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ahiesh's review against another edition
5.0
Thank you Simon for this book. My first and favorite book on Audible, till date. I feel it's best to hear Simon narrate this book, than to actually read the physical book, the first time.
Why is leadership needed? There're in fact some biological reasons and quite simple to understand. Leadership & innovation thrives when one understands the fundamentals.
This book may have been mostly written in the context of US companies, there are definitely loads to takeaway for Indians too, especially while trying to lead millennials. :-)
A must read for the current generation of aspiring leaders!!
Why is leadership needed? There're in fact some biological reasons and quite simple to understand. Leadership & innovation thrives when one understands the fundamentals.
This book may have been mostly written in the context of US companies, there are definitely loads to takeaway for Indians too, especially while trying to lead millennials. :-)
A must read for the current generation of aspiring leaders!!
worldofjoel's review against another edition
3.0
A month ago Jenn handed me a copy of Leaders Eat Last. She said at the end of the novel Simon Sinek asks the reader to pass the book on to other leaders. She was nice enough to pass it to me so over the last month I've been reading the book Readers Eat Last. Just from the title, it's a book that spoke to me in a big way. And although I've never read a Simon Sinek book before I had heard great things.
I will say that I think the core concepts of Leaders Eat Last are both simple in nature but incredibly powerful. For a leader and an employee to accomplish anything, there needs to be a "circle of safety." It's a hard concept to argue against. In order for employees to perform you need to ensure that they understand that you have their back, through thick and thin. The layoff mentality of current corporate America Sinek proposes is one of the worst things that has happened to American workers.
Where Leaders Eat Last lost me though was Sinek's heavy overemphasis on psychology and psychology terms. It's not a bad thing, but he hits that hammer so many times by the end of the book I felt like the message had been dulled. His point for focusing so closely on the psychology of the American workforce is the constant push to hit metrics, hit new highs in the stock market, and to constantly get the dopamine kick.
I really appreciated a lot of the concepts of Leaders Eat Last. But after conversations with Jenn I figured out what my biggest gripe was with this book. It was written for executives. Sure I'd love to be an executive one day but I'm not anywhere near that at this point. And so although I think there are some great things to grasp from Leaders Eat Last, it's a book that's primary focus is on the leader of companies.
I will say that I think the core concepts of Leaders Eat Last are both simple in nature but incredibly powerful. For a leader and an employee to accomplish anything, there needs to be a "circle of safety." It's a hard concept to argue against. In order for employees to perform you need to ensure that they understand that you have their back, through thick and thin. The layoff mentality of current corporate America Sinek proposes is one of the worst things that has happened to American workers.
Where Leaders Eat Last lost me though was Sinek's heavy overemphasis on psychology and psychology terms. It's not a bad thing, but he hits that hammer so many times by the end of the book I felt like the message had been dulled. His point for focusing so closely on the psychology of the American workforce is the constant push to hit metrics, hit new highs in the stock market, and to constantly get the dopamine kick.
I really appreciated a lot of the concepts of Leaders Eat Last. But after conversations with Jenn I figured out what my biggest gripe was with this book. It was written for executives. Sure I'd love to be an executive one day but I'm not anywhere near that at this point. And so although I think there are some great things to grasp from Leaders Eat Last, it's a book that's primary focus is on the leader of companies.
touchstone_kennedy's review against another edition
It was good, but I felt like the main point came across early and the author had nothing more to say. His TED talk on the topic was excellent, and his other books are excellent.
scobo's review against another edition
5.0
This book provides some great examples of good and bad leadership, with the context of how it got to that point and the results of that behavior. It explains why some companies do so well, why congress currently is not, and how we can seek to improve the happiness and cooperation of whatever team we're working with.
Highly recommended!
Highly recommended!
monicaramey's review against another edition
4.0
This was a decent book. I got a history lesson, science lesson all in one. I might need to re-read this because there were some take aways from this that I really did enjoy.
hsinjulit's review against another edition
2.0
The reason that I borrowed this book from my local library to read was because of Sinek's 'Millennials in the Workspace' interview. As a millennial myself, even though I may not agree with him, I still consider him an interesting person who was brave enough to point out some of the problems and organise them into the short speech that subsequently went viral over the Internet. Naturally, I decided to read his book for more understanding of Sinek.
Still, I do not agree with the author on many occasions throughout the book. This was mostly due to Simon trying too hard to get his theories science-backed, which only made them more cringy.
1. Circle of Safety: One can only feel proud of being a member of a group when safety is granted in that organisation, i.e. there are no dangers within and that people face dangers outside together.
2. Abstraction Kills & Abundance Destroys: Many companies aim for better performance by checking the numbers and statistics, the abstraction of real human beings, rather than focus on their initial goal of making people's lives better. 'Abundance can be destructive because it abstracts the value of things. The more we have, the less we seem to value what we've got.'
3. Leaders: Leaders define the culture of a company, and hence the future of the company. Over time, empowering ones lead better-performing teams than directive ones. 'Leadership is not a license to do less; it is a responsibility to do more.'
Still, I do not agree with the author on many occasions throughout the book. This was mostly due to Simon trying too hard to get his theories science-backed, which only made them more cringy.
Spoiler
However, there are still some things worth mentioning:1. Circle of Safety: One can only feel proud of being a member of a group when safety is granted in that organisation, i.e. there are no dangers within and that people face dangers outside together.
2. Abstraction Kills & Abundance Destroys: Many companies aim for better performance by checking the numbers and statistics, the abstraction of real human beings, rather than focus on their initial goal of making people's lives better. 'Abundance can be destructive because it abstracts the value of things. The more we have, the less we seem to value what we've got.'
3. Leaders: Leaders define the culture of a company, and hence the future of the company. Over time, empowering ones lead better-performing teams than directive ones. 'Leadership is not a license to do less; it is a responsibility to do more.'
We need a vision of the world that does not yet exist.I would say this was an okay book that was not particularly informative, though not a complete waste of time, either.
linadaniel's review against another edition
3.0
I didn’t necessarily learn anything new, but found some good nuggets of truth that serve as nice reminders.
librarytech4's review against another edition
4.0
This book explains why being a servant leader is the best way to get the most out of your team, while also making them feel cared for and trusted to make their own decisions. The author talks about people needing leaders who trust them to be able to make their own decisions and have to authority to do so.
christopherchandler's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed his approach to understanding the neurological needs of people an organizations. I wasn't expecting to learn about dopamine, serotonin, etc and how they are at work while we work. I'll need to go back and add some notes to summarize his main points, but it was certainly not a cookie cutter leadership book.
jenfwright's review against another edition
3.0
Started off strong but ended on a repetitive and out of touch note. Some good points in the first half, though.