For this blog post, I decided to watch one of the Top 20
TED Talks of All Time. The video I chose was Simon Sinek: How Great Leaders Inspire Action. I picked this video
because I felt based off of the title that it would tie into our content from
all of the classes in the Entertainment Business Master of Science program thus
far. I was correct. Sinek spoke about what characteristics deem someone to be a
leader. He used this type of speech to share knowledge of how the brain works,
and how great leaders use their brains versus others.
A synopsis of what Sinek talked about was how leaders think,
act, and communicate differently than others. He described this idea as the
golden circle. The golden circle is composed of the why, how, and what. He said
that most people communicate from the outside and speak inward. But, great
leaders do the opposite. They understand that one must speak to a person’s
emotion and let it spread outward. They understand the why of what they are
doing, or they get their purpose in life. I looked at this through the lens of our
current class.
In my opinion, Sinek is saying that great leaders are a
brand. Great leaders understand how to convey their brand message. For example,
Sinek used Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a scenario. Dr. King’s message was of
love and respect for one another. There were other people at the time that preached
the same message as him. The difference was how Dr. King conveyed his message.
He spoke to people’s emotions first while also sharing the message of justice.
It was in the way he walked, moved, acted, communicated and so on. Everyone
else preaching the same message talked about it, but did not embody the
message. In a sense, they did not own their message or assess their target
audience to tailor the information. This is an example of how this speech gave
me a deeper sense of brand storytelling and messaging.
