Low diatribe

Simon Sinek's "Start with Why" changed how I think about leadership. The idea that great leaders inspire action by starting with purpose rather than process resonated deeply. I spent years learning to articulate my why, to lead with vision, to inspire through clarity of belief.

But something always felt forced when I tried to apply it directly. Like I was performing leadership rather than living it. I prefer to start with shy.

It started as a Freudian typo. "Start with shy." I sat staring at those words on the screen. I hadn't meant it, but seeing them in print unlocked something. "That's me," I thought. "That's what I do. That's how I apply my why."

What do I mean by start with shy? I see it as finding your way to purpose through the side quest of reading the room through a lens of curiosity. Most people misunderstand shyness as hesitation or weakness, but that pause is like tuning a radio. You're finding the right frequency before you transmit.

I've repeatedly watched confident leaders charge into rooms with their why blazing like a banner. They know their purpose, they share their beliefs, they inspire people around their vision. It's impressive and energizing to watch. It's also exhausting when your experiences have wired you to listen first.

The shy approach creates a buffer zone for calibration. Instead of leading with my purpose, I begin by understanding theirs. While others are talking, I'm listening. While they're positioning, I'm processing. While they're performing, I'm understanding. I stay quiet until I figure out how to best connect with those around me.

When I started leading teams, I tried to lead like I thought leadership looked like: purposeful, confident, inspiring. The collision happened in a conference room on a Thursday morning. I walked into a new team meeting armed with vision and energy, ready to inspire. I talked about goals and possibilities while watching faces grow more distant with each passing minute. Later, in one-on-ones, I discovered what I'd missed: one person was drowning in technical debt, another was frustrated by unclear priorities, a third was preoccupied with a life-changing event. My why was being masked by the interference of their context.

The teams I've led most effectively weren't the ones where I showed up with the clearest vision. They were the ones where I took time to understand how each person worked, what motivated them, what they needed to do their best work. This isn't abandoning Sinek's way of why. It's finding it at a different speed, using the space between action for reflection.

Sinek's framework is powerful, but it assumes a certain delivery method. Start with your why, then share your vision. This works brilliantly for many leaders. But it never quite worked like that for me.

I still start with why, but my why seeks clarity through connection first. Most leadership advice focuses on projection, but some of us are natural receivers, built to tune in rather than transmit. We gather signal before we send it.

Instead of arriving with a fully formed vision, we arrive with questions that help everyone discover what we're building together. What starts as your purpose becomes our purpose through listening, understanding, and evolving together.

I notice the difference in how conversations unfold. When I lead with questions instead of answers, people lean in differently. They share things they wouldn't have volunteered. They build on each other's ideas rather than just responding to mine. The agreement comes slower, but it runs deeper.

This isn't about personality types or leadership styles. It's about recognizing that the pause before speaking, the hesitation before acting, the careful observation before engaging aren't flaws to fix. They're features to trust.

Shyness in leadership isn't about lacking confidence. It's about having enough confidence to not need immediate validation. It's trusting that understanding comes before being understood.

I've learned that frameworks need tending, not just carrying. When I first discovered Sinek's approach, I tried to apply it exactly as presented. It felt forced, like wearing someone else's hat. The breakthrough came when I stopped trying to be a perfect messenger and started being a careful gardener of the idea itself.

To translate this into corporate buzzwords, leadership philosophy often prefers missionaries over mercenaries. Mercenaries work for pay, missionaries work for purpose. I've learned to think of myself as a steward instead. Stewards don't just carry the message forward, they tend it. They understand that ideas need to evolve as they encounter new contexts and different people.

It's the difference between building a wall, building a cathedral, and building a society. The wall builder focuses on the task. The cathedral builder focuses on the vision. The society builder focuses on the people who will live in what gets built. Society builders know that needs change and vision evolves. The shy approach leans toward society building.

Now when I share frameworks with my teams, I tell them what I tell myself: take what serves you, adapt what doesn't fit, keep what works. I've watched brilliant people struggle with leadership advice that wasn't built for how they're wired. The shy reframing isn't about changing Sinek's framework. It's about finding my way into it.

I've found my place in leadership not by becoming more confident or outspoken, but by learning to trust what I already am. The world has plenty of leaders who know exactly what they want and aren't afraid to say so. I'm still learning the best ways to discover what others need and adjust accordingly.

I've learned to start with shy. To trust that curiosity serves better than certainty, that questions open more doors than answers, that listening creates more space than speaking. The connection takes longer to establish, but what we build together holds.