Personal Notes on “Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win”
I was recently given a copy of the book Extreme Ownership written by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin which I left in my pile of books to read. I didn’t realise what I was missing out of when I finally decided to start listening to podcasts instead of listening to music. I discovered the Jocko Podcast, where he talked about his book in Episode 114. Whilst listening to other episodes I noticed that he references the book a lot, not because he wants to sell more copies of it, but because it was really relevant to what was being said. So I finally decided to read it and within 3 days I finished it, I was glued to it.
It was one of those books that you couldn’t put down. It had many interesting lessons about leading teams, even the way you approach problems. Whilst some of these lessons may seem obvious, others push you to check that your ego doesn’t get the best of you and you learn how to display a high level of humility. Whilst all of the examples the authors discussed were when they served in the United States Navy SEALs, these can also be applied to business and everyday life. The 12 lessons that I’ve learned while reading are as follows:
Extreme Ownership: Take ownership of your mistakes and the mistakes of your team. You need to be humble and not put the blame on others for their shortcomings. No one is perfect and mistakes will happen, but when they do happen, the leader should defend his members. A leader should not only take the blame for what has happened, but also present a plan of corrective measures so the same thing would not happen again. This will inspire confidence in your team and your members would look to you as someone who not only cares about the team, but also as someone who wants the team to succeed and reach its highest potential.
There are no bad teams, just bad leaders. Leading on from the previous point, leaders that don’t take responsibility for their team’s actions and shortcomings will see their days numbered. Whenever a leader displays extreme ownership within his team, it will trickle down to the leader’s subordinates. It is contagious and because of this successful leaders that lead successful, high-performing teams will exhibit extreme ownership.
Believe in what you do: If you’re a leader or even just someone who is being led, then believing in what you do will make all the difference. If you don’t believe in a mission, you would end up dragging your feet and you would find it hard to perform well enough. If someone were to ask you why is the goal you’re trying to achieve important, you would find it hard to express yourself enough to show that you’re on board with it. No matter which level you are at in a business or in life, simply asking “Why are we working towards this?” will provide so much meaning to what you’re doing.If your leader or whomever answers that question reacts defensively, then they’re not on board with the end goal and they need to ask the same question themselves.The brave men who fought for us in World War 2 believed in a free world that their children will be able to enjoy. Successful entrepreneurs believe in what their company is working towards and show their belief to the people who they work with.
Belief in a goal leads to success.
Check your ego: Three words that seemingly are very simple to understand and take in, but very hard to put into practice. When leading a team and a subordinate deviates from the plan, you would confront them and ask them why they did deviated. Don’t blame them, their answer is valid, however they might not be aware of the whole picture. So who’s to blame? Yourself. You as a leader should ask yourself why they did it like that and you would probably come up with every excuse in the book to clear your name. If you follow through with one of those excuses, that will hinder the overall performance of the people youre leading and effectively, the end goal.Approach with humility and don’t put the blame on your team but on yourself, becuase you didn’t give them explain the tasks well enough for them to understand it without question. Show your team that you’re open to explaining until they understand it. Knowledge is the key to success.
Cover & Move: “We can’t move forward with our project because another team is holding us up.” This argument can be heard from leaders that want to accomplish a task but cannot because of external factors that they believe are not in their control. Being blocked on a task will surely slow down production, and the longer it takes will lower the morale of a leader and the rest of the team. Leaders need to take complete ownership of the problems faced in tasks and see what can be done in order to unblock the team. If it means helping another team to finish that task, then so be it.The Cover & Move approach that Jocko wrote about shows that we should include ourselves where possible because in a team, the team is only as strong as it’s weakest link. If a team member is crippled, then the rest of the team should help that member to finish the task. A successful team works as a unit to ensure the overall success.
Simple: Sometimes as leaders, we form plans in our minds, we believe that they’re solid plans, then we will approach our team and tell them about it and they’ll be left with blank faces. This could be because they do not understand your plan so you’ll try explain it to them, but it’s too confusing. You would think that they just simply can’t understand it, but most of the time, its a sign that your plan is just too complex to understand. Your plans should not resemble a Rube Goldberg machine. They should be as simple and understandable as possible. This will allow you to achieve the goals set out in the plan and move on to the next ones efficiently.
Prioritise and Execute: No matter how long you’ve been working. You can’t take care of multiple tasks all in one go, and if you do, then attention to solutions will be divided. Don’t half ass two jobs, whole ass one.When there are too many tasks that have to be accomplished, it might feel like you’re trying to escape from an avalanche. When ever this happens, take a step back, evaluate the priority of each task, rank them and start working on the task with the highest priority.The only constant in this world is change, things will change, and as a leader, it’s your job to reevaluate the tasks, as you gather more information of what’s going on. Don’t fall into the trap of getting tunnel vision and sticking to the same plan without looking at the bigger picture.
