Good Leaders Communicate Their "Why"

Everywhere I turn, strategists and developers and coaches are reminding leaders and business owners to return to the "why" in the work. While it may seem like it is everywhere, Simon Sinek's Golden Circle principle that sparked the "why" movement empowers this generation of leaders to be inspired and motivated.

While a good leader knows their why, a great leader can communicate their why .

In this episode, find out why communication can be key to unlocking employee engagement.

On this episode you’ll hear…

  • Why “because this is how it’s always been done” is no longer an answer 

  • More on the Golden Circle model by Simone Sinek and how it will help you find your why 

  • What communicating your “why: will provide your team

Ready for more?

Listen in:

  • ** This is a raw, unedited transcript

    Chaili Trentham 00:00

    Have you ever been asked to do something at work? Or inherited a piece of a job that feels like why on earth? Am I doing this? Or worse? Have you ever asked your boss for clarity on why you do something the way that you do it? And the response is, this is how it's always been done. It can be so frustrating to feel like you don't know the purpose in your work or a specific task or the way that the organization is doing something, which is why it's so important, as leaders to communicate our why to our team, communicating our Why is like showing our work in algebra class. Do you remember being in high school and you would look at an equation and you knew the answer, but you had to show your work for getting there. We have to be able to show our work, which means we authentically communicate why we authentically communicate the purpose behind the work. And we invite our teams into that. Welcome to the coffee on leadership Podcast. I'm Chaili, Trentham higher education practitioner and Professor trend consultant guiding leaders in cultivating creativity and wholeness through learning and development. And this podcast is a whole lot of fit into short segments, you can listen to over a cup of coffee. Meet me here, as I designed conversations around leadership that you can authentically integrate into the spaces where you lead and have impact. Cheers. So I don't know about you, but I feel like everywhere I turn lately I have heard every brand strategist and entrepreneur and organization stressed the importance of finding your why right now. And before you write this off, as yet another episode about values and why and blah, blah, I want you to listen, because the reason why all of these really smart people are talking to you as an entrepreneur or as an employee, about finding your why is because we see the value of it in the way we work. So I, if you have sat in a workshop with me, if you've been in my class, if you've been on my team, then you've heard me talk about Simon Sinek book, start with why if you've been on my team, I've probably even handed you a copy at one point. And here's why I always bring up Simon Sinek book, start with why because he breaks down this concept of y into really simple terms. And if you're not familiar with his ideas and start with why what you can do is you can google Simon Sinek start with why golden circle, and he did a TED Talk that went viral and caught the marketing world by storm and subsequently the leadership world by storm. Because he created this golden circle model that boils it all down into three key principles. And literally three words, what how, why when you're pursuing a story and telling people what you're offering. And he says this, people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And so this principle that started down as a way to break down marketing principles caught on with leaders like me, and a lot of folks that I worked with, because it made sense. People are no different than consumers, right? Like, it doesn't matter if you're in the marketing world or in the real world in relationship. People don't buy what you do they buy why you do it. So knowing your why means that you know, the purpose behind what you're doing. The values that are driving your behavior that I talked so much about and it has, you have a reason to stay motivated when you know your why. Right, you know your purpose, you know, your values, you know, what is influencing your behavior. And here's the thing, we all desire, a leader who knows their why I think that's just something that's inherent with us, we want a leader who stands for something more. And that's often why we're let down by leaders, right? They're not perfect. But a good leader not only knows their why they find a way to communicate it. I was skimming through an article in the Harvard Business Review this week that was had a title of similar name, good leadership is about communicating why. And in the article, Nancy Duarte, who owns dirty Inc, which is a design firm in Silicon Valley wrote, you have to clearly articulate the why. Think about the action you're asking your audience to take and then follow it with because that was her tangible Step. Follow it with because so set up for your team, why you're doing what you're doing. Because blank, because it gives insight into the decision. You've been on my Instagram this week, you know that I am reading back through radical candor, which is a great book on feedback and doing feedback with your team as well. And in it can Scott gives us idea and this principle of having different kinds of meetings for different purposes. So there's two types of meetings that she talks About that I love, there's the big debate meeting, which is set up to be purely a debate where everyone can come with their ideas