[Notes] Leadership Strategy and Tactics: Field Manual, by Jocko Willink

2–3-sentence summary: Unlike “Extreme Ownership” which I easily internalized the main message, “Leadership, Strategy and Tactics” I felt little bit “dry”. Not many good ideas and discussions about strategy and tactics. Maybe good for beginners. 5/10

That is one of the underlying themes of SEAL Team culture: you can never rest on what you have achieved in the past. You always have to improve.

It was in my first platoon that I learned the power of being able to detach myself from the chaos and mayhem going on, take a step back, and see what was actually happening.

Then I made it my goal to never be completely caught up in the minuscule tactical aspects of a problem; my goal was to get to a higher mental and physical altitude to see more.

Detachment is one of the most powerful tools a leader can have. The question is, pragmatically, how do you do it?
Step one is to be aware. Pay attention to yourself and what is happening around you. Make it a goal to avoid being fully absorbed in the minute details of any situation. Don’t let it happen. If you are staying aware, checking yourself, you will be likelier to avoid getting tunnel vision.

Listen to indicators like your breath, your voice. Are you breathing hard? Are you raising your voice? Be aware of your body. Are you clenching your teeth? Squeezing your fists?
All these reactions are signs of getting emotional about the situation. When that happens, or when a situation is becoming chaotic, step back. Physically take a step back. Lift your chin up, which elevates your vision and compels you to look around. Once you are physically detached from the situation, this cues you to do the same thing mentally

Without everyone buying into the plan, taking ownership, and making every possible effort to ensure it was carried out and the mission accomplished, there was a good chance it would fail

Cover and Move came first because it is the root of all other tactics and because it is teamwork. A unit in the field by itself is a fraction of what it is when it has another unit supporting it. Two teams working together, covering and moving for each other, don’t just double their effectiveness; they multiply their impact and capability exponentially. Without coordination and cooperation between individuals, between elements within a team, and between teams, all is lost.

Next is Simple. Once we have established the ability to Cover and Move — we have a team that can work together — then we need a simple and distinct goal. Everyone on the team must understand that goal. It must be clear. In addition to the goal being simple and clear, plans and directives must be communicated up and down the chain of command in a simple, clear, concise manner that can be comprehended by everyone. Simplicity is key, because if the team members cannot understand the goal or the plan to accomplish that goal, there is no possible way they can execute. So keep it Simple

The next law is Prioritize and Execute. There will be multiple tasks that need to be accomplished or numerous problems that must be solved. If the leader or the team members try to accomplish too many things at once, they will likely accomplish nothing. The most impactful task or the biggest problem must be addressed first, then the next, then the next, and so on until everything is handled.

Only if the fire team leaders understood that intent could they execute anything. And their execution also depended on their confidence to make decisions and the level of empowerment they felt. Only if the fire team leaders felt they were empowered to make things happen would they step up and lead. That empowerment had to be ingrained in the minds of the subordinate leaders; it had to be imbedded in the culture of the team.

There were two more components of leadership that I solidified during my time as the commander of the training detachment: Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership.
Extreme Ownership is a mind-set of not making excuses and not blaming anyone or anything else when problems occur. Instead of casting blame or making excuses, good leaders and good teams take Extreme Ownership of the problems, find solutions, and implement those solutions. Failure to take ownership results in problems never being solved and teams never improving.
The Dichotomy of Leadership describes opposing forces that are pulling leaders in contradictory directions at the same time. Any trait, technique, or attitude can easily go too far in one direction or the other. To lead properly, a leader must be balanced.

So ultimately this leads back to the beginning — one of the most powerful tools you have is a good relationship with your boss. And it doesn’t end with your boss. Solid relationships up and down the chain of command are the basis of all good leadership

You have to play the game. To be more specific, you have to play the long game. No one wants to hear this, especially from me. People don’t want to hear about building relationships — I am not trying to build the relationship for my own personal gain; I am trying to build a relationship with my boss so we can better accomplish the mission.

As important as it is to build relationships, there are times when a boss must be disobeyed. But it should be an absolute last resort. Disobeying causes massive disruption to the team, sets back progress, can fully jeopardize mission success, and may ultimately result in complete mission failure and total disintegration of the team.

