. military was involved in Abu Ghraib and other incidents where they just ended up scapegoating people. But again, this was the only issue.
Everything else in the book aligns closely with my understanding of management and leadership. Through various examples, the author shows that culture is key. And not just any culture, but one of openness and support, aimed at ensuring employees are happy above all. Everything else will follow in the long run. On the other hand, if you focus only on numbers, you can solve short-term problems and even get rich. But that’s short-term thinking. You can’t retain a team of like-minded people or build a “family” spirit this way.
The core message is “think about your people first, and then about yourself.” This is exactly what the book’s title conveys. If employees know that you always think about them and will protect them even in tough times, most of them won’t be tempted by higher salaries at competitors. They’ll be willing to tighten their belts when the company faces tough times, rather than fleeing like rats from a sinking ship. Most importantly, they’ll be able to work peacefully and do what they love, without worrying about their own security or their children’s future.
In a culture like this, with such leaders, people will even accept that leaders may have some privileges, like higher salaries, houses, cars, and so on. Because they understand that this is a normal relationship: they protect us, so we work peacefully.
At the same time, the author is very critical (with examples) of the modern capitalist trend where all decisions are reduced to financial numbers and reports. Numbers always overlook people, rarely accounting for the impact of losing individuals (since in statistics, it’s just one person), and you certainly won’t learn anything about morale or job satisfaction from numbers. Numbers are about machines, not people.
I’m not the head of a company, just the head of a department. But if leaders followed the rules described in this book, I think we’d be living in a completely different world. Some companies already apply these approaches, and the rest usually envy their employees.
I highly recommend this book to everyone. Not just managers, but all working people. Because you don’t have to create a culture for an entire company right away. You can always start with yourself and your small team.
My rating: 4.5/5
Selected quotes (quite a few this time):
When the people have to manage dangers from inside the organization, the organization itself becomes less able to face the dangers from outside.
Weak leaders are the ones who only extend the benefits of the Circle of Safety to their fellow senior executives and a chosen few others. They look out for each other, but they do not offer the same considerations to those outside their “inner circle.” Without the protection of our leaders, everyone outside the inner circle is forced to work alone or in small tribes to protect and advance their own interests. And in so doing, silos form, politics entrench, mistakes are covered up instead of exposed, the spread of information slows and unease soon replaces any sense of cooperation and security.
It turns out, even when offered big titles and bigger salaries, people would rather work at a place in which they feel like they belong. People would rather feel safe among their colleagues, have the opportunity to grow and feel a part of something bigger than themselves than work in a place that simply makes them rich.
When we don’t have a sense of belonging, we wear a T-shirt stamped with the company logo to sleep in or while painting the house. When we have a sense of belonging, however, we wear the company schwag in public and with pride.
When we assess how we “feel” about our jobs, we are very often responding to the environments in which we work. It is not just about the work we are doing, per se. And when a culture changes from a place where people love to work into a place where they go to work simply to take something for themselves, the finger gets pointed at the people who run the company. People will respond to the environment in which they operate. 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?
Every single one of us should look at our managers or the leaders of the companies we work for and ask ourselves, “Would I want to be in a foxhole with you?” And the managers and the leaders of companies who rely on our hard work should, in turn, ask themselves, “How strong is our company if the answer is no?”
It is considered an acceptable business practice today to lay off people, often ending their careers, simply to balance the books for the quarter or the year. If careers are to be ended, it should be for negligence or incompetence or as a last resort to save the company. But in our twenty-first-century version of capitalism, the expectation that we are working in meritocracies seems false. In many cases, it doesn’t matter how hard we’ve worked; if the company falls a little short, people will have to be laid off. No hard feelings, it’s just business. Can you imagine getting rid of one of your children because you made less money than you expected last year? Imagine how your kids would feel if that were the plan. Well, that’s how it is in too many companies today.
Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.
[…] quotes to my colleagues. It’s truly an excellent book and in many ways echoes Simon Sinek’s Leaders Eat Last, which I also highly recommend. Meanwhile, my colleagues were already discussing another book by […]