Jocko Willink:
The way you get other people to take ownership is by taking ownership yourself. That's the way you do it.

Leif Babin:
Extreme ownership is not about anybody else, it's about you. So stop focusing on everybody else around you, your boss, your peer, somebody else on your team that works for you, look at yourself. Extreme ownership is about you. You can only control you. So focus on taking ownership yourself and get problems solved.

Jocko Willink:
So to take that a little bit deeper, if I'm working with Leif and I want Leif to start taking ownership of his job, let's say, he's my subordinate and he's not taking ownership and he's got a project that he's working on, I might say to him, "Hey Leif, is that project going okay? It seems like it's not moving very quickly. Is there some of those items that I can take off your plate and do for you?" And there's a good chance that Leif might say, "Well yeah, I'm overwhelmed right now. Take these couple items off my plate and get them done." And know what I'm going to do? I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. So I take a couple items off Leif's plate and I start to get those things done.

Jocko Willink:
Now I see Leif is still not taking ownership, and I go back to Leif again, I say, "Hey Leif, it looks like you're lagging a little bit. Do you need some help? Do you want me to take these other things off your plate?" And this is where you see other people start to take ownership because most people, when they sense that someone is taking stuff off their plate, they eventually say, "Hold on a second. Wait a minute. Give me that back." And they start to take that ownership back.

Jocko Willink:
And that's what we generally see throughout organizations. You'll have someone that starts to take ownership and as they start to take ownership, other people see that and they start to take ownership as well. So as we say, and as we always say, if you want on other people to take ownership, what you do is you take ownership. Other people will fall in line. Will every single person fall in line inside your team? No. No. There are people in every organization, even in the most elite organizations in the world, including a Seal platoon, there's people that don't want to take ownership, but it'll be a small percentage and eventually the people that do want to take ownership will overrun the people that want to slack off and not take ownership. But all that starts with you.

Learn More: https://exchange.echelonfront.com/

71 7

Leif Babin
The most important quality in a leader is humility. It's absolutely humility, because when you can't stay humble, then you can't innovate and adapt, you can't listen to anybody else, you can't learn, you can't educate yourself about new methods or new technologies or new ways of doing things. You start getting complacent, you start taking your enemies or your competition for granted, and worst of all, you can't self-assess. You can't look yourself in the mirror and take a brutally honest assessment of yourself to think where you can improve, how you can take ownership of the situation to make that outcome better. When you can't do that, you're setting yourself up for failure.

Jocko Willink
What made this really obvious being in the seal teams was the fact that the leaders that would get fired would get fired because they lack humility, because when someone's not humble, you can't coach them. You can't give them any advice. They don't listen to anybody else, so they continue down whatever path they're on. They don't make any changes. They don't get better. It comes from a lack of humility. I think this is an answer that caught the world off guard when we first started talking about the fact that humility is the most important characteristic for a leader to have, because generally I would say for a traditional thought pattern, what people would say is, "Oh, it's important for a leader to be charismatic," or, "It's important for a leader to have presence,," or, "It's important for a leader to be articulate."

Look, all those things are great. There's dozens of other leadership characteristics that we can point out that are important. But all of those leadership characteristics are negated if a human being lacks humility. In fact, I can't think of anything worse than someone that is articulate, but not humble. What are they going to do? They're going to talk more about how great they are. That is not what we want to have from a leader. What about somebody that's got a lot of presence, but they're not humble? Well, now no one else can get a word in edgewise. No one else can participate in the planning. No one else can even impact that person's thought because their presence is so great and they have a big ego, which means you can't get a word in edgewise.

Leif Babin
I saw this when I was teaching the junior officer training course in the seal teams with every single seal officer that came through our training pipeline. You would see some people who had a lot of natural talent and skills, and some people who didn't have a lot of natural talent and skills. The only people who couldn't be successful leaders were those who just simply wouldn't listen. If a young junior officer was willing to take out a notepad, take some instruction, accept some constructive criticism and work to get better, we saw them become cable leaders, and we saw them go out into the seal teams and have successful careers, even if they didn't have a lot of charisma, or even if they got nervous standing up in front of a group and that was not something that they felt comfortable doing.

As long as they were willing to work on this, learn, get better, accept constructive criticism and guidance from people who were more experienced than them, they could be successful. The only people who failed were those people who wouldn't listen, who weren't humble, wouldn't take any criticism, and therefore they continued to not grow, to not get better. They ultimately failed.

Jocko Willink
So, we could go on and on about this, but it all boils down to the fact that if a human being is not humble, they are not going to be able to become a good leader. That is why humility is the most important characteristic for a leader to have.

