Being a good leader takes dedication and effort. There are many ways to lead, but there are aspects that each of them has in common. Let’s take a look at seven great TED Talks on workplace leadership.
1. Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action
Simon Sinek is a leadership professional and author who encourages leaders to inspire trust, change, and cooperation. He uses examples such as Martin Luther King and the Wright Brothers in his discussion and explains why leaders should start with the question “Why?” when inspiring their team.
2. Fields Wicker-Miurin: Learning from leadership’s missing manual.
In this TED Talk, Fields shares stories about different leaders and explains how no manual can teach a person to lead. Fields gets her leadership knowledge from her experience of being a social entrepreneur.
3. Itay Talgam: Lead like the great conductors.
Itay is an orchestra conductor and leadership expert from Israel. He also wrote the book “The Ignorant Maestro.” He discusses the styles of six conductors from the 20th-century. He describes how conductors can teach vital lessons to all leaders.
4. Drew Dudley: Everyday leadership
Drew Dudley is a leadership educator who believes that everyone can be a leader, not just the extraordinary. He uses comedy in this TED talk to discuss why leadership is the daily act of us improving people’s lives.
5. Rosalinde Torres: What it takes to be a great leader
Leadership expert Rosalinde Torres studies great leaders, what makes them behave the way they do, and how she can teach others to do the same. Her Ted talk consists of 25 years worth of observations of leaders at work. She also includes three critical questions future company chiefs must ask in order to thrive.
6. Tim Harford: Trial, error, and the God complex
Tim Harford is an economist, journalist, broadcaster, and great leader. After studying complicated systems, Tim realized that the commonality among them is that they were constructed through trial and error. Tim uses this TED talk to inspire us to accept our unique, quirky qualities and begin to make better mistakes.
7. David Logan: Tribal Leadership
In this TED Talk, Professor of Management David Logan describes the five tribes that humans form naturally. These tribes are formed everywhere, from schools, offices, and even random public places. He helps us understand our tendency to form tribes and how we can lead each other to improve as people.