Simon Sinek explains how workplace social hierarchies assign privileges to "alphas" (better offices, pay, parking) and how those perks are justified by an implicit social contract: leaders are expected to protect and prioritize the group in danger. Outrage and loss of trust occur when leaders put themselves first (e.g., keeping pay while laying off staff) because that violates the contract. Sinek emphasizes that leaders earn love and loyalty when people feel seen, heard, understood, and cared for.
Chapters
We have ranked structures in our companies. And so I know who outranks me and I know where I sit in the pecking order. And when someone outranks me, we show deference, right? Like if you're a senior and you left your coat in the other room, someone will go get your coat for you. And if you're a junior and you left your coat in the other room, you get your own coat. That's just how it works, right? And if somebody famous or somebody that you know that is recognizable so it's social status now, you'll hold the door open for them and you'll come home and you'll even be like, I held the door open for Steven Spielberg. You know, like you're going to brag about doing something for someone that they can perfectly well do themselves. Because we like to do things for people who outrank us in the social hierarchy, right?
And so once we assess that someone is alpha to us, we, we show difference. And so we allow our alphas to eat first. Our alphas get first choice of meat and first choice of mate. So I may not get to eat first, but I'm guaranteed a meal. And I don't get a nailbone to face. Good system for cooperation, right?
And this exists today, by the way. If you are senior in the organization, you'll get a better parking space, you'll get a nicer office, you'll get a higher salary. And no one, absolutely zero people are morally offended by those perks. Not a single human being is morally offended by that. Someone who's more senior than you in the organization gets a higher salary. We might think you're an idiot, but we're not morally offended by it, right? But here's the best part. The group is not dumb. We don't give our alphas all these perks for nothing just because you're senior. There's a deep seated social contract that when danger threatens the tribe, the person who's actually stronger, actually smarter, actually better fed, there's an expectation that you're going to rush towards the danger to protect us. That's why we gave you all those perks. They are not free. And so we don't mind that our senior people have more. But when danger threatens the organization, we want to know that you're going to protect us, even sometimes before yourself. And then we will give you our love and our loyalty. Where the social contract breaks down is when the leader puts themselves first. So we've seen this happen many of times when there's scandals in organizations where a leader makes tons of money which we don't mind but when there is a bad economy they announce huge rounds of layoffs and the leader keeps their fat sally or worse. There's no bad economy. We just missed our arbitrary projections that we told the analysts. So we're very profitable just not as profitable as we promised. So you lose your job and that's where the outrage comes from. The outrage comes from the fact that you violated the deep seated social contract. So the reason I say leadership is difficult and the reason I say leadership requires courage is because we all want the perks of leadership. But how many of us are willing to fulfill our responsibility as leaders? And that's an entirely different subject. And where you command love and loyalty is if people feel seen, people feel heard, people feel understood people feel like they matter and that you care about them as a human being and that they don't care they'll give you all the difference in the world.
