What It Takes To Be a Great Leader | Simon Sinek

These questions come up a lot, you know, and you, and you. So there's articles written about this, like what are the three most important characteristics of a leader? Vision, charisma, you know, and I've met some wonderful, fantastic leaders who are not big Steve Jobs visionaries. Sure. You know, and I've met some amazing leaders who don't seem to have sort of that bounce off the wall charisma, you know, they sort of the quiet one sitting in the corner. I am comfortable saying, however, that great leaders, the best leaders I've ever met, they will have courage. Leadership is extremely difficult. Sometimes it's thankless, it's lonely. When things go right, you have to give away the credit. When things go wrong, you have to take all the responsibility. Well, that sucks.

And it's sometimes the gains are sometimes not immediate. And it takes tremendous amount of courage to lead. What's more, you know, we talk about integrity. I think integrity takes courage, you know, to speak truth to power, to do the right thing in the face of overwhelming pressure, to do the opposite. All of these things take courage. Which I think begs the question then, where does courage come from?

I don't believe that courage is an internal fortitude where you dig down deep and find the courage. I think courage is external. It's like, you know, a world famous trapeze artist has the courage to try a brand new death defying act for the first time with a net. They wouldn't try it without the net. It's the net that gave them the courage. And I think so too. Is it for human beings that the quality of our relationships give us courage? You talk to folks in uniform who do heroic things, they'll never say it was for God or country, it was for the person to the left or the person to the right. It was the quality of the relationships. And so for us to build courage, what we have to do is invest in relationships. Because when you're facing a very difficult situation, an ethical challenge or work, talent, whatever it is, all we need is one person in our lives who says, I've got your back, I believe in you. You have to do this. It's the right thing to do. And if everything goes sideways, don't worry, I'll be there with you. I mean, even just talking about it, you feel like you have renewed energy. And so if you have one person in your life who can provide that for you at work or at home, you'll be amazed the amount of courage you have to do the right thing and to lead.