Efficiently leading an organization is something that many people struggle with these days. While there is no easy path to do it successfully, there are some guidelines and ideas that can surely help.From Circles of Safety to happiness chemicals and empathy, follow me on this journey to learn how to be a better leader, one step at a time!

How to Lead

Leadership

When discussing human behavior, we need to dig a bit into how the brain works. There are 4 primary chemicals for happiness:<ul><li>Endorphins</li><li>Dopamine</li><li>Serotonin</li><li>Oxytocin</li></ul>Let's see when each of these is released.

An Introduction to Happiness Chemicals

The other 2 chemicals are focused on socialization and our belonging to a group.<ol><li>Serotonin causes the feeling of pride when others like or respect us.</li><li>Oxytocin is released to give us feelings of friendship, love, and deep trust. Without it, we couldn't love our children and wouldn't have a partner in the first place. It dictates the vulnerability we can afford to show to people. It is a long-lasting chemical and it is the reason why hand-shaking is so important in our society.</li></ol>

The "Social" Chemicals

Aside from the happiness chemicals, there is also the notion of cortisol the stress hormone. Historically, it's released when danger is close and we need to get out of a life-threatening situation.Unfortunately, unhealthy work environments lead to our bodies being inundated with cortisol, which causes our bodies to turn off "unnecessary" functions, such as digestion, growth and the immune system.We physically feel sick in an unhealthy work environment.

What Is Cortisol?

People tend to chase the title of "leader" because it comes with great perks. These perks, however, come with the responsibility they have over their subjects or employees. Those who do not uphold this duty accordingly are weak leaders.Any perk you receive in a company or organization is meant for your position, not for you.

Leaders in an Organization

Rules keep our society moving forward. But we don't really trust rules, we obey them. Trust is something inherently human due to oxytocin.This is the reason we often hate bureaucrats. They always follow the rules and never show the human side our brain understands better.

Human Nature and Rules

August 5, 1981, was the moment layoffs were normalized in the US by Ronald Reagan. He fired over 11,000 air traffic controllers on strike that day.Layoffs have the goal of protecting commerce over people. Abstraction of people into employees makes us lose empathy and when we can't see the people we affect, we make decisions much easier.

Normalizing Layoffs

While layoffs can be a quick solution to make ends meet in financial statements, it does not mean they won't have long-term consequences.The concept of "lifetime employment" guarantees an employee that he will never be fired. This was put into practice with good results. It will boost morale and communication; instead of firing people, you focus on why they perform worse and solve that.Get to know the people you fire and you may change your mind.

Lifetime Employment

There is a magic number of close connections that humans can have. That number is 150. If one of an organization's offices or factories has more employees, the human connections grow cold and won't be as motivated.This is no empirical estimation. Old hunter/gatherer tribes usually had 100-150 members. A company of marines consists of around 150 people.When informality at the workplace is replaced by formality, it may be a hint that the group became too large and the Circle of Safety fractures.

The Magic Number

We can never trust someone right away. Meeting a person for the first time naturally releases dopamine that masks how we actually feel about that person until the novelty fades; this is why we shouldn't get married after a week. Conversely, if after several years we still feel like we don't belong in a group, maybe it's time to let go.Getting to know if we can trust someone takes more than 7 days and less than 7 years. These are the magic timeframes of trust.

How Long Does It Take to Trust Someone?

"Destructive Abundance" is the state where protecting the results is prioritized above protecting those who produce the results.Companies get in this state because the leaders only care about the score but forgot why they decided to play the game in the first place. Challenge is replaced by temptation and people are replaceable.

Destructive Abundance

Leaders have the vision and should delegate the authority to the ones with the information, that they can trust.Trust requires integrity - the capacity of someone to consistently adhere to some moral values.

Authority and Integrity

In "Alcoholics Anonymous" people don't get sober until they complete the 12th (and last) step of the program, which involves helping another addict overcome his addiction. It is the helping of another human that motivates.Similarly, your best days at work were not the ones when everything went perfect, but when everything went wrong, the hardship was shared and your team pulled through as a group.Empathy is a second-by-second requirement to being a leader!

Organizations are Inherently Social

" The highly anticipated follow-up to the acclaimed bestseller Start With Why Simon Sinek's mission is to help people wake up every day inspired to go to work and return home every night fulfilled by their work. His first book, Start With Why, offered the essential starting point, explaining the power of focusing on WHY we do what we do, before getting into the details of WHAT and HOW. Start With Why became an instant classic, with a loyal following among Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, governments, and the highest levels of the U.S. Military. Now Sinek is back to reveal the next step in creating happier and healthier organizations. He helps us understand, in simple terms, the biology of trust and cooperation and why they're essential to our success and fulfillment. Organizations that create environments in which trust and cooperation thrive vastly out perform their competition. And, not coincidentally, their employees love working there. But "truly human" cultures don't just happen; they are intentionally created by great leaders. Leaders who, in hard times, would sooner sacrifice their numbers to protect their people, rather than sacrifice people to protect their numbers, are rewarded with deeply loyal teams that consistently contribute their best efforts, ideas and passion. As he did in Start With Why, Sinek illustrates his points with fascinating true stories from many fields. He implores us to act sooner rather than later, because our stressful jobs are literally killing us. And he offers surprisingly simple steps for building a truly human organization"--

Leaders Eat Last

by Simon Sinek

13

KEY
IDEAS

Leaders Eat Last

by Simon Sinek

13

KEY IDEAS

KEY
IDEAS