Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win

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I walked upstairs and found the company commander hunkered down on the roof of a building. “Everyone OK?” he asked.

On what capture/kill direct-action raid can you be certain there are no IEDs buried in the yard or bunkered machine gun positions in the house?” To assume otherwise was a failure of leadership. That was what mission planning was all about: never taking anything for granted, preparing for likely contingencies, and maximizing the chance of mission success while minimizing the risk to the troops executing the operation. Leadership Principle Your boss will grow more comfortable with you and establish trust in you when you show you are capable. An armored personnel carrier (APC)3 had arrived with the heavy QRF and was sitting out front. “There’s an APC out front. Get your boys loaded up,” I told him.

I’d rather be a non-All-Star playing in the Western Conference finals than an All-Star who’s sitting at home in May.” – Stephen Curry When smaller teams within the team start to get focused on the task at hand, they can get caught up in forgetting about all of the support that they have around them. Almost no mission ever goes according to plan. There are simply too many variables to deal with. This is where simplicity is key. If the plan is simple enough, everyone understands it, which means each person can rapidly adjust and modify what he or she is doing. If the plan is too complex, the team can’t make rapid adjustments to it, because there is no baseline understanding of it. [6] Prioritize and execute. Be able to admit your mistakes when you make them, and take complete ownership for them. It’s perfectly fine for you to take credit for success as long as you also take ownership of your failures. Instead of trying to place the blame on another person or an external force, take responsibility and think about what you could have done differently. Learn from your shortcoming and think about what you can do differently next time to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Finally, the CO, the CMC, and the investigating officer arrived at our base. They were going to drop their gear, grab some food at the chow hall, and then we would bring everyone together to debrief the event.

Never take anything for granted, prepare for likely contingencies, and maximizing the chance of mission success while minimizing the risk.Principle: nothing can truly capture the pressure from uncertainty, chaos, and the element of the unknown until you are in the middle of the mission. I arrived on scene two weeks before the next board meeting. After spending several hours with the CEO to get some color on the situation, I was introduced to the VP of manufacturing. My initial assessment was positive. The VP was extremely smart and incredibly knowledgeable about the business. But would he be open to coaching? If your team understands where the priorities are, then they can execute without specific direction from you. Bonus: Positioning: When I ran the training for the West Coast SEAL Teams, one of the lessons I regularly taught was that the most important piece of information you could have on the battlefield is the knowledge of where you are. Without that, nothing else matters. The next most important piece of information is where other friendly forces are located. Only then does it matter where the enemy is; without knowing where one’s own unit is and without knowing where other friendly units are, it is nearly impossible to engage the enemy. There is no 100% right solution. Leaders must be comfortable with this, and make decisions promptly. Then, as things unfold, change path if needed.