Take control of your life and empower others along the way- Be a leader
Extreme Ownership was written by an ex Navy SEAL leader Jocko Willink who brings concepts from the battle field into any leadership role. The book is centered on taking full accountability for ones decisions while stressing the importance of team work. There are a number of things one can learn in terms of leadership but I would like to highlight 3 aspects/tactics of leadership we should all use.
- Extreme Ownership
A leader is ultimately responsible for everything. That is Extreme Ownership, the fundamental core of what constitutes an effective leader in the SEAL Teams or in any leadership endeavor.
On any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. A leader must own everything, you cannot blame anyone else.
When people aren’t doing what they should, leaders that exercise Extreme Ownership don’t blame these people. They must first look in the mirror at themselves. The leader takes full responsibility for explaining the mission, developing the tactics, and securing the training and resources to enable the team to properly execute. When extreme ownership is taken it enables everyone to be successful.
2. Teamwork
A leader is only as strong as his team. To lead effectively empower people around you. In the book this is known as decentralized command,
Human beings are generally not capable of managing more than six to ten people, particularly when things go sideways and inevitable contingencies arise. Teams must be broken down into manageable elements of four to five operators, with a clearly designated leader. Those leaders must understand the overall mission, and the ultimate goal of that mission.
Once you have found your operators you have to instill confidence in them to make the right decisions within their scope of work. Whether a team succeeds or fails it is because of its leader.
3. Prioritize & Execute
As a leader things can get complicated and it becomes easy to be overwhelmed. This is where a leader who takes ‘extreme ownership’ will prioritize what is the highest priority problem. When it comes to your life identify the problem that brings the most failures, whatever one you rank highest tackle that one first. Come up with a plan and execute. Once you’ve successfully taken care of the highest priority problem move to the next. As for when priorities change, shift within the yourself/team and communicate those changes for everyone involved. Communication of this is key. Last thing as a leader when prioritizing you need to maintain the ability to see other problems and be willing to shift as soon as possible, when doing this keep things simple and give a clear message.
Going into 2018 I hope you can take some insights from above into your workplace or personal life. This book is a great read for anyone. Along with this book download our list of 150 books to improve your life.
