How To Be the Kind of Leader People Trust With Simon Sinek

When two or more people or businesses jostle for dominance and survival, the ones who survive do so because they understand it as an infinite game—constantly evolving and never-ending, with a higher purpose. Those who don’t survive see the game as a finite one—filled with short-term concerns and aimed at a win-or-lose ending point.

In The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek explores the differences between infinite and finite games. He walks you through how to develop an infinite mindset that will put you and your organization on a path for long-term success in business.

In our guide, we’ll review the major points of Sinek’s theories and examine how they compare and contrast to other management books that discuss the same themes. We’ll also look at some specific companies to see how these theories play out in the real world—how they work, and where they might have limitations.

Do you feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day? That you’re constantly checking things off your to-do list but still don’t have enough time for the important things? Your problem might be that you’re doing a lot, but not doing the right things.

In First Things First, Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, presents a time management approach that focuses on priorities, or “first things.” This approach teaches you to use your time effectively instead of just efficiently—in other words, focusing on what you spend your time on, rather than just how much time you spend per task. You’ll learn how to identify your priorities, schedule your time at the daily and weekly levels, and collaborate with others to ensure the best possible results for everyone.

In this guide, we link Covey’s ideas to books and articles about leadership, spirituality, and even biology to help you determine what’s most important to you and why. We also include connections to other self-help books and business strategy guides to help you maximize your potential, both individually and as part of a group.

Trust makes existing relationships more productive and efficient, opens the door to new relationships and opportunities, builds loyalty and respect, and fosters innovation and collaboration. In short, more than any other asset, trust is the key to success.

In The Speed of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey explains why trust is a game-changer in every personal and professional relationship and lays out a roadmap for building and leveraging trust for success. His experience as the co-founder of the FranklinCovey Global Speed of Trust Practice and CoveyLink, and as the former CEO of The Stephen R. Covey Leadership Center, lends a career-worth of credibility to his arguments. This Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal best seller is accessible and actionable enough that readers can start building trust in their own lives today. We’ll expand on Covey’s ideas in this guide with additional insight from the psychology and business fields.

Every modern business is in the technology game in some way. In Empowered, Marty Cagan and Chris Jones explain how technology and product development are the fundamental drivers of every successful business. Therefore, to thrive in the modern business world, companies must empower their product development teams to use technology to meet customer needs and drive business growth.

Cagan and Jones have a wealth of experience in product leadership, having worked at multiple high-profile technology businesses. In this guide, we’ll discuss the roles of product leaders and their technology teams, as well as how they measure their collective success. We’ll describe how to empower product teams to work with autonomy and enhance innovation. In addition, we’ll explain the authors’ key concepts, show how other writers expand on their ideas, and explore how some experts arrive at similar conclusions using slightly different approaches.

Vulnerability is all too often engineered out of today’s work cultures, in a bid to make employees more efficient and less susceptible to emotions—but brave leaders who have the courage to allow vulnerability are essential to thriving work cultures. Dare to Lead breaks down the four courage-building skills that make up brave leadership, so that you can create an organization that takes risk, uncertainty, and failure in stride. You’ll learn how to lead your team in engaging with vulnerability, acting with integrity, having more productive and honest conversations, and moving on quickly from failure—skills that will allow your work culture to meet today’s ever-increasing innovative and creative demands.

To perform at their best, employees need to know it’s safe to fail. Building psychological safety in the workplace supports resilience, boosts motivation, increases creativity, strengthens problem-solving skills, and encourages innovation.

Are you trying to run a company, manage employees, or lead a team? Then take a lesson from ex-football coach Bill Campbell, who mentored tech giants at Apple, Google, Intuit, eBay, and Facebook. Campbell believed that teams, not individuals, are the fundamental building blocks of organizations. Leaders can help their team be more productive, more innovative, and just plain happier by leading like a coach, not just a manager.

Good coaches employ encouragement, honesty, and caring to help every team member flourish. Business leaders should do the same, infusing their workplaces with compassion and people-first values that inspire employees to do their best work—and love their jobs. To win at business, show your team members you care about them, and they'll produce extraordinary results.

In The Fearless Organization, Amy C. Edmondson argues that for organizations to thrive in the complex knowledge economy, leaders must cultivate psychologically safe cultures where workers can ask questions, raise concerns, and make mistakes without fear of reprisal. But many companies rely on a fear-driven management approach that silences workers’ voices. They do so at their peril, stifling innovation and putting themselves in harm’s way.

Edmondson, a professor of leadership and management, stumbled upon the concept of psychological safety while studying the relationship between teamwork and error rates in hospitals. She realized that groups that openly discussed failure without fear of repercussions warded off problems before they happened and took risks that fostered innovation.

In this guide, we examine what psychological safety is, why it’s important, the detrimental effects of fear-driven work cultures, and ways leaders can cultivate psychologically safe environments to drive success. We also compare and contrast Edmondson’s work with the perspectives and work of experts in leadership and other fields.

When two or more people or businesses jostle for dominance and survival, the ones who survive do so because they understand it as an infinite game—constantly evolving and never-ending, with a higher purpose. Those who don’t survive see the game as a finite one—filled with short-term concerns and aimed at a win-or-lose ending point.

In The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek explores the differences between infinite and finite games. He walks you through how to develop an infinite mindset that will put you and your organization on a path for long-term success in business.

In our guide, we’ll review the major points of Sinek’s theories and examine how they compare and contrast to other management books that discuss the same themes. We’ll also look at some specific companies to see how these theories play out in the real world—how they work, and where they might have limitations.

All leaders have responsibilities they have to manage, from motivating their subordinates to planning the long-term trajectory of their company. But which of these responsibilities is the most essential to success? In Leaders Eat Last, author and inspirational speaker Simon Sinek argues that a leader’s primary responsibility is to prioritize her subordinates’ needs above her own. In business, this usually manifests as a manager prioritizing her employees’ needs above immediate profit. By empathizing with her employees, she creates a supportive environment that encourages them to collaborate and find innovative ways to support the whole group, helping the company—and its leader—to be more successful.

In this guide, we’ll examine Sinek’s theories on leadership, including his suggestions on how to strengthen supportive environments and the role that brain chemistry plays in doing so. We’ll also compare and contrast his ideas with recent neuropsychological breakthroughs and the advice of business experts like Ken Blanchard and Sheldon M. Bowles (Raving Fans).