and their feelings and like how they think a project should go. And everybody gets to throw it on the table and have a big debate with the understanding that no decision will be made in that space. And then there's a second meeting a big decisions meeting, where the actual decision is made, taking all of that into account. And by separating it, we also separate a lot of the emotions that are with it. And I think that that gives space for a lot of the why to be heard in the great debate. So that your employees might be able to understand, wow, like they're debating this from the side. And that's rooted in their why in what they believe about this task, or this job or this project, right. And it gives space for a leader to hear that from their team. And so it feels honoring, when you know that a leader has taken that into consideration before the big decision. Right. So leaders communicating your why offers your team some profound insight, it offers a few things that I want to go through. So it's not just one thing to say like, Hey, the why as welcome. It's another thing to do the work for yourself as a leader to become self aware and to dig in there. Number one, it brings clarity, when you communicate your why you give your team clarity in your vision. If you are a leader, your team needs to know where you're planning on going right? You're showing them a map and you're saying, Hey, here's where we are on the trail, we're at point A and we are on our way to point B, and it gives them a guide. Number two, it brings invitation to the table, invite others into that vision. And then we're basically on track with Cotters famous eight step model for change, which if you've done any sort of leadership development courses, looking at change, you've you come across Kotter, because he made this eight step model that really simplified this idea for organizational change for leaders. And we basically pick up at steps three, and four, which step three is creating a vision for change. And step four is communicating that vision. It's like not rocket science, you know? But why why are you creating that vision for change and then communicating it, because then your team can adapt to the vision and get on board and start moving in the same direction. And moving on to next steps of Qatar is like celebrating wins. Okay, so you invite other people into the vision when you share the vision and share the why. And number three alignment, this one's huge. Once your team knows the greater vision, once your team knows the why, when you've entered into the because blank, then our people can begin to find alignment of their own vision and values and personal purpose within the organization's. We call this Strategic alignment because it means that employees can begin to see how their work fits into the big picture. Strategic alignment is how we can begin as employees to see how our work fits into the greater picture of our organization. And this alignment means we have more engaged employees. Now the article in the Harvard Business Review stated that leaders often overlook answering why for one of two reasons. Number one, they assume that explaining what and how the first outer principles of Simon Synnex Golden Circle ring, they assume that communicating that is the fastest way to make things happen. This is what we're gonna do. This is how we're gonna get there. Go break. That's it. And that leads into the second reason that they often overlook answering why is because they think the answer is self evident. They think my team gets this. And so they move on, before they unpack it. They assume you get it, which I guess is like honoring, if they assume like you understand this, right. But have you ever felt like you're just sitting there and you don't know the answer? And you're like, I know, I should notice this was probably something we learned in school before. Like, yeah, that seems obvious, but I just can't come up with what you're talking about. Could be in anything in life. That's kind of how employees might be sitting there feeling if you're not communicating the why in the work. And for leaders, you might feel like I brought you hear I hired you because I know you believe in this mission and the work that we're doing. So I think leaders truly do forget that it might not be as clear for you. And that's because our Y is impacted by our individual motivations, our individual purpose or individual values. And so even though we're all working towards a very similar why organizationally, we still have the personal why that we're trying to align and reconcile, which is why we need to walk through this stuff individually as leaders and encourage our people to walk through it individually as leaders so that we can communicate between one another start with why because you can utilize that to motivate others. When we communicate the why well we then give permission to our teams to pursue their own whites put their own meaning into the story and when they can bring their own motivations into their work. It makes strategic alignment, the goal and a priority, which makes engaged employees a priority. As Simon Sinek says, there are only two ways to influence human behavior. You can manipulate it, or you can inspire it. So let's start with why and inspire. Thanks for listening to the coffee on leadership podcast. Take a few moments to reflect on how you will integrate today's episode into your life. And let me know if it was helpful to your leadership. Reach out Visit my website or leave a comment. And don't forget to share with colleagues. Subscribe for future learning. Until our next cup of coffee together. Cheers

PodcastHaley Hatcher