Simon Sinek argues that parenting is the closest analogy to leadership: both require a long-term lifestyle commitment and continuous learning. Leaders, like parents, are responsible for the growth and wellbeing of others and must continually practice skills such as listening, giving and receiving feedback, constructive discipline, relationship-building ("roam the halls"), asking curious questions, and remembering names to create environments where people thrive.
Chapters
How do you create the environment where people are going to thrive and create those results that you're talking about? You're asking me the question, what does it mean to be healthy? You're asking me the question, what does it mean to be a great parent? Like, I don't have five things to be a great parent, right? It's a lifestyle. And it comes, number one with the commitment that I am responsible for the life of another human being, the growth of another human being. The closest thing to leadership is parenting. You have to be an infinite student of parenting. You know, you want to be a parent, you ask your friends, you ask your own parents, you join groups, you read magazines, you watch talks. Whatever it is you're constantly consuming, how to deal with this constantly changing challenge of being a parent. And it's ups and downs and successes and failures. You know, that's what it is. Leadership is the same. Leaders. Great leaders are students of leadership. No matter how achieved they may be, they're still learning. And it's a lifestyle. It's the lifestyle of what I need to do to look after people, which includes things like listening, learning how to give and receive feedback, learning how to have effective confrontations, how to discipline when necessary in a way that's constructive.
Roam the halls, get to know people. Learning what it means to ask somebody questions. How do you ask questions? You know, like, some people are naturally good at being curious about other human beings, and some people are uncomfortable because they're introverts or whatever, socially awkward. But we can learn, you know, how do you learn to remember people's names? Oh, I'm bad at names? No, you've just decided you're bad at names. We can learn to be good at names so that when we walk down the hall and say, hey, Tom. Oh, my God, he remembers my name. It's a nice feeling. It's a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle. There are many, many things we have to do and constantly work on to be a great leader, to create that environment.