When ever tasks are finished, make sure that you keep in touch with your team as well as the leaders above you of what’s happening. No man is an island, there are other cogs in a machine that will move and change over time. Situational awareness is key to prioritisation and execution.
Decentralised Command: When leading a large team, you can get the feeling that you need to manage the whole situation yourself. This can lead you down the terrible path of trying to micro manage every process within the team, or even just looking over the shoulder of every team member.This is an approach which cannot scale well, it can also lose trust in the whole chain of command, because no one enjoys having someone looking over their shoulder all the time. As a leader, you lead a group of leaders who you trust and know they are the best people who can get the job done effectively. Jocko claimed that a team should consist of no more than five or six people under your leadership at one given time. Each team can take care of an overarching task and be able to split the tasks into much more manageable tasks. An organisation would have one leader at the top, who in turn will have leaders below and other leaders of other teams and team members. Each member in the team will report to their leader and information and progress trickles it’s way up.
Plan: When approaching a problem, it is always best to try minimise risk as much as possible. When you’re planning a task, the plan should be as simple as possible such that anyone can understand what has to be done. As a leader, not every task needs to be broken down into every step. Create end goals, and pass them down to your team of leaders who will in turn break them down into smaller tasks and feed them down the chain.Throughout planning, it’s extremely important to gather as much information as possible, in order to minimise any potential risks. All team members should be involved in this process, and the leader should also ensure that everyone understands the plan. Going in blind will most likely get you burnt.
Leading Up and Leading Down: Communication is key. Leaders need to communicate regularly with their team about their objectives and the overall goals. Team members need to be in the loop of what’s happening that’s around them as well as have the opportunity to communicate about the challenges that they are facing. This is Leading Down.
Sometimes when you ask your leader for resources or authorization to carry out a task you can be turned down. This can be because the leader might not know enough about the situation to give you the go ahead. When ever this happens, don’t get frustrated but understand that they might need more information when making such a decision. Provide as much information as possible up the chain of command, increase the level of transparency. This will ultimately lead to an increase of trust and confidence. This is Leading Up.
Never understimate the power of communication across every level.
Decisiveness and Uncertainty: When leading a team, you need to be able to make decisions. Decisions push progress forward, but if there are any doubts, then this kindle the fires of uncertainty.You should never be seen as undecisive, even if you don’t know every variable in the equation. Should you require to test the waters to reach a better understanding of the situation, then do so. Do what you need to do to gather as much information as possible without endangering the goal and team.
Sometimes we will have to end up taking decisions that will have a level of uncertainty, but there’s no need to worry. Your goals should be simple and achieveable in order to clear up the uncertainty, even if it means taking a different route to reach the goal.
Never be held hostage to a problem. It shows weakness and lowers trust in you.
Discipline equals freedom: You want to be the best at what you do. This doesn’t happen in a short period of time. You need to have a plan to get where you want to be. A plan of attack is essential, it requires a thought process to happen to determine the steps that have to be taken, in order to reach your goal. If you don’t have time for something, then make time for it. This is all under your control.When ever you want to binge on Netflix, or have a gaming marathon, you’ll make time for it, because you’re being disciplined. So why not be disciplined for other tasks that involve self-improvement?
“Rise and Grind”, three words that Daymond John tells himself every single day, and look at where he is now, he stayed true to his discipline and is now known as the “People’s shark” in ABC’s Shark Tank and he is also the founder, president and CEO at his fashion company FUBU. When you want to accomplish something, dont just tell yourself “I’ll do this in a bit”, or “I’ll start tomorrow”. Create a routine, follow it, and mould it to reach your goal, but don’t stray away from it.
Plan out and standardise your tasks, and these will become easier to manage as well as follow and maintain discipline. It will become second nature to you and the more you repeat the tasks you have to do to reach your goal, the closer you are to succeeding.
There’s a dochotomy of this, it lets you work with freedom to solve problems with a higher level of creativity. Being disciplined doesnt mean that you must be strict and regiment with what you do and you cannot divert from the paln. You can work within the bounds of your discipline but also develop alternative approaches to the solution.
Once you recognize the way something is solved, then you have a framework that you can work with. If you don’t like the current approach, work with it and see how to improve it.
Leaders stick to the plan, and if a member of the team believes that there is a problem with it, discuss it, understand what is wrong. For all you know, the proposed approach might be a better solution. Irrespective of the rank, a leader should follow a very important rule that is discussed in Jordan Peterson’s book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. “Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.”
As a leader you need to be confident in yourself as well as your team, you should possess humility and be able to speak up and stand up for what you believe in. Don’t give your subordinates too much confidence because it is counter productive, and there’s the chance of them straying away from the discipline you want your team to exhibit. Don’t micro-manage, it shows you’re not confident in your team, you should empower your team to lead the tasks theyre solving themselves.
This is my understanding of being a leader and exhibiting Extreme Ownership.

