Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't

by Simon Sinek

The Boomer generation would emerge bigger and more powerful than any opposing force that could help keep things in check. Without a balancing tension, the impulses and desires of one group would prove to be hard to restrain. Like the unchecked power of America after the fall of the Soviet Union, like the dictator who overthrows his predecessor, like legislation passed when one party has a supermajority in Congress, the Boomers would start to impose their will on the world around them, surrounded only by outnumbered voices telling them they couldn’t. By the 1980s and 1990s, this “shockwave,” this “pig in the python,” as the Baby Boom is sometimes described because of its sheer size and force, this demographic bulge able to remodel society as they passed through it, was fully in charge.

Our world is one of impatience. A world of instant gratification. A world ruled by dopamine. Google can give us the answer we want now. We can buy online and get what we want now. We can send and receive information instantaneously. We don’t have to wait a week to see our favorite show, we can watch it now. We have gotten used to getting what we want when we want it. This is all fine and good for movies or online shopping, but it’s not very helpful when we are trying to form the bonds of trust that can withstand storms. That takes time, and there’s no app that can speed that up. I have no data to say exactly how long it takes to feel like we trust someone. I know it takes more than seven days and I know it takes

fewer than seven years. I know it is quicker for some and slower for others. No one knows exactly how long it takes, but it takes patience.

Leadership is about taking responsibility for lives and not numbers. Managers look after our numbers and our results and leaders look after us. All managers of metrics have an opportunity to become leaders of people. Just as every doctor in our country learned the importance of sterilizing their instruments, so too must every leader of every organization do the little things necessary to protect their people. But first, they have to admit they are at the root of the problem.

Human beings have thrived for fifty thousand years not because we are driven to serve ourselves, but because we are inspired to serve others. That’s the value of Step Twelve. All we need are leaders to give us a good reason to commit ourselves to each other.