Learn More: https://exchange.echelonfront.com/

103 5

Leif Babin:
We get this question all the time. How do I deal with someone with a giant ego? The very first thing that we're thinking when we hear that is it's not just the other person with a giant ego. Because if Jocko and I are working together and he has a giant ego, if I can put my ego in check, we can work together. We can have a great relationship.


The only time that that becomes an issue is when I have a giant ego and I'm clashing with his ego and so now we have a clash of egos. So all it takes is one person to put their ego in check and you can't control the other person. You can only control you.


So whether you're talking about your boss, your peer, somebody on your team with a giant ego, stop worrying about their ego, put your own ego in check, subordinate your ego, and that's going to allow you to be able to build a better relationship and work with someone, even if they have a giant ego.

Jocko Willink:
What gets funny about this is it's actually a little ego detector test. When Leif comes to me and he says he's working with Dave and he says, "Dave's got a giant ego, what do I do about this?" I say, "Well, what you do is you subordinate your ego. You subordinate your ego. You ask him how he wants to do things and you follow his lead."

Then what if Leif says, "I'm not going to do that. Why should I have to do that?" There you go. There is your answer. That's when the ego becomes revealed. Because if you truly don't have an ego, if Leif can keep his ego in check, he goes, "Hey, got it, Jocko, that makes sense. I'll subordinate my ego. I'll do it. We'll go with Dave's plan. That makes sense. That'll smooth things over and we can figure things out later."

That's what someone that has their ego under control will say. So you give him that little ego detector test and it should be something that allows me to show the mirror to Leif. When I say, "Hey, just subordinate your ego and go with Dave's plan," and he says, "Why should I have to go with his plan? He's got a big ego. I shouldn't have to fall in line under him," I just hold up that nice little mirror and say, "You see what that looks like? You see what it looks like? That's your ego. So put your ego in check. Subordinate it. You just failed the ego detector test, Leif. Get it in check and that's how you're going to overcome dealing with someone that's got a big ego."



Learn More: https://exchange.echelonfront.com/

382 57

Leif Babin:
This is the ultimate goal that every leader should have is to try to create this culture of extreme ownership within your team. You got an entire team of people that are taking ownership of problems, getting problems solved, making things happen, and that team is going to dominate. So how do you do that? Well, it starts with you. It starts with you. If you try to go and impose extreme ownership on everybody in your team and beat them down and say, "You need to start taking ownership and you need to start taking ownership and you need to start taking ownership." What you're actually doing is putting all the blame on them.

So it starts with you. You take ownership, you model this behavior, and when you take ownership of stuff, the people around you start to take ownership. And even if you don't reach every single person on your team, which you're never going to do, you at least are going to reach a handful of people on the team, and as you start to take ownership, they start to take ownership and this starts to become the culture on your team, even with just a handful of folks that are taking ownership of problems, getting problems solved, and making things happen. That's how it's going to start.

Jocko Willink:
Now there's people that will listen to what Leif just says, and I say the same thing, "Oh, you want to develop a culture of extreme ownership? Start taking ownership. It'll spread." And then there's always someone that's sitting there thinking, "Well, Jocko and Leif are sitting up there saying, "Oh, if you start to take ownership, everyone will start to take ownership as well."" And they're thinking, well, you don't know about Fred over here because Fred never wants to take ownership of anything. And that's true. That is true. There are going to be people in any organization that don't want to take ownership, and that exists in a Seal platoon.

You got a seal platoon with 16 people in it, there's two or three guys that they're just trying to look to do the minimum amount of work. They don't want to be responsible for anything. They're cool with just hanging on and cruising. And you've got some other people at the high end of the curve that are wanting to take ownership of everything. And what you'll end up with is those people that are taking ownership all the time, they will just start to take ownership of everything. And the few people that don't want to take ownership, it's okay, we don't have to worry about them. They won't even impact our culture. They'll eventually just be overrun by the people that are out taking ownership and making things happen.

So are you going to get 100% ownership in every human being inside your organization? No, you're not. That's not going to happen. But the people that do step up and start to take ownership, that is going to be more than enough to make this the culture inside your team.

Learn More: https://exchange.echelonfront.com/

53 2

Leif Babin:
The intent of Cover and Move is literally that you can look out for your peer or the other team, or the other person that you depend on, or the other team that you depend on, in order to accomplish the mission to win. That's the intent. You want to build a relationship with them so that you can help them so that the entire team wins. And when the team wins, everybody wins. You're not going to try to give cover to someone so they can move so that they then give cover for you. That is a nice thing that generally happens if you build a good relationship with someone, is that they're actually willing to help you, but that's not the purpose of why you're trying to do it. The goal is that you win. And if you understand what cover and move means, it means it's not about you, it's about the mission. So stop worrying about yourself and start focusing on helping the entire team win.