Before making that last stand, subordinates should ask the boss to restate the purpose of the mission, and then assess that mission statement and explain to the boss the concerns. From the boss’s vantage point at a higher altitude, he or she may not see some of the granular details and understand how the plan may unfold on the front lines. It is the responsibility of the subordinate to pass this information on and to make it clear to the boss what the concerns are.

This is an age-old question: Are leaders born or made? The answer is both.

Physical training can certainly improve the physical capabilities of any individual. Working out with weights makes people stronger; running improves their stamina; stretching improves flexibility. But people are born with, and limited by, their own genetic makeup. These characteristics and their limitations play out clearly in sports and physical competitions. We can try to reach our genetic potential and perhaps push slightly beyond that, but eventually we are confined by our DNA.

How can a leader become great if they lack the natural characteristics necessary to lead? The answer is simple: a good leader builds a great team that counterbalances their weaknesses.

Because there is one type of person who can never become a good leader: a person who lacks humility. People who lack humility cannot improve because they don’t acknowledge their own weaknesses. They don’t work to improve them, and they won’t bring someone onto the team to offset their shortfalls. This person will never improve. Beware.

Truth and honesty are perhaps the most essential of leadership qualities. Tell the truth to your people. Tell the truth to your boss. Tell the truth to your peers. And, of course, tell the truth to yourself.

But telling the truth does not mean a leader cannot use the truth as an excuse to be overly critical or offensive. This is most easily mitigated by having a relationship with and caring about the members of the team. Know who they are. Know what they stand for. Know what drives them. If a leader lacks that knowledge, he or she will not be able to communicate effectively with the team, especially when it comes to delivering critique points or harsh truths

But remember, even with hard truths in the form of individual criticism, truth is not an excuse to show bad tact; in fact, hard truths require more tact. If you have a good relationship with your subordinate, and they know you care about them, hard truths should be similar to the natural conversations you already have.
One common technique that gets discussed is to sandwich negative criticism between two positive points

Leaders are never good enough. A leader must be constantly improving and learning since, in any leadership job, new and unexpected challenges arise all the time and, as one continues to lead, the number of people being led increases, projects multiply in number and scope, and the overall strategic impact of the missions being led also expands

None of this happens without humility. If a leader thinks they have achieved the pinnacle of leadership expertise, they are already going in the wrong direction, stagnant in their skill set, and, worst of all, unconsciously giving off the stink of arrogance. Don’t let this happen. Stay humble, and always learn

Lastly, when you get down in the dirt with the frontline troops, you get to know them. You build relationships. And when you have relationships with the frontline troops, they actually tell you what is going on. They give you information. They tell you what is working and what isn’t. That is powerful knowledge to have. Of course, you can’t spend all your time with the frontline troops; you have to balance that.

As time goes on, the missions, decisions, and problems become more difficult, and the subordinates will make mistakes. Again, these are simply learning opportunities that make the subordinate better. As the risk in the situations escalates, you can still let them lead, but just provide more oversight to make sure they don’t make a mistake that could cause an unacceptable loss; you micromanage them a little bit. You make corrections for them as they get slightly off track to ensure there isn’t a catastrophic failure, and yet they still learn from those little adjustments

What starts out as micromanagement becomes more and more hands-off. The more trust that is built, the more hands-off the leader can be. Eventually,

Over and over again, I tell people not to bark orders, not to impose plans on subordinates, and to make sure everyone understands not just what you want them to do but, more important, why they need to do it. Once they understand why they are doing what they are doing, they can take ownership and carry out the task with the knowledge and clarity to make adjustments as needed.

Share the burden of hard tasks.

While Extreme Ownership might seem like a fairly simple concept to understand, it can be difficult to fully comprehend what it really means. What it really means is that the leader is responsible for everything. Absolutely everything.

You see, if a pig gunner makes a mistake, it means he hasn’t been trained properly. The leader is responsible for training the gunner. If the gunner shoots in the wrong direction, it means he hasn’t been briefed so he fully understands his field of fire. The leader is responsible for briefing the gunner. And yes, it could also mean the pig gunner is completely incompetent in understanding his task and knowing his field of fire. If that is the case, it is the leader’s responsibility to identify that shortfall and either train the gunner so he does understand, remove the gunner from his position and place him into a job he is capable of, or, as a last resort, fire the gunner from the team if he cannot do his job properly

This means there are no “buts” to taking Extreme Ownership. It applies to everything. And the moment a leader decides he is going to allow excuses, it opens up the door to shift blame onto others. That leads to failures.

