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

Leaders must have a competitive spirit but also be gracious losers.

Leaders must have a competitive spirit but also be gracious losers. They must drive competition and push themselves and their teams to perform at the highest level.

Leaders must have a competitive spirit but also be gracious losers. They must drive competition and push themselves and their teams to perform at the highest level. But they must never put their own drive for personal success ahead of overall mission success for the greater team. Leaders must act with professionalism and recognize others for their contributions.

A leader must be strong but likewise have endurance, not only physically but mentally. He or she must maintain the ability to perform at the highest level and sustain that level for the long term.

A leader must be strong but likewise have endurance, not only physically but mentally. He or she must maintain the ability to perform at the highest level and sustain that level for the long term. Leaders must recognize limitations and know to pace themselves and their teams so that they can maintain a solid performance indefinitely.

Leaders must be humble but not passive; quiet but not silent. They must possess humility and the ability to control their ego and listen to others. They must admit mistakes and failures, take ownership of them, and figure out a way to prevent them from happening again. But a leader must be able to speak up when it matters. They must be able to stand up for the team and respectfully push back against a decision, order, or direction that could negatively impact overall mission success.

A leader must be close with subordinates but not too close. The best leaders understand the motivations of their team members and know their people—their lives and their families. But a leader must never grow so close to subordinates that one member of the team becomes more important than another,

A leader must exercise Extreme Ownership. Simultaneously, that leader must employ Decentralized Command by giving control to subordinate leaders.

To take charge of minute details just to demonstrate and reinforce to the team a leader’s authority is the mark of poor, inexperienced leadership lacking in confidence.

Since the team understands that the leader is de facto in charge, in that respect, a leader has nothing to prove.

Since the team understands that the leader is de facto in charge, in that respect, a leader has nothing to prove. But in another respect, a leader has everything to prove: every member of the team must develop the trust and confidence that their leader will exercise good judgment, remain calm, and make the right decisions when it matters most.

Leaders must earn that respect and prove themselves worthy, demonstrating through action that they will take care of the team and look out for their long-term interests and well-being. In that respect, a leader has everything to prove every day.

when a leader struggles, the root cause behind the problem is that the leader has leaned too far in one direction and steered off course. Awareness of the dichotomies in leadership allows this discovery, and thereby enables the correction.

A good leader must be: • confident but not cocky; • courageous but not foolhardy; • competitive but a gracious loser; • attentive to details but not obsessed by them; • strong but have endurance; • a leader and follower; • humble not passive; • aggressive not overbearing; • quiet not silent; • calm but not robotic, logical but not devoid of emotions; • close with the troops but not so close that one becomes more important than another or more important than the good of the team; not so close that they forget who is in charge. • able to execute Extreme Ownership, while exercising Decentralized Command.

With their ship taking on water and in danger of sinking, those sailors sometimes had to secure the hatch to a flooded compartment when men who were their friends were still in those compartments, in order to save the ship.

They needed discipline to make the toughest decision in order to save the ship and save all the other men aboard.

leaders must be heavily engaged in training and mentoring their junior leaders to prepare them to step up and assume greater responsibilities.

When mentored and coached properly, the junior leader can eventually replace the senior leader, allowing the senior leader to move on to the next level of leadership. Much of what has been covered in this book has been covered in the past. We do not consider ourselves to be creators of a new paradigm of leadership principles. Much of what we learned or relearned has existed for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years. But, although these principles are often simple to understand in theory, it can be difficult to apply them in life. Leadership is simple, but not easy. Likewise, leadership is both art and science. There are no exact answers or specific formulas to follow in every case. In any situation, there exists a great deal of gray area, neither black nor white. There may be an infinite number of options for potential solutions to any one leadership challenge. Some will be wrong and only lead to further problems, while others will solve the problem and get the team back on track. Leadership decisions are inherently challenging and take practice. Not every decision will be a good one: all leaders make mistakes. No leader, no matter how competent and experienced, is immune from this. For any leader, handling those mistakes with humility is the key. Subordinates or direct reports don’t expect their bosses to be perfect. When the boss makes a mistake but then owns up to that mistake, it doesn’t decrease respect. Instead, it increases respect for that leader, proving he or she possesses the humility to admit and own mistakes and, most important, to learn from them. No book can tell a leader exactly how to lead in every situation. But this book provides a sounding board for difficult decisions, a frame of reference to use for guidance when faced with tough leadership dilemmas. While

When mentored and coached properly, the junior leader can eventually replace the senior leader, allowing the senior leader to move on to the next level of leadership.

Leadership is simple, but not easy.