Excellent Speaker - Simon Sinek

This week I had the opportunity to assist a local talent booking agency locate a motivational speaker for a leadership conference being held in Central Florida. After determining all the details I made a list of speakers that I had heard of or had contact with that would be a good fit for the client. I recalled a great presentation I had seen sometime earlier on Ted.com by Simon Sinek about how very successful leaders think and do things completely opposite from the rest of us.

Mr. Sinek has a very calm and compassionate speaking persona that draws the audience directly to his observations. Sinek, a graduate professor of communications at Columbia University and adjunct staff member of the RAND Corporation, has discovered a biologically based concept that drives each of us to make decisions in what he calls, “The Golden Circle.” Sinek describes how effective leaders all have one common trait regardless of what product, service, or message they sell or present. Sinek concludes that the common trait these unique leaders posses is their ability to master the concept that human beings, “don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

Sinek uses some great historical leaders to illustrate his point. Starting with one that would seem pretty obvious is the late Steve Jobs from Apple while others are a little more obscure leaders like the Wright Brothers. We may view the latter as inventors and innovators which of course they certainly were but, perhaps hidden in their glory of invention, the Wright Brothers where able to clearly relate exceptional leadership qualities in explaining “Why” they were working to create motorized flight and keeping the ‘what and how’ they were going to attain that as secondary messages. Sinek concludes his examples by quoting part of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s world famous speech in reminding the audience that after all, “Martin Luther King, Jr. started his speech with ‘I have a dream’, not I have a plan.” People have dreams and share dreams, that’s a much greater motivator than just following a plan.

Watching this presentation has helped me develop better leadership qualities in presenting my passion and compassion in producing the best events ever for my clients. Passion is contagious, and having the clients share the “Why” I do things has increased my business. I hope you get the opportunity take a look at the short video of Professor Sinek’s presentation. If the schedules work out, maybe I’ll finally get to meet him at the leadership conference.