Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Charisma has nothing to do with energy; it comes from a clarity of WHY. It comes from absolute conviction in an ideal bigger than oneself. Energy, in contrast, comes from a good night’s sleep or lots of caffeine. Energy can excite. But only charisma can inspire. Charisma commands loyalty. Energy does not.

Leading, however, means that others willingly follow you—not because they have to, not because they are paid to, but because they want to.

WHY is just a belief, HOWs are the actions we take to realize that belief, and WHATs are the results of those actions. When all three are in balance, trust is built and value is perceived.

Manipulation and inspiration both tickle the limbic brain. Aspirational messages, fear or peer pressure all push us to decide one way or another by appealing to our irrational desires or playing on our fears. But it’s when that emotional feeling goes deeper than insecurity or uncertainty or dreams that the emotional reaction aligns with how we view ourselves

Henry Ford summed it up best. “If I had asked people what they wanted,” he said, “they would have said a faster horse.”

This is the genius of great leadership. Great leaders and great organizations are good at seeing what most of us can’t see. They are good at giving us things we would never think of asking for.

People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it. A

Knowing your WHY is not the only way to be successful, but it is the only way to maintain a lasting success and have a greater blend of innovation and flexibility. When a WHY goes fuzzy, it becomes much more difficult to maintain the growth, loyalty and inspiration that helped drive the original success.

WHY is offered as the reason to buy and the WHATs serve as the tangible proof of that belief.

There are a few leaders who choose to inspire rather than manipulate in order to motivate people.

With every price drop, promotion, fear-based or aspirational message, and novelty we use to achieve our goals, we find our companies, our organizations and our systems getting weaker and weaker.