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​​LEADING INTO THE FUTURE

Leadership in Economic Development: Start With Why

By Joy Wilkins, CEcD

Before any person or organization can take the steps necessary to be a leader, we must first agree on a definition of what a leader is.  Leadership is not about power or authority.  Leadership is decidedly more human.  Being a leader requires one thing and one thing only: followers.  A follower is someone who volunteers to go where you are going.  They choose to go not because they have to, not because they were incentivized to, not because they were threatened to, but because they want to.  – Simon Sinek

For successful economic development leaders, serving in our profession is all about fulfilling a special call in their lives, and they are magnetic in attracting others to join them in this call.  They not only inspire others to follow; they inspire others into doing work they love, and therefore find meaningful.  

How do they make this happen?  In the words of Simon Sinek, these leaders start with why. 

According to Sinek, inspired team members make for stronger economies because people who love going to work are more productive and more creative.  They are happier and therefore have happier families.  And they treat their colleagues and customers better.   

In his 2009 book, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, Sinek asks us to “imagine a world in which the ability to inspire is practiced not just by a chosen few, but by the majority,” and a world in which more people are fulfilled in all they do. 

An alternative perspective

 “When most organizations or people think, act or communicate ,” says Sinek, “we say what we do, we sometimes say how we do it, but we rarely say why we do what we do.”  Why is this so?  Because it’s easier to talk about our products or services, facts and figures, than it is to talk about deeper beliefs and feelings, he points out.  This is particularly challenging when we don’t have a crystal clear picture of what those beliefs and feelings may be.  However, notes the author, “people don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.”  

The author makes the case that a pattern of communicating from the inside out is followed by truly inspiring leaders throughout history.  In what he calls The Golden Circle, Sinek illustrates this pattern with the WHY at the core of the circle, the HOW as the inner ring and the WHAT as the outer ring. “For great leaders, The Golden Circle is in balance,” says Sinek. “They are in pursuit of WHY, they hold themselves accountable to HOW they do it, and WHAT they do serves as tangible proof of what they believe.” 

While the economic development profession tends to draw individuals who feel called to public service, articulating our WHY is often another matter, and we should not assume it is understood.  For example, we may do well at talking about the various ways we can be helpful without taking the time to first convey why we care so much about what we do.  Sharing our passion, however, is key for enabling us to connect at an emotional level with those we serve.  Whether those are internal team members, external partners, or the community at large, such connections are essential for achieving the kind of buy-in that is needed to reach our productive best in economic development.  

For Sinek, this is all a matter of biology regarding a basic, yet vital human need we all share: to have a sense of belonging with those who share our beliefs and values.  “When we feel like we belong, we feel connected and we feel safe,” he says, and “[this] is so powerful that we will go to great lengths, do irrational things, and often spend money to get that feeling.”  Connecting around shared beliefs and values enables us to connect to the part of the brain (limbric) which is not only responsible for feelings such as trust and loyalty, but also for decision-making and other human behavior.  This, he argues, underscores the power of why. 

Sinek advises that by focusing on winning hearts first, the minds will follow – and the secret to winning the heart is in developing a shared sense of belonging.  Connecting with others is what leads people to make those “gut decisions” that feel right because the part of the brain that controls our decision-making also controls our feelings, he explains. 

Sinek’s message is particularly on point for those of us serving in the economic development profession.  Developing a sense of belonging, or what we refer to as a sense of community, is part and parcel of the work we do.  And given the human need we’re addressing, this is perhaps one of the most important aspects of our work.

Start with why, but know how

 “For every great leader, for every WHY-type, there is an inspired HOW-type or group of HOW-types who take the intangible cause and build the infrastructure that can give it life,” observes Sinek.  The author points out what we in economic development know intrisically – that it takes an inspired team to achieve anything of significance. 

According to Sinek, most people in the world are HOW-types, and while they don’t need WHY-types to be successful, the WHY-types need them to build great, inspiring organizations.   

“In organizations able to inspire, the best chief executives are WHY-types – people who wake up every day to lead a cause and not just run a company,” says Sinek, and “the best chief financial officers and chief operating officers are high-performing HOW-types inspired by the leader’s vision [who] prefer to work behind the scenes to build the systems that can make the vision a reality.”  In ideal scenarios, the WHY-types focus on sharing the vision of a future that does not yet exist, but explain why the organization exists and depend upon the HOW-types to carry out the mission. 