When a leader knows they cannot blame anyone or anything else, they will implement what I call preemptive ownership — they will take ownership of things to prevent problems from unfolding in the first place.

This is not to say the leader should always be in the trenches — that is not true at all. A leader has to lead. A leader does have to attend meetings, take care of administrative work, plan for the future, and attend to all kinds of pressing tasks. But there are times, especially when a job is particularly taxing on the troops, when it is important to get down in the dirt with the folks on the front line and do work.

But it is almost always preferred for the leader to lead from the rear, to allow the troops to take the lead on the plan and to take ownership of it. The best ideas often come from the people on the team who are closest to the problem; those are the folks on the front line. Don’t inhibit them; instead, allow them the freedom and authority to create and execute new plans and ideas. They have the knowledge. Give them the power. Don’t feel the need to always lead from the front. Take a step back and let your team lead.

There is no reason to overreact; overreaction is always bad. Not only does it lead to poor decisions, it also makes you look bad as a leader. People don’t like it when leaders overreact; it means the leader is not in control and might make irrational, snap decisions. So take a step back, detach from your emotional reaction, find out what is really going on, and then make calm, logical decisions based on the reality of the situation.

These differences are among the things that makes leadership so challenging. As a leader, you have to connect with many different types of individuals. You have to learn to use different styles of communication with different people, but at the same time relay the same message. You have to interpret what drives an individual and incorporate that into your leadership strategy. You have to understand how much pressure an individual can take and how well they perform under that pressure. You have to do all this while maintaining a consistent message, an equitable distribution of your attention among your troops, and without getting so specific that everyone on the team becomes reliant on spoon-fed communications that are custom created for their individual needs.

At the same time, it is also important to remember that the decisions themselves fall on the leader alone. While it is great to bounce ideas off subordinates, develop plans and courses of actions as a team, and build consensus around what the final decision is, the final decision itself still rests with one person and one person only: the leader. If the decision results in failure, it wasn’t “the team’s decision.” No, it was the leader’s decision. There is no escaping that reality; no matter how many advisors weighed in, no matter how much a leader was swayed by the arguments of their team, the ultimate decision rests solely on the leader and the leader alone. That is all there is to it.

Change is the reality of life; almost everything is in a constant state of flux. And it is a crucial part of a leader’s job to figure out which changes are important and which are mere distractions. This is not always easy to do. I see leaders get caught up all the time in things that do not matter. They waste their time and energy on meaningless events or minor problems that will not impact the overall results they are trying to achieve. A black belt in jiu-jitsu is a master of energy conservation; not one movement is wasted defending against attacks that do not matter. Leaders must learn to do the same thing

A good rule to follow is that a leader should err on the side of not getting involved in problems; the goal is always to allow problems to get solved at the lowest level. When subordinates are solving low-level problems, it allows the leader to focus on more important, strategic issues.

While a leader cannot be distracted by things that are unimportant, they must also know what is important and when it is time to step down into the tactical situation and get a problem solved before it gets out of hand. This is a challenging thing to do, and it can only be done if a leader properly detaches, assesses, and makes good, solid decisions about what is important and what is not.

This should be the attitude you take with any team: that every person’s job is absolutely critical. Explain to them what happens if they don’t do their jobs well. Explain to them, even the people with the most menial jobs, how their little jobs fit into the big picture and the strategic mission.
Everyone has the most important job. Let them know that.

While lives may not be on the line, if you really want to take care of your people, you need to push them. You need to make sure they understand their jobs. You need to drive them toward their goals. If they fail professionally, they fail to achieve their financial goals and cannot take care of their families or provide for them the way they want to. So when you are a leader, the best thing you can do is push them toward their goals

But don’t think your job is to allow your people to take the easy path. The easy path leads to misery. The path of discipline leads them to freedom.

Optimal discipline in a team is not imposed by the leader; it is chosen by the team itself. Optimal discipline is self-discipline.
But teams do not always have self-discipline; they may not understand the rewards that come with it. When that happens, it may be necessary for a certain level of discipline to be carefully applied and imposed so the team understands the benefits.