So what's interesting about this question of what do I do if I'm covering for Leif, but he's not covering for me? What do I do? And the instinct that a lot of people have is, "Oh, Leif's not helping me. I'm helping Leif, but he's not helping me. I'm going on the attack. I need to confront Leif. I need to say, "Hey Leif, hey listen, I'm doing all this for you. You're not doing anything for me." And as Leif just said, already that shows that my intent is wrong. So what do I do when Leif isn't covering from me? Do I go on the attack? No, I don't go on the attack. I actually approach Leif and say, "Hey Leif, I noticed that I could use a little support over here, and I see that you're able to handle it. Is there something else that I can do for you so that we can work together better as a team because I'm going to need some support over here."

So I don't go to the attack. I try and figure out if I can cover for him more. That's what I'm going to do. So if someone is not giving you the support that you need, don't go on the attack. Don't do that. Instead, find out what's happening, ask some real earnest questions about why you're not getting the support that you need, and then try and figure out a solution. There's a chance that the reason Leif isn't giving me the support that I need is because Leif is overwhelmed, or he got some other tasks that I don't know about, or his wife is sick at home with the kids and he's worried about that.

There could be any number of reasons that he's not giving me the sport that I need, and if I just go on the attack, what does that do to our relationship? It hurts it. So instead I say, "Hey Leif, I could use a little bit more support but I'm not really feeling it. Is there something going on that I need to help you with?" What does that do to our relationship? It builds it. It makes it stronger. And by the way, if he has a problem, now we can look at solving that problem, and that's what we're trying to make happen.

And the last thing I'll say is this, maybe in a month or two months or three months, I'm the one that's overwhelmed, or I'm the one that's got a sick kid at home, or I'm the one that got tasked with things that are beyond what we're normally working on, and then I might need that extra support from Leif. Cover and move is teamwork. That's what it is. So when it's not happening the way you want it to happen, don't go on the attack, try and figure out what is actually lacking and fill that space together as a team.




Learn More: https://exchange.echelonfront.com/

80 2

Jocko Willink:
What do you do when you've got a boss that wants all the credit? No, this is a great starting point for an answer, is real obvious, which is, I give the boss all the credit. So if Leif is my boss, and we do a project, and his boss comes down and says, "Hey, great job, everybody." I kind of stick my chest up and raise my head up a little bit, and think how I want to get the head nod from the boss right now. Instead, Leif steps in front of me and says, "Well, we worked hard on this, sir. We're glad we were able to get it done for you." His boss doesn't even look at me. What should I do? Should I be mad? No, I should be happy. Made my boss look good.

But what's interesting about this is, this answer doesn't only apply to your boss. This applies to everybody up, down the chain of command, your peers. It doesn't matter. If Leif is working for me, and he wants all the credit, I'm going to give it to him. If Leif is my peer and we're working together, and he wants all the credit, I'm going to give it to him. I don't care. I don't care about getting the credit for what's happening. What I care is, that we get the job done.

By the way, the more credit I give to Leif, the happier Leif is. That's great. Now we have a better relationship. Now we can do more together as a team. So, don't worry about credit. Don't worry about who gets the recognition from up the chain of command. Do your job, work hard, and in the long run, you're going to do just fine.

Leif Babin:
I think it's that long-run piece you've got to be focused on. Think strategically instead of tactically. If you're thinking about, "I need the credit so that I get this promotion, or I get this opportunity," all that's doing is it's feeding your ego, and it's a very tactical view. You need to be thinking strategically about how are you building up leadership capital with your team long term? When you're doing the work, when you're actually making things happen, people know. Everybody on your team knows. They know who's doing the work.

Particularly, when you have a reputation, think about this. Do you want to have a reputation of someone who seeks all the credit, or do you want to have a reputation of someone who gives all the credit to others around them? Doesn't care for any credit for themselves. Doesn't look out for themselves, but simply looks out for the team first and the mission first. That's the kind of person you want to be, and that's the person that strategically is going to win in the long run.





Learn More: https://exchange.echelonfront.com/

34 21

Leif Babin
We get various forms of this question, "Everything is a priority. How do I deal with this?" Or, "Everything is changing all the time." And when we hear that from leaders, we kind of have to laugh because, guess what? Can you show me some area of life or business or anywhere in the world where things don't actually change, where things aren't changing?

So priorities are always changing. You got to be flexible, number one, realize there's nowhere else, there's no other industry out there, there's no other company out there where you don't have shifting priorities. That's just the reality of the world that we lived in. The battlefield is no different and we had to constantly change different priorities.

