Nine Essential Leadership Lessons You Can Learn from Navy Seals
I‘ve been thinking and trying to read a lot on how to become a better leader of late. Anyone and everyone can be a leader in their own right. As someone who is big on the growth mindset, I don’t subscribe to the belief that “Great Leaders are born and not made”. While there might be a select few who have a natural proclivity towards skills that make them a better leader, I don’t think I’m one of them. So I’ve always been looking to work on and improve my leadership acumen and when I came across Jocko Willink and his book on leadership on the Tim Ferriss show I jumped on it and got myself a copy of Extreme Ownership.
The book is written in a clean and crisp manner with simple language and is to the point, nothing less than you would expect from a couple of Navy Seals. In addition to the leadership lessons, you also get moments of excitement when they recount their dangerous encounters from Al Ramadi in Iraq, one of the most dangerous urban areas on the planet, and how these lessons fit in there. To further drive the points home they share application in business settings as well. Alright, I’ll stop droning on(give yourself a pat on the back if you got the pun there!) and move on to the key principles from the book that stuck with me —
- Extreme Ownership — Own everything in your world as a leader, take complete responsibility for the mission and take all the blame if something goes wrong. This includes clearly understanding the goals and strategic mission, communicating it clearly to everyone on the team, developing the tactics and enabling the team to execute them successfully.
- There is no such thing as a bad team, only bad leaders — Success and failure of the team ultimately rests on the team leader. This doesn’t just apply to senior leaders but to all leaders within the team.
- Believe in the mission — Belief in the mission is critical. Leaders must understand the ‘why’ behind the mission. Clarify up the chain of command if you aren’t clear or have questions and clearly communicate the why to subordinates so that every member on the team is on the same page and understand how what they are doing fits into the bigger picture. This empowers junior leaders to make their own decisions enabling decentralized command.
- Check the ego — Ego is the enemy, leaders must be willing to take feedback and admit their mistakes. Never let complacency creep in.
- Simple — Reduce complexity and keep plans and communication as simple as possible.
- Cover and move — Remember this is a team sport, you are all working for the same goal and are on the same side. Be clear about your team’s responsibilities and work to enable and support other teams.
- Prioritize and execute — When feeling overwhelmed, it’s tempting to tackle multiple things at the same time. But leaders must learn to relax and prioritize the problems and tackle the highest priority issue first before moving on to the next one.
“Relax, look around, make a call”
- Leading up and down the chain — Make sure your leaders are aware of all the information and challenges you face. Push situational awareness up the chain so that they can support you better. Communicate the strategic picture clearly down the chain so there are no questions about the strategic goals and what you are trying to achieve.
- Decisiveness — You can’t afford to wait till you always have all the information before you act. Be prepared to act and be decisive with the information available amidst chaos and uncertainty. Don’t take the wait and see approach!
“If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow “— Jeff Bezos
These are just some of the lessons on leadership that stood out to me. I would love to hear the leadership lessons and skills that you’ve found helpful in your career and life so far, share them in the comments below!
