“Leadership is a practice, not an event. Simply making one big
decision, even if it's the right decision, doesn't make you a leader.”
P: In your book, you mentioned the “Circle of Safety.”
What exactly is this?
S: What a leader does is create the “Circle of Safety.” We are
tribal animals and the company is merely the modern-day
tribe. So when danger threatens the organization, do we feel
that the people with whom we work with have our backs?
In an organization where people feel the need to send a
“cover your ass” email, it means they fear each other. It
means they’re taking precautions against their own leadership.
The reason we love flying Southwest Airlines is not because
they have some magical ability to hire the best people, but
rather the people who work at Southwest don’t fear each
other. They don’t fear their leaders. The result? They look after
us. There’s no magical formula to creating great customer
service or culture. It’s when we feel safe from our leaders that
we will naturally trust and cooperate, invest our energies to
seize the opportunities and protect the entire organization
from the dangers outside.
P: How do you determine who to allow into the
“Circle of Safety?”
S: We are social animals and respond to the environments
we’re in. You can take good people and put them in a bad
environment, and they’re capable of bad things. You can take
people whom society has given up on and put them in a
good environment, and they’re capable of amazing things.
The leader sets the tone. The thing to do—and this is
what I covered in my first book Start with Why—is to know
what you stand for. You have to know what your purpose,
cause and beliefs are. Hire people who believe what you
believe and who live your values. When we fill the company
with people like that and then offer them the opportunity to
thrive and grow, they will naturally come together.
P: What’s the first step to becoming a leader?
S: Leadership is a practice, not an event. Simply making one
Companies Creating
a “Circle of Safety”
Aside from companies like The Container Store
and Southwest Airlines that exemplify good
leadership, who else is creating a “Circle of
Safety” for their employees?
nextjump
A New York-based company that provides corporate perks
to businesses, nextjump’s core philosophy is “changing the
world by changing the workplace culture.”
“nextjump has a ‘Lifetime Employment Policy.’ No one
can ever get fired there for having performance issues. If
you have performance issues, they’ll coach you. It’s an
amazing thing,” says Sinek.
Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc.
In 2008 at the peak of the global recession, Missouri-based
manufacturing company Barry-Wehmiller lost one-third of
its business orders almost overnight. This caused a huge
financial stress on the company and they considered laying
off employees. But CEO Bob Chapman refused to resort to
layoffs. Instead, the company implemented a furlough
program wherein every employee—from secretary to
CEO—had to take four weeks of unpaid vacation.
“It was the way Bob announced the program that was so
important. He said, ‘It’s better we should all suffer a little
than any of us should have to suffer a lot.’ And morale went
up,” Sinek says.“The company needed to save US$10 mill