Simon Sinek explains how humans evolved in tribes of about 150, creating hierarchies to allocate resources and safety. Real leaders earn perks by protecting their group, not by sacrificing others for personal gain. When they do, they break the social contract that defines leadership.
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Most of the time that we've lived on this planet Earth, our species, we lived in tribes that were rarely bigger than about 150 people. It's only about 10 or 12,000 years ago when we started farming, that we could maintain larger populations than about 150. But for tens of thousands of years, it was only about 150. And there's inherent challenges and values in. In living in groups. First of all, we can look after each other, right? This is why no human being is good by themselves. We want to be in a tribe, we want to be on a team, because together we're really, really strong. But individually, we're junk. We can't solve complex problems and lift heavy weights by ourselves. But in teams, in groups, we're amazing. But there's still some problems. So go back. Historically, we're living in these austere times. Food and resources are know are difficult to come by.
The hunters go out, the gatherers go out, and they bring some food back to the tribe. We're all hungry. We all rush in to eat. If you're lucky enough to be built like a linebacker, you can shove your way to the front of the line. But if you're the artist of the family, you get an elbow in the face. This is a bad system because you punched me in the face this afternoon. Odds are I'm not going to wake you and alert you to danger tonight.
Bad system. And so we evolved into hierarchical animals. We're constantly assessing and judging who's alpha, who's more senior in the social or the formal hierarchy. So in an organization, whether it's in a company or in the military, we have a rank structure. So I immediately know who I show deference to. I immediately know where I sit in the pecking order. Right? But we do it all the time. Sometimes it's based on our appearances, sometimes it's based on our intelligence or our strength. It depends on the culture you come from. If you're a wrestler, how strong you are, if you're a scientist, how smart you are. Right? But we're constantly assessing and judging each other. And when we assess that someone is alpha to us, we voluntarily step back and offer them preferential treatment. Right? We do it all the time. It's like if Steven Spielberg were to walk in the door, you would hold the doors open for Steven Spielberg. And then you'd go home and be like, I held the door open for Steven Spielberg. You wouldn't advertise holding the door open for anybody else. You know, if you're senior and you leave your coat in the other room, someone will go get your coat for you. If you're junior, you get your own coat.
There are certain perks to being higher in the hierarchy, which is why we all want to move up. So anyway, we assess that someone's Alpha to us and we voluntarily step back and allow our alphas to eat first. Our alphas get first choice of meat and first choice of mate. Though I may not get to eat first.
I get guaranteed food and I don't get an elbow in the face. Good system. However.
The group is not stupid. The group doesn't give all of those perks to our alphas for free. There's a deep seated social contract. There's an expectation that when danger threatens the tribe, it's the person who's actually stronger, actually smarter, actually better fed, who's going to rush towards the danger to protect us. We're not stupid. This is why we take care of our alphas, because our alphas have a responsibility to take care of us. And this is the responsibility of leadership. And this is where we, not a single person has a problem with our alphas getting preferential treatment. 0. No one is morally offended by the idea that somebody more senior in the pecking order gets a higher salary. No one is offended by that. Right. You may think they're an idiot, but we're not offended by the fact that they're given certain perks because of their position. However, what offends us is if they're willing to sacrifice us to protect their perks. Right? We're not offended by a CEO who gets a huge salary. What offends us is a CEO who's willing to have mass layoffs to protect their bonus. That's what offends us. Because like I said, the responsibility of leaders is to protect their people. And if you protect, protect us and we feel safe, then we're totally okay with you getting all those perks. But it's a balanced equation. And so this is the anthropology of leaders. We are a hierarchical species. There's no avoiding it, but there's a responsibility in that hierarchy.
