Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

by Seth Godin

A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.

Tribes make our lives better. And leading a tribe is the best life of all.

A movement is thrilling. It’s the work of many people, all connected, all seeking something better. The new highly leveraged tools of the Net make it easier than ever to create a movement, to make things happen, to get things done. All that’s missing is leadership.

The real power of tribes has nothing to do with the Internet and everything to do with people. You don’t need a keyboard to lead . . . you only need the desire to make something happen.

Generous and authentic leadership will always defeat the selfish efforts of someone doing it just because she can.

Tribes are about faith—about belief in an idea and in a community. And they are grounded in respect and admiration for the leader of the tribe and for the other members as well.

Do you believe in what you do? Every day? It turns out that belief happens to be a brilliant strategy.

We’re embracing a factory instead of a tribe.

Heretics are the new leaders. The ones who challenge the status quo, who get out in front of their tribes, who create movements.

Management is about manipulating resources to get a known job done.

Leadership, on the other hand, is about creating change that you believe in.

Leaders have followers. Managers have employees. Managers make widgets. Leaders make change.

Marketing is the act of telling stories about the things we make—stories that sell and stories that spread. Marketing elects presidents, and marketing raises money for charity. Marketing also determines if the CEO stays or goes (Carly Fiorina learned this the hard way). Most of all, marketing influences markets. Marketing used to be about advertising, and advertising is expensive. Today, marketing is about engaging with the tribe and delivering products and services with stories that spread.

“Established 1906” used to be important. Now, apparently, it’s a liability. The rush from stability is a huge opportunity for you.

The old rule was simple: The best way to grow an organization was to be reliable and consistent and trusted, and bit by bit, gain market share. The enemy was rapid change, because that led to uncertainty and to risk and to failure. People turned and ran.

If you want to grow, you need to find customers who are willing to join you or believe in you or donate to you or support you. And guess what? The only customers willing to do that are looking for something new. The growth comes from change and light and noise.

One man with no authority suddenly becomes a key figure. Tribes give each of us the very same opportunity. Skill and attitude are essential. Authority is not. In fact, authority can get in the way.

Leadership doesn’t always start at the top, but it always manages to affect the folks at the top. In fact, most organizations are waiting for someone like you to lead them.

Great leaders create movements by empowering the tribe to communicate. They establish the foundation for people to make connections, as opposed to commanding people to follow them.

As we saw earlier, it takes only two things to turn a group of people into a tribe: • A shared interest • A way to communicate The communication can be one of four kinds: • Leader to tribe • Tribe to leader • Tribe member to tribe member • Tribe member to outsider

So a leader can help increase the effectiveness of the tribe and its members by • transforming the shared interest into a passionate goal and desire for change; • providing tools to allow members to tighten their communications; and • leveraging the tribe to allow it to grow and gain new members.

Anatomy of a Movement Senator Bill Bradley defines a movement as having three elements: 1. A narrative that tells a story about who we are and the future we’re trying to build 2. A connection between and among the leader and the tribe 3. Something to do—the fewer limits, the better Too often organizations fail to do anything but the third.

That’s it—three steps: motivate, connect, and leverage.

Crowds and Tribes Two different things: A crowd is a tribe without a leader. A crowd is a tribe without communication. Most organizations spend their time marketing to the crowd. Smart organizations assemble the tribe. Crowds are interesting, and they can create all sorts of worthwhile artifacts and market effects. But tribes are longer lasting and more effective.

If you want us to follow you, don’t be boring.

“Good enough” stopped being good enough a long time ago. So why not be great?

Defending mediocrity is exhausting.

A true fan brings three friends with him to a John Mayer concert or to the opening of a Chuck Close exhibit. A true fan pays extra to own the first edition, or buys the hardcover, instead of just browsing around on the Web site. Most important, a true fan connects with other true fans and amplifies the noise the artist makes.

Organizations that destroy the status quo win.

Whatever the status quo is, changing it gives you the opportunity to be remarkable.

Interesting side effect: creating products and services that are remarkable is fun. Doing work that’s fun is engaging. So not surprisingly, making things that are successful is a great way to spend your time.

In unstable times, growth comes from leaders who create change and engage their organizations, instead of from managers who push their employees to do more for less.

In a battle between two ideas, the best one doesn’t necessarily win. No, the idea that wins is the one with the most fearless heretic behind it.

The essence of leadership is being aware of your fear (and seeing it in the people you wish to lead). No, it won’t go away, but awareness is the key to making progress.

How was your day? If your answer is “fine,” then I don’t think you were leading.

Can you imagine Steve Jobs showing up for the paycheck? It’s nice to get paid. It’s essential to believe.

Great leaders don’t want the attention, but they use it. They use it to unite the tribe and to reinforce its sense of purpose.

Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead. This scarcity makes leadership valuable. If everyone tries to lead all the time, not much happens. It’s discomfort that creates the leverage that makes leadership worthwhile. In other words, if everyone could do it, they would, and it wouldn’t be worth much. It’s uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers. It’s uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail. It’s uncomfortable to challenge the status quo. It’s uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle. When you identify the discomfort, you’ve found the place where a leader is needed. If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader.

The one path that never works is the most common one: doing nothing at all. Nothing at all feels safe and it takes very little effort. It involves a lot of rationalization and a bit of hiding as well.

The difference between backing off and doing nothing may appear subtle, but it’s not. A leader who backs off is making a commitment to the power of the tribe, and is alert to the right moment to step back in. Someone who is doing nothing is merely hiding. Leadership is a choice. It’s the choice to not do nothing. Lean in, back off, but don’t do nothing.

A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to his religion before he explores it. As opposed to a curious person who explores first and then considers whether or not he wants to accept the ramifications. A curious person embraces the tension between his religion and something new, wrestles with it and through it, and then decides whether to embrace the new idea or reject it.

particular. This leads to an interesting thought: you get to choose the tribe you will lead. Through your actions as a leader, you attract a tribe that wants to follow you. That tribe has a worldview that matches the message you’re sending.

Tribes are increasingly voluntary. No one is forced to work for your firm or attend your services. People have a choice of which music to listen to and which movies to watch.

So great leaders don’t try to please everyone. Great leaders don’t water down their message in order to make the tribe a bit bigger. Instead, they realize that a motivated, connected tribe in the midst of a movement is far more powerful than a larger group could ever be.

You’re not going to be able to grow your career or your business or feed the tribe by going after most people. Most people are really good at ignoring new trends or great employees or big ideas. You can worry about most people all day, but I promise you that they’re not worried about you. They can’t hear you, regardless of how hard you yell. Almost all the growth that’s available to you exists when you aren’t like most people and when you work hard to appeal to folks who aren’t most people.

Does the Status Quo Ruin Your Day (Every Day)? How was your day? Are you stuck with the way things were, instead of busy turning things into what they could be? Heretics have a plan. They understand that changing the status quo is not only profitable, but fun too. Being a heretic, an outsider, and a rabble-rouser feels scary. Why bother?

Change isn’t made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness, later.

The first thing you need to know is that individuals have far more power than ever before in history. One person can change an industry. One person can declare war. One person can reinvent science or politics or technology.

The second thing you need to know is that the only thing holding you back from becoming the kind of person who changes things is this: lack of faith. Faith that you can do it. Faith that it’s worth doing. Faith that failure won’t destroy you.

Welcome to the age of leverage. Bottom-up is a really bad way to think about it because there is no bottom. In an era of grassroots change, the top of the pyramid is too far away from where the action is to make much of a difference. It takes too long and it lacks impact. The top isn’t the top anymore because the streets are where the action is.