The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win

There is no growth in the comfort zone.

When a leader takes too much ownership, there is no ownership left for the team or subordinate leaders to take. So the team loses initiative, they lose momentum, they won't make any decision, they just sit around and wait to be told what to do.

don’t try to plan for every contingency. Doing so will only overburden you and weigh you down so that you cannot quickly maneuver.

So what does it take to win? Yes, you have to be determined. Yes, you have to be driven. Yes, you must have the unconquerable will to win. But to really win, to truly win at all cost, requires more flexibility, more creativity, more adaptability, more compromise, and more humility than most people ever realize. That is what it takes to win.

If mistakes happen, effective leaders don’t place blame on others. They take ownership of the mistakes, determine what went wrong, develop solutions to correct those mistakes and prevent them from happening again as they move forward.

good leaders are rare; bad leaders are common.

Accountability is an important tool that leaders must utilize. However, it should not be the primary tool. It must be balanced with other leadership tools, such as making sure people understand the why, empowering subordinates, and trusting they will do the right thing without direct oversight because they fully understand the importance of doing so.

As a leader, you have to balance the dichotomy, to be resolute where it matters but never inflexible and uncompromising on matters of little importance to the overall good of the team and the strategic mission.

Micromanagement fails because no one person can control multiple people executing a vast number of actions in a dynamic environment, where changes in the situation occur rapidly and with unpredictability. It also inhibits the growth of subordinates: when people become accustomed to being told what to do, they begin to await direction. Initiative fades and eventually dies. Creativity and bold thought and action soon die as well. The team becomes a bunch of simple and thoughtless automatons, following orders without understanding, moving forward only when told to do so. A team like that will never achieve greatness.

With such variation in individuals on the team, the challenge for any leader was to raise the level of every member of the team so that they could perform at their absolute best. In order to do that, a leader must make it his or her personal mission to train, coach, and mentor members of the team so they perform to the highest standards—or at least the minimum standard. But there is a dichotomy in that goal: while a leader must do everything possible to help develop and improve the performance of individuals on the team, a leader must also understand when someone does not have what it takes to get the job done. When all avenues to help an individual get better are exhausted without success, then it is the leader’s responsibility to fire that individual so he or she does not negatively impact the team.

Speaking angrily to others is ineffective. Losing your temper is a sign of weakness. The aggression that wins on the battlefield, in business, or in life is directed not toward people but toward solving problems, achieving goals, and accomplishing the mission.

Instead of focusing on one individual, leaders must remember that there is a team—and that the performance of the team trumps the performance of a single individual. Instead of continuing to invest in one subpar performer, once a concerted effort has been made to coach and train that individual to no avail, the leader must remove the individual.

If you are more concerned for yourself than the people that work for you, you will ultimately lose. But if you put the team first, and make your true goal—not your own success—but the success of your team and their mission… If you, as a leader, put others above yourself… If you care for your team first and foremost… then you will absolutely win. That's what leadership is; the pure goal and righteous intent of putting your people and the mission ahead of yourself.

explained that the relationship to seek with any boss incorporates three things: 1) They trust you. 2) They value and seek your opinion and guidance. 3) They give you what you need to accomplish your mission and then let you go execute.

To not move around, observe, and analyze, in order to make the best decisions possible, was to fail as a leader and fail the team.

A leader must care about the troops, but at the same time the leader must complete the mission, and in doing so there will be risk and sometimes unavoidable consequences to the troops.

Nothing breeds arrogance like success—a string of victories on the battlefield or business initiatives. Combat leaders must never forget just how much is at stake: the lives of their troops.

In Extreme Ownership, chapter 2, “No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders,” we wrote that “when it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.

Every leader must be ready and willing to take charge, to make hard, crucial calls for the good of the team and the mission. That is inherent in the very term “leader.” But leaders must also have the ability to follow. This was a difficult dichotomy: in order to be a good leader, you must also be a good follower. Finding that balance is key.

The best platoons and task units embraced those lessons with Extreme Ownership, acknowledged the problems, and figured out ways to solve them. They constantly improved. The worst units rejected the criticism and complained about how training was too hard.

leaders must be detached, must pull back to a position above the fray where they can see the bigger picture. That was the only way to effectively lead. Otherwise, the results could be disastrous.

Here are the commons symptoms that result from micromanagement: 1. The team shows a lack of initiative. Members will not take action unless directed. 2. The team does not seek solutions to problems; instead, its members sit and wait to be told about a solution. 3. Even in an emergency, a team that is being micromanaged will not mobilize and take action. 4. Bold and aggressive action becomes rare. 5. Creativity grinds to a halt. 6. The team tends to stay inside their own silo; not stepping out to coordinate efforts with other departments or divisions for fear of overstepping their bounds. 7. An overall sense of passivity and failure to react.

So as a leader it is critical to balance the strict discipline of standard procedures with the freedom to adapt, adjust, and manoeuvre to do what is best to support the overarching commander's intent and achieve victory. For leaders, in combat, business, and life, be disciplined, but not rigid.

Going forward, I recognized that I needed to better Prioritize and Execute. To do that, I needed to detach—to not get so focused on the details but instead be mindful of the broader aspects of the planning and approval process.

Most underperformers don’t need to be fired, they need to be led.

An aggressive mind-set should be the default setting of any leader. Default: Aggressive. This means that the best leaders, the best teams, don’t wait to act. Instead, understanding the strategic vision (or commander’s intent), they aggressively execute to overcome obstacles, capitalize on immediate opportunities, accomplish the mission, and win.

The dichotomy with the Default: Aggressive mind-set is that sometimes hesitation allows a leader to further understand a situation so that he or she can react properly to it. Rather than immediately respond to enemy fire, sometimes the prudent decision is to wait and see how it develops.

The fourth Law of Combat: Decentralized Command. No one leader can manage it all or make every decision. Instead, leadership must be decentralized, with leaders at every level empowered to make decisions, right down to the frontline troopers in charge of no one but themselves and their small piece of the mission.

If training is too easy and doesn’t stretch the capabilities of the participants, their improvement will be minimal. But if training overwhelms the team to a point where its participants can no longer function, it greatly diminishes the lessons they will learn from it. While training must make the team, and especially leaders, uncomfortable, it cannot be so overwhelming that it destroys morale, stifles growth, and implants a defeatist attitude.

For leaders, it is often a struggle to know when and where to hold the line.