But if you try to take on those 30 priorities at the same time, even if the boss is saying they're all a priority… How do you deal with that? … you're going to fail. So you have to prioritize and execute. And if you can't get the boss to prioritize the list for you, then you got to take a step back and prioritize it for yourself.
Jocko Willink
Yeah. If you approach your boss and you say, "Hey boss, we got 15 different projects that we're working on right now and I don't have the resources to make that happen. Which one of these is the priority you want me to focus on?" The boss says, "Nope, they're all a priority." What you still have to do is you have to prioritize yourself. So take a step back, look at where you think the biggest return on investment is going to come from and you start focusing on that.

Now, you might want to approach your boss again and say, "Hey, listen boss, I know that all these are a priority and I just wanted to let you know, in order for me to direct my resources properly, I actually had to figure out where I was going to focus. Here's what I decided to focus on. I just wanted to make sure that this makes sense to you. I know they're all important, but here's the order of importance that I'm going to approach these various projects with." And there's a good chance that your boss says, "Yeah, okay, if that's what you got to do with your resources, that makes sense." The boss might also say, "Well, you know what? Well, this one's a little bit more important so focus on that one first." Great. So now you just got your boss to give you their priorities.

And worst case scenario, if your boss just says, "Nope, I want you doing all of these simultaneously right now. Spread your resources thin so that you can't make very much progress on any of these, but that's what I want you to do." You say, 'Aye, aye, Boss. Got it. I'll move forward." And then you go back, get with your team, figure out where you want to focus your resources and start to get these things done by priority, because spreading your resources thin isn't going to help you, you're not going to get anything done and then you're going to be a real failure. And you're actually letting your boss down. By following what your boss is telling you to do, you're going to let him down because you're not going to be able to get anything done. So figure out what the priorities are and then, yeah, go execute.






Learn More: https://exchange.echelonfront.com/

90 2

Leif Babin:
People are often surprised to hear that the hardest part of combat leadership is not about maneuvering troops under fire, is not about planning, executing operations. The hardest part about combat leadership is trying to get a diverse group of people with a bunch of different skill sets to work together as a team busy supporting one another in order to accomplish a strategic goal. And obviously that is something that applies to any team in any situation. And that is how these combat principles that we actually learned in combat apply to any team in any arena in business or life.

Yeah, leadership is leadership, and it doesn't matter if you're trying to go out on the battlefield and assault a target, or if you're going into a new market area to try and gain market share. The leadership principles that you utilize to get a team moving in the right direction, those leadership principles, they don't change regardless of what your ultimate goal is.

Not only do these apply to teams, but these leadership principles that we talk about, they apply to you individually as a person as well. So when we talk about these leadership principles, don't always think about how you're going to utilize them externally and how you're going to utilize them to lead other people.

Think about how you apply these leadership principles to yourself. Think about what the priorities are in your personal life and how you should execute on those priorities. Do you understand what your mission is? Is it simple? Can you stick to it every single day? What about cover and move? How about in your family how are you supporting each other and helping each other out? How is that working?

Decentralized command. Same thing. What are do we doing with our children? Are we allowing our children to step up and grow as leaders? Are we stifling them and spoon feeding them everything that they're doing every single day? You can apply these principles yes on the battlefield, but you can also apply them in your business and beyond that your family and your life as an individual. These things work everywhere.






Learn More: https://exchange.echelonfront.com/

60 0

Leif Babin:
At the end of the day, there's what works and there's what doesn't work. So extreme ownership is not just some flavor of the week or flavor of the month of a book that was read, or like, "Hey, I like these principles." It doesn't even matter to us. If you use the terms extreme ownership, if you use the laws of combat, none of that actually matters, there's actually what works and there's what doesn't work. If you're going to cast blame, if you're going to make excuses, if you're going to point fingers, you're never going to actually get problem solved. So if you can take these principles and apply them in your life, they'll change every aspect of your life. They'll change your leadership opportunities in business, and as you apply them to yourself, you're going to actually be able to make yourself better and grow as a person and you'll make everybody else around you better.

Jocko Willink:
At this juncture we've had the opportunity to teach these principles to thousands and thousands and thousands of people in leadership positions, and what we've seen over and over and over again is those leaders taking these principles, applying them inside their organization, and vastly improving the productivity, the efficiency, the effectiveness of their team and of their organization. These principles work. It's been proven over and over again. So if you want to improve your team, if you want to improve your business, if you want to improve your station in life, take these principles and apply them in your world and you will see improvement.




Learn More: https://exchange.echelonfront.com/

81 2