Simon Sinek Quotes

“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”

“And when a leader embraces their responsibility to care for people instead of caring for numbers, then people will follow, solve problems and see to it that that leader’s vision comes to life the right way, a stable way and not the expedient way.”

“Integrity is when our words and deeds are consistent with our intentions.”

“Leadership takes work. It takes time and energy. The effects are not always easily measured and they are not always immediate. Leadership is always a commitment to human beings.”

“Let us all be the leaders we wish we had.”

“The rank of office is not what makes someone a leader. Leadership is the choice to serve others with or without any formal rank.”

“Stress and anxiety at work have less to do with the work we do and more to do with weak management and leadership.”

“It is not the genius at the top giving directions that makes people great. It is great people that make the guy at the top look like a genius.”

“The true price of leadership is the willingness to place the needs of others above your own.”

“Returning from work feeling inspired, safe, fulfilled and grateful is a natural human right to which we are all entitled and not a modern luxury that only a few lucky ones are able to find.”

“Good leadership is like exercise. We do not see any improvement to our bodies with day-to-day comparisons. In fact, if we only compare the way our bodies look on a given day to how they looked the previous day, we would think our efforts had been wasted. It’s only when we compare pictures of ourselves over a period of weeks or months that we can see a stark difference. The impact of leadership is best judged over time.”

“I know of no case study in history that describes an organization that has been managed out of a crisis. Every single one of them was led.”

“Great leaders truly care about those they are privileged to lead and understand that the true cost of the leadership privilege comes at the expense of self-interest.”

“The studies also found that the effort required by a job is not in itself stressful, but rather the imbalance between the effort we give and the reward we feel.”

“All the perks, all the benefits and advantages you may get for the rank or position you hold, they aren’t meant for you. They are meant for the role you fill. And when you leave your role, which eventually you will, they will give the ceramic cup to the person who replaces you. Because you only ever deserved a Styrofoam cup.”

“Leaps of greatness require the combined problem-solving ability of people who trust each other.”

“It is not the demands of the job that cause the most stress, but the degree of control workers feel they have throughout their day.”

“As the Zen Buddhist saying goes, how you do anything is how you do everything.”

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

“And that’s what trust is. We don’t just trust people to obey the rules, we also trust that they know when to break them.”

“Leadership is not a license to do less; it is a responsibility to do more.”

“Regardless of WHAT we do in our lives, our WHY—our driving purpose, cause or belief—never changes.”

“This is important because our behavior is affected by our assumptions or our perceived truths. We make decisions based on what we think we know.”

“That’s the problem with love; we only know when we’ve found it because it ‘just feels right.‘”

“Our visions are the world we imagine, the tangible results of what the world would look like if we spent every day in pursuit of our why.”

“Charisma has nothing to do with energy; it comes from a clarity of WHY. It comes from absolute conviction in an ideal bigger than oneself.”

“There are many ways to motivate people to do things, but loyalty comes from the ability to inspire people.”

“Energy can excite. But only charisma can inspire. Charisma commands loyalty. Energy does not.”

“You don’t hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.”

“Regardless of WHAT we do in our lives, our WHY—our driving purpose, cause or belief—never changes.”

“There are many ways to motivate people to do things, but loyalty comes from the ability to inspire people.”

“The goal is not simply for you to cross the finish line, but to see how many people you can inspire to run with you.”

“The greatest contribution of a leader is to make other leaders.”

“If we want to feel an undying passion for our work, if we want to feel we are contributing to something bigger than ourselves, we all need to know our WHY.”

“And remember the most important lesson. The goal is not simply for you to cross the finish line, but to see how many people you can inspire to run with you.”

“There’s just one problem with feelings. They can be tremendously difficult to express in words. That’s the reason we so often resort to metaphors and analogies,”

“The opportunity is not to discover the perfect company for ourselves. The opportunity is to build the perfect company for each other.”

“There are two ways to build a career or a business. We can go through life hunting and pecking, looking for opportunities or customers, hoping that something connects. Or we can go through life with intention, knowing what our piece looks like, knowing our WHY, and going straight to the places we fit.”

“The goal for us as individuals is to know our WHY so that we can more easily find the right tree and the right nest. The goal for an organization is to know its WHY in order to attract the right birds. And the goal for each team within the company is to make sure that they have the right birds in each nest—those who will work together most effectively to contribute to the organization’s higher purpose and cause.”

“the combination of your WHY and HOWs is as exclusively yours as your fingerprint.”

“We don’t necessarily find happiness in our jobs every day, but we can feel fulfilled by our work every day if it makes us feel part of something bigger than ourselves.”

“If we expect people to live the core values of an organization, we have to be able to tell them what those values look like in action.”

“Our struggles are the short-term steps we must take on our way to long-term success.”

“If we expect people to live the core values of an organization, we have to be able to tell them what those values look like in action.”

“Before we can stand out, we must first get clear on what we stand for.”

“Your vision is only actionable if you say it out loud. If you keep it to yourself, it will remain a figment of your imagination.”

“The infinite-minded player, in contrast, expects surprises, even revels in them, and is prepared to be transformed by them.”

“When we lead with a finite mindset in an infinite game, it leads to all kinds of problems, the most common of which include the decline of trust, cooperation, and innovation.”

“We do not think in quarters. We think in generations.”

“Groups that adopt an infinite mindset enjoy vastly higher levels of trust, cooperation and innovation and all the subsequent benefits.”

“The true value of an organization is measured by the desire others have to contribute to that organizations ability to keep succeeding, not just during the time they are there, but well beyond their own tenure.”

“To ask, ‘What’s best for me’ is finite thinking. To ask, ‘What’s best for us’ is infinite thinking.”

“A company built for resilience is a company that is structured to last forever.”

“An infinite-minded leader does not simply want to build a company that can weather change but one that can be transformed by it.”

“Resilient companies may come out the other end of upheaval entirely different than they were when they went in (and are often grateful for the transformation).”

“Infinite-minded leaders don’t ask their people to fixate on finite goals; they ask their people to help them figure out a way to advance toward a more infinite vision of the future that benefits everyone.”