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Book: Extreme Ownership

“Leadership is simple, not easy”

Extreme Ownership is a leadership book written by two former U.S. Navy SEALs, sharing hard-earned lessons from the battlefield and applying them to business and life. It’s direct, uncompromising, and deeply practical.

This post is part of my personal takeaways from Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.

Core Takeaways

  • Good leadership principles don’t change across missions, industries, or personalities involved.
  • There is no leadership without a team.
  • Decisions have immediate consequences — a good or bad call can be the difference between success and failure.
  • You cannot force people to act — you must lead them.
  • You are responsible to develop people, however if someone consistently underperforms you need to let them go because the mission comes above any individual.
  • If something fails, it’s your fault. No blaming someone else — take complete ownership. It also means that the leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them and develop a plan to win & prevent mistakes from happening again. All responsibility for success or failure lies with the leader.

In-depth

Ownership

“Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.”

Continuous Improvement

“leaders should never be satisfied, they should always strive to improve”

No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders

  • The performance of a team reflects its leadership.
  • Even under extreme resistance, leadership must drive improvement.
  • However, in some cases, letting people go is necessary for the mission.

“when it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate”

Believe, Explain Why

  • Leaders must be true believers in the mission to inspire others.
  • Doubts must be resolved privately — never projected onto the team.
  • Clearly explain why the mission matters and why the team is structured the way it is. Explain to your team why they are the best for the mission.

“in order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission. Even when others doubt […]”

Your Ego

  • Ego is the enemy. It clouds judgment and breaks down teamwork.
  • Leadership is not about you — it’s about the mission.
  • You must possess humility and the ability to control your ego and listen to others.

“leaders must always operate with the understanding that they are part of something greater than themselves and their own personal interests”

Teamwork

  • In a company all teams work together for the same mission. Never use “us” vs “the others”. Help each other.
  • Accept that the other teams are not here to sabotage us. They might operate that way because of constraints or different priorities.

Message

  • The message should be simple.
  • The execution should be simple.

About Stress

Relax, look around & make a call.

  • Stay two steps ahead of realtime problems.
  • Pull yourself off the firing line to think.
  • Side note: humans are not able to manage more than 6-10 people, especially during emergencies.

How to implement this:

  1. Assess the highest priority problem.
  2. Lay out in simple, clear terms what needs to be done first to the team.
  3. Seek inputs from key leaders and develop & determine a solution.
  4. Direct the execution of that solution.
  5. Move to the next highest priority problem.

“Take care of one problem at a time”

Leadership

Leaders:

  • Clarify the why. Understand the overall mission.
  • Should be empowered to make decisions on key tasks that are necessary to accomplish the mission. For this, they need to understand what is within their decision authority. It is important to give decision power to junior leaders.
  • Must be proactive rather than reactive. Instead of asking “what do I do?” say “this is what I’m going to do”. Instead of letting the situation dictate the decision, we must dictate the decision.
  • Are not stuck in a particular position: they must be free to move where they are most needed.
  • Need to take a step back: if you are too much hands-on you will loose track of the bigger picture and you will fail to move things forward.
  • Will let know their directs that they will back them up.
  • Must understand the motivation of their team, know their people, their lives.
  • Must stand up for the team, respectfully push back against a decision, order or direction that could negatively impact the overall mission success.
  • “A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove.”
    • The team understands that the leader is de-facto in charge, in that aspect a leader has nothing to prove. They must earn that respect and prove themselves worthy, demonstrating through action that they will take care of the team and look out for their long term interests and well being. In that aspect, a leader has everything to prove everyday. When you try to demonstrate that you are in charge, instead of gaining respect the opposite happens.

Plan

  • Begins with a mission analysis.
  • Leaders first understand thoroughly themselves the mission, then must identify clear directives for the team.
  • There is no need to get into too much depth/details. However, you need to be attentive to detail, not obsessed by them. You cannot get sucked into the details and loose track of the bigger picture.
  • Accept some unknowns & risks, you won’t be able to know all.
    • The picture is never complete and you will still need to decide.
    • Deciding to not decide is a decision and a bad one.
  • Give room for the ICs to contribute to the plan: this will help get them engaged and better at executing the plan.
  • Need to do a formal briefing of the plan:
    • Presented in a simple & clear & concise format.
    • Need to ask questions to ICs to make sure they understood.
  • Need to retrospect and do post operational debriefs.

CHECKLIST FOR EXECUTION

  • Analyze the mission (your boss intent, goal).
  • Identify personnel, assets, resources and time available.
  • Decentralize the planning process (empower key leaders in the team to sub-plan)
  • Determine then the overall course of action
    • Lean towards the simplest course of action.
  • Plan for contingencies through each phase of the operations.
  • Continuously check and question the plan against emerging information.
  • Brief the plan
    • Can delegate portion of the brief to junior leaders.
    • Most important: explain the goal & the intent.
  • Engage in discussion to ensure comprehesion from the team
  • Retrospect.

Managing & Leading up

Leading down: explain to the engineers how their role contribute to the bigger mission.

However about leading up:

  • Can’t expect them to be mind readers.
  • Don’t blame the boss, first blame yourself.
    • No public display of discontent.
    • Even if you don’t agree, you must execute the plan as it was your own.
    • Senior leadership wants us to succeed, in the same manner we wish our own directs to succeed.
  • Don’t ask your leader what you should do, tell them what you are going to do.

Discipline is the pathway to Freedom

Even simple things as forcefully waking up every morning is going to reward you with more time.

  • Having SOPs optimize the time and gives more space for something else.
  • Putting aside ego and personal agendas to ensure that the team has the greatest chance of accomplishing its strategic goals.
  • Leaders are not intimidated when others step up and take charge.
  • Leaders should not seek recognition. Recognize others for their contributions.
  • Leaders are confident enough to follow someone else when the situation calls for it.
    • Confident, but never cocky.
    • Overconfidence cause complacency and arrogance.
  • Leaders who lose their temper also lose respect. However, never showing any sense of anger, sadness or frustration would make that leader appear void of any emotion at all: a robot, and people do not follow robots.
  • Leaders are brave, but not foolhardy. Accept the risk and act courageously, but never be reckless.
  • Leaders have competitive spirit but also gracious loosers.

Dichotomy of Leadership

  • Confident, but not cocky.
  • Courageous, but not foolhardy.
  • Competitive, but gracious loser.
  • Attentive to details, but not obsessed by them.
  • Strong, but have endurance. Maintain the ability to perform at the highest level and sustain that level for the long term. They must recognize limitations and know to pace themselves and their teams so that they can maintain a solid performance indefinitely.
  • A leader, and a follower.
  • Humble, but not passive.
  • Aggressive, not overbearing.
  • Speak up, when it matters.
  • Quiet, but not silent.
  • Calm, but not robotic.
  • Logical, but not devoid of emotions.
  • Close with subordinates, but not too close. Never grow so close to subordinates that one member of the team becomes more important than another or more important that the mission itself.

Can you become a leader?

You have natural capabilities: charisma, decisive mind, sharp wit, willingness to accept risk, ability to remain calm in chaotic, high pressure situations.

But, willingness to learn, humble attitude that seeks valid constructive critisicm in order to improve, with discipline & training can develop into highly effective leaders.

And, you can fail even with natural abilities if you are not humble enough.