Instead, when giving orders, I would simply tell them what the mission objective was — the goal I wanted the platoons to accomplish. This is what the military refers to as Commander’s Intent.

When I did this, it allowed the platoon leadership and the other SEALs in the platoon to come up with a plan themselves. They chose what troops to bring and where to put them. They chose how many vehicles and which weapons to bring. They figured out the timeline and the routes and the contingencies they needed to prepare for. And when they did all that, the plan became their plan, not mine — which means they owned

Be humble. It is an honor to be in a leadership position. Your team is counting on you to make the right decisions.

Lastly, get the job done. That is the purpose of a leader — to lead a team in accomplishing a mission. If you don’t accomplish the mission, you fail as a leader. Performance counts.

When receiving information from the departing boss, it is important to remember where they are coming from and what is influencing their perspective. Are they being fired? Do they have personal relationships with members of the team? Do they have a big ego that might attempt to undermine the new leader? Whatever the situation, it is important to understand the bias or spin an outgoing leader might be putting on their turnover. So be smart. Don’t change things that are working, but don’t accept things that are not working. The better the team is, the less you have to change. The worse it is, the more will need adjusting.

Leadership, in most cases, should be subtle. Of course, there are situations where bold and overt leadership is needed. If there is an emergency and no one is taking action, it is time to step up and take charge. If morale is down, the troops are stagnating, and movement is needed, it is time to lead from the front. But in everyday situations, overt leadership is not needed. It is better to give subtle direction and let the troops move forward based on their own ideas.

There is a dichotomy between when to lead and when to follow. Even if you are in charge, if there is someone with a good plan who is giving direction to move the right way, that’s fine; take a step back and let them lead. Be a follower.

There is one more advantage gained by taking a tactical pause before jumping into a leadership vacuum: by giving those last few moments to allow things to develop, the call you make will be better. That pause allows you to understand the problem and the solution more clearly, and the direction you give will be on point. This means people will follow your lead.

This may seem obvious, but I see all the time where people take things personally. Don’t take anything personally. It is hard to do this. You have to fight your ego to avoid taking things personally. Even when people ask for critique points, they often get mad when they actually hear them. Don’t allow yourself to do that. Don’t take criticism personally

Decentralized Command requires that leaders push tasks and authorities down to their subordinate leaders, who in turn push those tasks and authorities to the frontline leaders and troops. In fact, I often say that if a leader wants to be in charge of everything, then he or she should try to be in charge of nothing. Only when a leader is in charge of nothing, when he or she has delegated all actions to his or her subordinate leaders, can the leader truly lead. It is impossible to lead a team forward in a strategic direction when you are busy trying to direct and manage less significant tasks that could be handled by subordinates, so it is imperative that a leader utilize Decentralized Command and let his or her subordinate leaders lead.

While occasionally stepping in and problem solving is required of a leader, if it becomes your default mode, and if the troops begin to expect it, then it will ultimately hurt the team because you will constantly be looking down and in instead of up and out. You will be focused on tactical-level issues when you should be looking at the strategic picture and figuring out what the next move will be.
Worse, though, is that you will stunt the collective growth and progression of the team and the individuals that make it up. They will not learn to think; they will only learn to ask you for solutions. This will halt their progress and development as leaders themselves

Sustained performance as a SEAL wasn’t a sprint, it was a marathon.

Bad things are going to happen. When they do, it is important for the leader to maintain a positive attitude, to find the good in the situation. So while it is important to maintain a positive attitude about what is going on, don’t ignore problems, and don’t gloss over the trials you face. Be positive, but be realistic.

Putting junior people in charge makes them better. It makes them understand what is going on way above their pay grades and how their jobs tie into the strategic mission. It is one of the best possible ways to develop subordinates to become not only better at their jobs but better leaders in the future.

Leading peers is one of the most challenging types of leadership. When rank and position are equivalent, more tact is needed, and an even better relationship must be built. Once a relationship is built, you can use influence to lead the team in the right direction.

Egos must be subdued. Start with subduing your own. If you fail to subdue your ego, you will develop an antagonistic relationship with your peers. That will result in a blue-on-blue, the military parlance for friendly fire, which means you will end up destroying your own team.

One of the best ways to subdue your own ego and start building a relationship with your peers is by supporting their ideas.

