Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win
by Jocko Willink
30 popular highlights from this book
Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win:
Cover and Move, Simple, Prioritize and Execute, and Decentralized Command.
leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities, between one extreme and another. The
calm but not robotic, logical but not devoid of emotions;
Discipline equals freedom.
It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.
The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win—you pass the test. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail. Though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions. But if you exercise discipline, that too translates to more substantial elements of your life.
the most fundamental and important truths at the heart of Extreme Ownership: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.
Implementing Extreme Ownership requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility. Admitting mistakes, taking ownership, and developing a plan to overcome challenges are integral to any successful team.
Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.
When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable—if there are no consequences—that poor performance becomes the new standard.
Relax. Look around. Make a call.
Leaders should never be satisfied. They must always strive to improve, and they must build that mind-set into the team. They must face the facts through a realistic, brutally honest assessment of themselves and their team’s performance. Identifying weaknesses, good leaders seek to strengthen them and come up with a plan to overcome challenges. The best teams anywhere, like the SEAL Teams, are constantly looking to improve, add capability, and push the standards higher. It starts with the individual and spreads to each of the team members until this becomes the culture, the new standard. The recognition that there are no bad teams, only bad leaders facilitates Extreme Ownership and enables leaders to build high-performance teams that dominate on any battlefield, literal or figurative.
Prioritize your problems and take care of them one at a time, the highest priority first. Don’t try to do everything at once or you won’t be successful.” I explained how a leader who tries to take on too many problems simultaneously will likely fail at them all.
Our freedom to operate and maneuver had increased substantially through disciplined procedures. Discipline equals freedom.
You can’t make people listen to you. You can’t make them execute. That might be a temporary solution for a simple task. But to implement real change, to drive people to accomplish something truly complex or difficult or dangerous—you can’t make people do those things. You have to lead them.
The Dichotomy of Leadership A good leader must be: • confident but not cocky; • courageous but not foolhardy; • competitive but a gracious loser; • attentive to details but not obsessed by them; • strong but have endurance; • a leader and follower; • humble not passive; • aggressive not overbearing; • quiet not silent; • calm but not robotic, logical but not devoid of emotions; • close with the troops but not so close that one becomes more important than another or more important than the good of the team; not so close that they forget who is in charge. • able to execute Extreme Ownership, while exercising Decentralized Command. A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove. APPLICATION
After all, there can be no leadership where there is no team.
Leaders must always operate with the understanding that they are part of something greater than themselves and their own personal interests. They
Belief in the mission ties in with the fourth Law of Combat: Decentralized Command (chapter 8). The leader must explain not just what to do, but why. It is the responsibility of the subordinate leader to reach out and ask if they do not understand. Only when leaders at all levels understand and believe in the mission can they pass that understanding and belief to their teams so that they can persevere through challenges, execute and win.
But, in fact, discipline is the pathway to freedom.
A good leader does not get bogged down in the minutia of a tactical problem at the expense of strategic success.
We learned that leadership requires belief in the mission and unyielding perseverance to achieve victory, particularly when doubters question whether victory is even possible. As
On any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win.
Instead of letting the situation dictate our decisions, we must dictate the situation.
The true test for a good brief,” Jocko continued, “is not whether the senior officers are impressed. It’s whether or not the troops that are going to execute the operation actually understand it. Everything else is bullshit. Does
any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win.
We learned that leadership requires belief in the mission and unyielding perseverance to achieve victory, particularly when doubters question whether victory is even possible.
A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove.
Waiting for the 100 percent right and certain solution leads to delay, indecision, and an inability to execute.
As a leader, if you are down in the weeds planning the details with your guys,” said Jocko, “you will have the same perspective as them, which adds little value. But if you let them plan the details, it allows them to own their piece of the plan. And it allows you to stand back and see everything with a different perspective, which adds tremendous value. You can then see the plan from a greater distance, a higher altitude, and you will see more. As a result, you will catch mistakes and discover aspects of the plan that need to be tightened up, which enables you to look like a tactical genius, just because you have a broader view.
