Now you have a broad idea of what it means to be a good leader, it’s time to break this down and to examine each of these points in more detail. But the most important point we can discuss is an inspiration. If you can inspire your team to work, then you can get the very best out of them no matter what else. If they believe in your vision, they will be absolutely loyal and absolutely committed to what you’re doing. They will work harder and longer hours and they will drive your business, department, or startup forward faster than anyone else. 

Notice the word ‘vision’ here. That’s very important and we’ll come to why in a moment. 

What’s more, is that if you have a vision for your team, you’ll help to inspire others. That means your customers and your potential business partners. More people will want to work with you. More people will want to buy from you. And more people will want to be loyal to your brand and to think of themselves as a ‘part’ of what you do. 

It goes deeper too. That’s because having a vision can also help you to make the right decisions for your organization. Did we talk briefly about the importance of not just keeping your team afloat but of growing and avoiding catastrophe? That all comes from having the right vision. 

Your vision is what gives you your goal. And if you get it right, it should also be what gives you your drive to succeed and makes that passion contagious. Many of the points we talk about later in this book will stem from that vision. 

Introducing: The Golden Circle 

Perhaps the best way to illustrate what is meant by this is to look at a concept in a business known as the ‘golden circle’. What is the golden circle? 

Well, if you believe the highly popular TED talk by Simon Sinek (who first proposed the concept), the golden circle is the difference between innovating companies that grow and thrive and those companies that fail. 

Why is it that Apple is constantly creating more exciting products he asks? (This was a while ago, bear in mind…). 

Why is it that the Wright Brothers’ succeeded where others failed, others who had more resources and more means? 

The answer is the golden circle. 

The golden circle is made of three ‘rings’ which can be seen like layers. On the outermost ring, you have the word ‘What’. Inside that, you have the word ‘How’. And on the innermost ring, is the word ‘Why’. 

So as a leader, you need to think about these three things: 

• What? 

• How? 
• Why? 

For the sake of simplicity, we will start by focusing on this question from a business perspective. That means we can change these questions into: 

• What do you do? 
• How do you do it? 

• Why do you do it? 

And the key aspect to all this is that last part – the why. The most important question you can possibly ask yourself as a business is why you do what you do. 

And what might surprise you is that a lot of people can’t answer this question. What they tell you is that they are in their business to make money. Other than that, what ‘why’ is there? 

This is where your company's mission statement comes in and this is something that all the most successful businesses in the world have in common – great mission statements. It is the company with the mission statement that actually believes in something, that has a strong brand, and that other people can get behind. 

Some examples: 

Ikea 

At IKEA, our vision is to create a better everyday life for many people. Our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them. 

Amazon 

It is our goal to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online. 

Coca-Cola 

To refresh the world in mind, body, and spirit. To inspire moments of optimism and happiness through our brands and actions. To create value and make a difference. 

Facebook 

Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share make the world more open and connected. 

Google 

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. 

Intel 

Delight our customers, employees, and shareholders by relentlessly delivering the platform and technology advancements that become essential to the way we work and live. 

McDonald’s 

McDonald’s brand mission is to be our customers’ favorite place and way to eat and drink. 

Microsoft 

Our mission is to enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential. 

This is important because it is what makes the brand something that the audience, the employees, and the leaders themselves can believe in – and it is what sets the long-term course for the journey. 

And as Simon Sinek puts it: people don’t buy what you do, people buy why you do it. 

The objective is not to sell to people who need what you make, the objective is to sell to people who believe in what you believe. Those are the people who will be loyal to your brand. 

And the same goes for employees. Employees who believe in your mission statement will stay up late at night working because they believe in what they do – they’re excited by it and they want to see it happen. 

Heck, people on Kickstarter will even pay to see your mission statement become a reality even when there’s nothing in it for them. Oculus’ mission statement is to: deliver incredible, affordable, and ubiquitous consumer virtual reality to the world. This is a mission that people believed in so strongly, that they essentially funded the organization and allowed it to become a real-life company. 

