Simon Sinek argues that focusing solely on quarterly results is dangerous and that leaders should treat quarterly numbers as mile markers while prioritizing long-term trends and momentum. He shares a Marine Corps anecdote about the Leadership Reaction Course (LRC) to illustrate that leadership should be evaluated on practicing essential human skills (listening, giving/receiving feedback, holding effective confrontations) rather than single mission outcomes. Emphasis is on teamwork: celebrating successes and solving problems together so people feel part of the solution.
Chapters
Focused on the quarter at the expense of everything is a dangerous game. And a lot of companies play that dangerous game. But focusing on the long term and using the quarters to help you measure speed and distance, it becomes like the mile markers of a marathon, which is you might not meet every mile time, but you're running a good marathon. And so I like to think of quarterly numbers as markers rather than absolutes. And at the end of the day, trend data is what matters most. It's the momentum that. That you're carrying, the trend. We're trending in the right direction. We missed a quarter. Like the IBM example. Don't worry about it. It's one. If you start having quarter after quarter of problems, okay, what can we fix? Clearly, we have a problem. Let's work on it. But you talk about teamwork. We're going to celebrate successes, and we're going to fix problems together. And I think the more people feel like they're a part of the solution, as much as they can be celebrated as a team for the successes.
Is a major way to succeed more often over time. I learned something valuable from the Marine Corps. I went to OCS in Quantico, Virginia, which is where the Marines select their officers. And.
They do something called the LRC, which is the Leadership Reaction Course. It's basically 20 mini obstacle courses. Things like take all your.
Men and materiel over this three planks of wood of different sizes over this pond. Water hazard, they call it.
Within a finite period of time, and they run it twice. They choose a leader when they don't. And I'm standing next to the drill instructor while they're running these exercises. And nowhere on the checklist, on the grading list, does it say if the Marines made it to the other side, if they had mission success.
I know.
Not even a checkbox. Not even a yes, no, right? And I lean over to the drill instructor and said, I. You don't care if they succeed. And the drill instructor said.
We know that sometimes bad leaders achieve mission success and sometimes good leaders suffer mission failure. We only care if they practice the. If they practice good leadership, because good leaders will enjoy success more often over time. I said, well, then, if you're not measuring success, how do you measure if they're good leaders? He said, based on the characteristics of good leaders. And so you touched on it, which is, are you teaching people how to lead? Are you teaching the necessary and essential skills, those human skills that will have a team perform at higher levels more often, that will have individuals perform at higher levels more often? Are you teaching as people make their way through the ranks? Listening skills, how to give and receive feedback.
How to have an effective confrontation that's a big one. Like, what if your boss screws up and you need to give a. You have to have a confrontation up the chain of command. What if you need to give harsh criticism to somebody who works for you? How do you know that they're going to listen to you as opposed to shut you out and curse you in their mind while you're talking to them?
Those are skills. And I've never met a great leader in my entire career. And I've met folks at senior levels who are big egos and all the things, but every single one of them does not think they're an expert in leadership. They all consider themselves students of leadership and they're all obsessed with learning. They read books, they read articles, they watch talks. And if you hang out with them, they talk about leadership. It is an obsession. They are all students and. And we have to create students of leadership in our organizations and then all the numbers take care of themselves.
