Johnny Bravo

The post

Leadership is a verb.

It’s how you do your job.

Simon Sinek's ‘Leaders Eat Last’ shares tales of leaders in trying times, some excellent and some questionable.

Johnny Bravo

In the opening of the book, Simon shares the story of Captain Mike Drowley, aka Johnny Bravo.

Johnny Bravo sensed the tension in the troops over the radio and flew below the cloud cover. Then he heard "troops in contact".

He provided suppressing fire to protect the troops on the ground.

Once his ammunition was all used up, he flew back up and got his wingman to come down and continue.

Nobody told him to do what he did.

Drowley said it was nothing more than doing his job.

His J.O.B.

Circle of Safety

The idea that keeps coming back through the book: look after your staff, and your customers will be looked after.

In this world of AI, there's so much investment in the technology. People are treated as expendable commodities.

But businesses are made by people to serve people.

People create relationships with people, not with AI.

It's easy to point the finger at leaders who back the technology over their people. But leaders carry a huge amount of pressure, and sometimes we're unable to see it.

Drowley exercised empathy to do his job. Every time he heard "troops in contact", he anchored himself in the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan, so he had an idea of the horror and fear on the ground.

Eating Last

In today's business landscape, it almost seems as though most executives eat first.

Once significant cuts are made to the investment in people, executive compensation goes up.

We see it going back and forth. Companies reorg, then rehire the people they laid off. You wonder how much waste is truly being created.

A leader with a vision they want to fulfil over the long term will create leaders within their business.

You can't do that when you're turning people over like a used commodity and throwing scraps out the door.

Leadership isn't a title you wear on your profile.

It's how you do your job.