Next, when it is time to assign tasks, you should jump on the hard ones; shoulder the heavy weight for the team. If there is extra work to be done, take ownership of it and get it done. Of course, there is a dichotomy with this that must be balanced. If you are stepping up and taking responsibility for as much as possible, some peers may see this as a threat, as if you are trying to take control of everything, so don’t go overboard.

Obviously, when things go wrong, take responsibility for problems and get them fixed. This is fundamental to the idea of Extreme Ownership, but of course there is also a dichotomy to be balanced

If one of your peers’ egos is out of control and they begin to maneuver to make themselves look good or even to make you look bad, don’t fall into the ego trap. Don’t attack them; simply continue to do great work and put the mission first. They might get some initial positive attention from their selfish actions, but eventually they will be uncovered. Take the high ground, or the high ground will take you

So how do you deal with a micromanager? You have to build that trust. The way I built trust with micromanagers was by giving them all the information I possibly could and then performing well. To do that, I had to get over my own ego.

From my perspective, I think I know what I am doing and that my boss has no right to tell me how I should do things or demand information about the minutiae I have going on in my world. But those thoughts are all from my ego. I have to reframe them in my head. Why does the boss want so much information? Because they care about the outcome of what I’m doing. Why do they want to tell me exactly how to do things? Because they have experience in the field and want to make sure I benefit from that knowledge.

It is my job to build trust with my boss, not their job to give it to me; I need to earn it. If they want information, I am going to give them more than they could ask for. If they want to know what my plan is, I am going to give it to them in exacting detail so they have no questions left to ask

That is the most important element in getting a micromanaging boss to give you some breathing room: performance. You have to execute well. Again, this might also require you to execute things the way your boss wants to see them done. That is fine. Do what your boss asks you to do.

Then keep this up. A micromanager’s attitude isn’t going to change overnight; you have to show sustained performance to get them to back off. Don’t get frustrated. Don’t let your ego get the best of you

I never looked at a weak boss as horrible; I always looked at a weak boss as an opportunity. If my boss doesn’t want to come up with a plan, guess what? I will. If my boss doesn’t want to clarify the mission, guess what? I will. If my boss doesn’t want to take ownership, guess what? I will. And if my boss doesn’t want to lead, guess what? I will

The first thing a leader needs to do is something they should already be doing: build a relationship with his or her subordinates. Why is this such a common theme in my leadership principles? Because having good relationships up and down the chain of command is one of the most important leadership elements for any successful team.

So what do you do with a person who is struggling with stress? Give them a break. Give them a rest. Take them out of the stress-inducing environment. When Major Winters would see someone approaching their breaking point, he would assign them temporary duty away from the front lines. He wouldn’t tell them he was doing it because he thought they needed rest; that might have triggered shame and made them not want to go. Instead, Major Winters would figure out some kind of task that needed to be done in the rear and then send the individual in question on the “mission.

The need to punish someone on the team is almost always a direct reflection of the leader and the failure to lead appropriately. This might seem extreme — and in fact it is. It is Extreme Ownership.

A leader is always responsible for the actions of his or her subordinates.

That is another important way to frame this — by looking at it from a tactical versus a strategic perspective. In military parlance, tactical means the immediate situation right in front of you, the actual existing battle that is happening here and now. Strategic is the broad, long-term, overall objective you are trying to achieve. For example, a tactical objective might be trying to take a hill or a section of a city, whereas a strategic objective might be removal of a tyrannical leader who threatens the stability of the region he is in, which creates a clear and present danger.

Sometimes is okay to quit on a tactical objective; maybe you don’t take that hill or clear that sector of the city right now. Perhaps the enemy was too strong and heavily defending the hill and the city. To secure the objectives would be too costly in men and matériel, so instead you have to bypass those objectives or put them off until a later date — you have to quit the tactical objective.
But you don’t quit the strategic mission. If you have made the strategic assessment and decision that this tyrannical leader must be removed for the safety and security of your nation, then you have to drive on; you cannot quit your strategic aims

The hardest part of this from a leader’s perspective is understanding that the team doesn’t always see what you see. Team members aren’t given the information that you have, and assuming they do have that information is careless. You have to be proactive in updating your troops. You have to continually keep them abreast of what is happening.

As a leader, you must remember you are being watched. And in everything you do, you must set the example.