What “Leaders Eat Last” means

there’s a funny story that goes along
with how we came up with the title of
this book and we are all to blame here I
am writing a book about the importance
of working with people interacting with
people human relationships and yet the
way I and the publisher interacted was
we would send emails to each other with
title suggestions every now and we get
on the phone but it was mainly done
through email somebody would send a list
of their favorite and you know somebody
would write back
that’s junk I kind of like that one and
it was a labored horrible process no one
ever we never agreed when it was just it
was just talking at each other and
coincidence I happen to be walking past
the publishers office and decided to
stick my head in and say hello
went upstairs and we sat down and within
I think 30 or 40 minutes we had a title
that we all fell in love with and what
you realize is is we can tell an idea to
someone over email but you can’t
interact and if you think about how
ideas really happen it’s not
presentation response presentation
response its interruption and backwards
and forwards and battling and saying no
no no that’s not what I mean and it’s
it’s messy and it’s the messiness that
cannot happen over and over an internet
connection over email because everything
is exact over email it can it can happen
over the phone but it’s so much better
in person when you get to see someone’s
body language and you see the
frustration and you try and extry extry
x’ as opposed to telling each other what
we think we it should be and the story
that I told was not being able to
understand what made the Marines so
amazing what they do i sat down with a
Marine Corps general general Flynn
actually who wrote the foreword for the
book and I said to him what makes the
Marines so great and he he looked at me
and said officers eat last and it sort
of struck me that if you compare that to
the business world in the
entrepreneurial world entrepreneurs are
always told by yourself first
look after yourself first and yet I’m
being told by this Marine general that
it’s the complete opposite and there’s
there’s a symbolic gesture but more
importantly there’s a there’s an
importance to it there there’s a
photograph I saw you know these Kenya
shootings that just
that happened not so long ago we had the
amazing experience that a photographer
happened to be in the building usually
we see the aftermath and here we now
have photographs of the actual shooting
going on and there’s one photograph that
was in the New York Times that both
haunted me and inspired me to this day
it wanted me and inspires me I should
say and if the photograph of a mother in
the sound of gunshots lays herself on
top of her child and you see this
picture of a mother lying on top of her
child and you realize that’s what it is
that’s what leadership is that when
there is danger it’s not protecting
myself but it’s rather willing to put
myself in harm’s way to protect another
that’s what eating last means it means
that I will give the very the very
essence of life food and water I will
give it to the person I love first so
that they may live even if it means I
eat less and that’s what officers eat
last means it is symbolic but it is also
very real and real leadership real
leaders I’ve even given up the
terminology of good leaders and great
leaders you’re either a leader or you’re
not a leader that’s it real leaders
biological anthropological leaders are
are that mother who instinctively
without weighing the pros and cons or
the bad things that may happen to her
throw herself on her child that’s what
leadership is you know do we believe
that our our leaders would throw
themselves on us you know if they heard
gunshots if if the economy shook would
they quickly throw themselves on us that
that’s that’s what leaders eat last
means it is very literal it is very very
literal