This special partnership between the WHY and HOW-types can certainly be observed within high-performing economic development organizations (EDOs).  The journeys of some veteran WHY executives in our profession have demonstrated an ability to raise up other WHY executives, including some of the one-time HOW executives they’ve come to influence.

Sinek makes another point that’s particularly insightful for our profession, given our dependence on engaged volunteers and community stakeholders.  “Great organizations not only excite the human spirit but inspire people to take part in helping to advance the cause without needing to pay them or incentivize them in any particular way,” he says.  “They willingly take up arms to share the message that inspires them.” 

Completing The Golden Circle, Sinek speaks to the importance of aligning the WHAT with the WHY.  “Everything an organization says and does communicates the leader’s vision to the outside world,” notes Sinek, “and if all the things happening at the WHAT level do not clearly represent the WHY the [organization] exists, then the ability to inspire is severely complicated.”  He sees managing the proper alignment between the WHY and WHAT as falling under the purview of the HOW-types, who are responsible for understanding the WHY and for hiring the right people to bring it to life. 

Pitfalls to consider

 “Those with the ability to never lose sight of WHY and also achieve the milestones that keep everyone focused in the right direction are great leaders,” says Sinek, “but most of us reach a place where WHAT we are doing and WHY we are doing it eventually fall out of balance.”  Following are a couple of the pitfalls he points out.

The biggest challenge is success. 

 “In the course of building [an organization] or career, we become more confident in WHAT we do,” observes Sinek, “we become greater experts in HOW we do it…for most of us, somewhere in the journey we forget WHY we set out on the journey in the first place.”  As a result, he notes, the WHY and WHAT can fall out of alignment with each other resulting in the WHAT growing and the WHY waning. 

There are times when even the most successful among us might question our purpose, our reason for being.  Using Sinek’s words, our WHY can become fuzzy.  This is not only natural but can also be healthy if recognized and addressed.  For example, a few years ago, a veteran executive in our profession, noted for leading high-performing teams, shared how he found himself doing just this type of questioning.  This prompted him to lead his colleagues into a re-examination of why they exist which resulted in his team dynamically reconnecting around a shared passion for making a difference for communities, one community at a time.  In short, team members became inspired by their purpose once again. 

Good successions keep the WHY alive. 

Sinek shares a scary observation: when the WHY goes, all we have left is the WHAT. 

According to the author, “succession” CEOs of great organizations don’t take the helm to implement their own vision of the future; they pick up the original banner and lead the organization into the next generation.  This is the difference between succession and replacement, he explains.   

This is especially important for EDOs that are mission-driven to carry out an economic development vision that is beyond a leader but reflects the wishes of a community as a whole.  While the players may change, the vision should continue. 

“Succession is more than selecting someone with an appropriate skill set,” says Sinek. “It’s about finding someone who is in lockstep with the original cause around which the [organization] was founded.”  

Closing thoughts 

What can we do to inspire others to follow?  Sinek shares some interesting insights on this question.   

Inspire people to do the things that inspire them so that together we can change the world: Intentionally choosing people to serve in our organizations who already have a heart for our WHY can open up opportunities to be a source of inspiration for them to reach their WHY. 

If you follow your WHY, others will follow you: Passion is contagious and a strong connective tissue.  Others who share our passion for our WHY will be drawn by our pursuit. 

In closing, we are nothing short of blessed to serve in the profession of economic development where we share a vision – one in which every person has the opportunity to reach their fullest productive potential regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, income, background, or geography.  This is our call.  This is our purpose.  This is our reason for getting up in the morning.  This is our WHY. 

ABOUT THIS ARTICLE

Economic development leaders are true change agents for the world around them. The impact of their leadership on those they serve is untold and often cumulative in nature. This article is part of IEDC's ongoing series of articles on "Leadership in Economic Development" that focuses on the application of leadership principles to economic development practice.  How do we respond to the call for dynamic and adaptive leadership given the ever-evolving economic, social, environmental and political considerations affecting our communities and organizations?  This article, and the series as a whole, aims to contribute to the conversation.  

​[This article first appeared in Economic Development Now, a publication by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC), in June 2018 and appears here with permission. Special thanks to IEDC's former managing editor Louise Anderson for her partnership in producing this article.]