Start With Why, By Simon Sinek

Start with why is a book (and TED talk) that outlines life changing philosophy and incorporates leadership styles that are unparalleled in today’s social, economic, and personal settings. Having this leadership attribute can amplify how others perceive you and can change their work ethic to be more motivated and proficient in their work or lifestyle. In most companies or businesses today, there are a select few who ask they “why”. Because of this, most people are just told what to do. Giving people only the what can be detrimental to not only to you but also towards the entire entity that is your business, group, organization, etc. to help combat this, Simon Sinek, the author of the book, decided to outline key ideas and philosophies that

Now, there are two other ideals that include; what and how. Each one of these ideals (what, how, why) each carry their own interpretation, and each convey and different meaning. When you ask the “what” of a job or a task, you are only just waiting to be told what to do and waiting for guidance within the said task. This has little to no motivation or critical thinking process built in. Based on this idea of “what” you as a leader fail to fill your subordinates with passion and zest for their job/task.
As we move on to the ideal of “how” the area for interpretation broadens and your subordinates are left with a sense that they will be hand fed everything and they don’t need to put in effort to see a task complete to the best of its ability because the subordinates have no stake in the task. It is only when we bring ourselves as leaders to start giving our subordinates the “why” that we will start seeing a change in work ethic and giving people an invested interest in what exactly they are

As a leader, you can use your authority to either manipulate or inspire others to do a task for or with you. By giving someone the “why” you will inspire them to help you out because the “why” lets those around you know exactly what you expect, how the task pertains to them, and why exactly they should care about the task. Once you have effectively established why completing a task or job is so vital, it will motivate individuals to take pride in their work and try to achieve positive results to the best of their ability. By simply sitting down and explaining the why, you are exponentially motivating those under and around you to invest a little more time and effort into their job. This motivation will keep them from getting discouraged with their work and potentially stop them from being useless or a hazard to the work environment. If you can help inspire those around you to understand that there is a bigger picture and what they do will separate them from the rest if they complete the task or job in an excellent manner, then they will strive to provide amazing result. This is based on the idea that humans do not want to belong to the common community or culture. Humans want to be a part of something great. We want to see our hard work pay off and giving people the “why” of a job will have a direct impact on