A good business starts with that vision and then builds outward from there – everything from the branding, to the marketing, to the products themselves should align with that eventual end goal. 

And when you’re excited about your goals, it will be infectious. When you’re excited about where your business is going, it will come across in the way you gesticulate, the way you talk, and the way you lead. And this is what will make people follow you to the ends of the Earth. 

Finding Your Vision 

Start-ups are often described as being in a ‘state of flow’. What does this mean? 

Well, according to The Rise of Superman, written by Steven Kotler, a ‘flow state’ is a state where we are incredibly highly focused, creative and resourceful. At this point, our prefrontal cortices shut down. This is because we are so engaged with what we are doing, that we actually completely lose track of everything else – it’s like when you come out of a cinema and feel as though you’ve been in a dream. 

Startups are described as being in a constant state of flow because they are so passionate and so driven that they lose their subjective reality and are 100% engaged with their mission and goal. 

If you create a business, then you should start from the ground up. Think about not only the bottom line but also the way you’re going to achieve it and why you were passionate to get into this industry in the first place. Do you love green food and want to make the world a greener place? Do you just love business and want to empower other organizations to do more? Do you believe that happiness comes from being well dressed and confident in your skin? Do you live and breathe fitness and want others to feel the same? 

Find your passion and then build your business around that idea from the ground up. 

But what if you inherit your business or your industry and you have no say in the matter? If you’ve just been elevated to ‘area manager’ then you might not have been involved in choosing the organization’s direction of vision. 

And what if you have already created your business and it’s too late to ‘start’ with your vision? 

Well, in the latter scenario you need to take a step back and re-assess your organization. There probably is a strong ‘why’ behind what you do, even if you can’t see what that is yet. You were probably drawn to your current niche and business model for a reason – so what is that. What are you doing differently from the competition? If you had limitless resources, what would you do with them? 

Another strategy you can try is to ask yourself the ‘five whys’. This is a technique that we can use to get to the bottom of why we do something. And it’s simple: you ask yourself ‘why’ five times. 

• Why did you make a fitness site? 
• Because I love fitness. 

• Why? 
• Because being fit makes me feel healthy and capable. 
• Why is that important? 
• Because then I can do anything. 
• Why is that important? 

• Because then I feel free. 
• Why is that important? 
• Because freedom is what makes me feel happy. 

So essentially, you can then retroactively shape your business around this core value: freedom and happiness. Perhaps your logo becomes someone running through the grass and maybe you create an Instagram account filled with people taking full advantage of their bodies to express that freedom. 

Now, what about that second scenario? What about when you ‘inherit’ the business? How do you find the ‘why’ then? 

One method is to ask the business owner – or your leader – what it is that drives them. If you can get behind their vision and make it your own, then you might stand a good chance of inspiring your team and your customers. If you can’t and if you don’t believe in what the company is doing… then the chances are that you won’t be the best leader you could be and that this organization isn’t for you. 

The best thing you can do to make the very most of your abilities and to ensure you are contributing all that you can… is to leave that organization and look elsewhere. 

This might be extreme but think of the leaders you’ve known who are the least effective. What is it about them that makes them so? Chances are you’ll have noticed they always have a demeanor of disinterest and lack of enthusiasm. And this is their undoing. 

Don’t be that person – find an organization you really believe in. Or build one! 

Oh, and for family life, or your personal life, you can have visions too. A vision is just like a goal in this context except that you are going to visualize it and think about the way it feels more than just the metrics. Instead of thinking you’d like your family to ‘be richer’, this might mean imagining your family living in a bigger house, without stress and with all the things you’d like. 

This is important because having a vision rather than a goal means you can be more flexible about how you get there – and take the best route to get the results you want. It will also keep you much more motivated, which actually comes down to the very structure of your brain! 

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