Transformational leadership involves the ability to inspire and motivate followers to take action toward the desire goal or behavior. We all know that inspiration is a vital part of effective leadership, most of us just don’t know what it means to inspire someone. Instead, we sell them on the desired actions or levels of performance we feel we need to get out of them. As Simon Sinek would put it, we sell the what or how. Sinek, in his new release Start With Why, argues instead that we ought to focus on building a strong why and moving forward from them.

Why is the organization’s purpose – not the “create a customer” purpose that Drucker would tell us, but the real motivation behind what the organization wants to do to change the world. Once a why is established, Sinek advises to place is squarely instead the “Golden Circle,” a model he uses to describe how once a core purpose is established, only then are instructions of what actions to take and how to take them well received by followers.

While positioned at current and aspiring leaders, Start With Why, reads more like a marketing book. Indeed, the majority of Sinek’s examples are of market leading products or companies, not leaders within those companies or movements. Occasionally, he does add renown leaders to his case. Nonetheless, the book gives insight into the human mind and, with considerable reflection, Start With Why, can teach leaders how to more effectively inspire and motivate their followers.