Summary of Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

“There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it”

The most important question you can answer is why? Once you understand the mission and the why behind it can you truly believe in it. In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission, the leader must believe in the greater cause.

Conclusion: In order to believe I have to understand the WHY.

“For this reason, they must believe in the cause for which they are fighting. They must believe in the plan they are asked to execute, and most important, they must believe in and trust the leader they are asked to follow.” 

Cover and move means teamwork. Each member of the team is critical to success, though the main effort and supporting efforts must be clearly identified. The focus must always be on how to best accomplish the mission. Team members, departments, and supporting assets must always Cover and Move — help each other, work together, and support each other to win. This principle is integral for any team to achieve victory.

“Cover and Move, Simple, Prioritize and Execute, and Decentralized Command.” 

Conclusion: The focus of the team must be to accomplish the mission, each member of the team must work together to better achieve the goal.

In order to excel as a leader it is vital that things that can be simplified are simplified. Simplifying as much as possible is crucial to success. As a leader, your role is to help your team excel and avoid making mistakes. When plans or orders are overly complicated, then this opens up the opportunity for mistakes. These types of mistake, which are based on misunderstanding instructions, are your fault as a leader. Additionally, if an individual makes an individual mistake, the complexity of your instructions will only compound issues and potentially lead to a disaster.

So, you want to provide orders, as a leader, that are:

• Simple
• Clear
• Concise

It is also extremely important that your team feel willing to ask you, as a leader, questions. They should feel comfortable asking for clarification before they proceed. As a leader, encourage your team members to seek clarification and not be ashamed about doing so.

Leaders must determine the highest priority task and execute it. When overwhelmed (happens quite frequently), fall back upon this principle: Prioritize and Execute. A leader can prevent pressure by staying one or two steps ahead by planning possible contingencies that can occur in the mission, briefing these contingencies to the team can enable them to act rapidly and execute when those problems arise. Priorities can rapidly shift and change when this happens, communication of that shift to the rest of the team, both up and down the chain of command, is critical.

1. Evaluate the highest priority problem
2. Lay out the highest priority in simple, clear, and concise terms
3. Develop and determine a solution, seek input
4. Direct the execution of that solution, focusing all efforts and resources toward this priority
5. Move on to the next higher priority problem
6. When priorities shift communicate both up and down the chain
7. Don’t let the focus on one priority cause target fixation

Conclusion: Identify the highest priority at the moment, develop a plan to tackle the priority, execute.

“Relax, look around, make a call”

Conclusion: Small teams, with designated leaders, must understand what and why, clear and concise orders.

“The leader must explain not just what to do, but why. It is the responsibility of the subordinate leader to reach out and ask if they do not understand. Only when leaders at all levels understand and believe in the mission can they pass that understanding and belief to their teams so that they can persevere through challenges, execute and win.” 

The leader must identify clear directives for the team. A broad and ambiguous mission results in a lack of focus and ineffective execution.

A post-operational debrief examines: What went right? What went wrong? How can we adapt our tactics to make us even more effective and increase our advantages over the enemy?

Conclusion : Clear objective, simple plan, delegate planning process, become a tactical genius, post-operational debrief

“Any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win.” 

Conclusion : Take Extreme Ownership, look in the mirror first and determine what you can do better, don’t ask what you should do, tell them what you are going to do.

Leaders cannot be paralyzed by fear. That results in inaction. It is critical for leaders to act decisively amid uncertainty; to make the best decision they can based on only the immediate information available. There is no 100% right solution, leaders must be comfortable with this and be able to make decisions promptly.

“You can’t make people listen to you. You can’t make them execute. That might be a temporary solution for a simple task. But to implement real change, to drive people to accomplish something truly complex or difficult or dangerous—you can’t make people do those things. You have to lead them.” 

• Confident but not cocky
• Courageous but not foolhardy
• Competitive but a gracious loser
• Attentive to details but not obsessed
• Strong but have endurance
• A leader and a follower
• Humble but not passive
• Aggressive but not overbearing
• Quiet but not silent
• Calm but not robotic
• Logical but not devoid of emotions
• Close but not so close with the troops, they must not forget who is in charge
• Able to execute Extreme Ownership, while exercising Decentralized Command

“The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win—you pass the test. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail. Though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions. But if you exercise discipline, that too translates to more substantial elements of your life.”