Excerpt: Jocko Willink and Leif Babin know how to lead a team to victory. Our 18 quotes from Extreme Ownership will help you better lead and win too.
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Introduction: Taking Lessons on the Battlefield and Applying Them to Life
“While there is no guarantee of success in leadership, there is one thing that is certain: leading people is the most challenging and, therefore, the most gratifying undertaking of all human endeavors.”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 287)
Jocko Willink and Leif Babin know how to lead a team to victory. Both were senior leaders of Navy SEAL Task Unit Bruiser, the most highly decorated Special Operations unit from the war in Iraq, whose efforts contributed to the historic triumph for U.S. forces in Ramadi.
Throughout their book, Extreme Ownership, the message they make clear is simple: that leadership, at every level, is the most important thing on the battlefield. Even when compared to high level training and advanced tactical equipment, strong leadership triumphs in the face of challenge and adversity and is the most important driving force in leading a group to victory.
While this concept is true for Task Unit Bruiser and in military operations, Willink and Babin argue that this concept extends far beyond the battlefield. From classrooms to conference rooms, from community centers to dining rooms, leadership and the strategies a leader takes to help their team succeed makes all of the difference. Moreover, until a leader accepts full responsibility and is ready to take extreme ownership of their team, their team’s performance, and all of the outcomes produced, the team will never operate at their full potential. It is Willink and Babin’s firm belief that there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.
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If teams are going to perform with confidence and clarity then the leader needs to take full responsibility for presenting the team’s mission with confidence and clarity. If a team is to perform with great synergy and enthusiasm, then leaders need to live and breathe enthusiasm and need to take full responsibility for creating environments that promote open, honest, creative, and safe communication. If a team is performing poorly or they fail to accomplish their mission, the leader needs to take full responsibility for the loss and needs to be ready to present a plan that will move them forward and back on track towards success.
The 18 quotes included on this page are all from Extreme Ownership and will help you better understand why leadership is so critically important, how to become a better leader yourself, and how to better manage and lead your team to victory. For Willink and Babin’s specific SEAL Checklist for Planning, click here. In it, Jocko and Leif share the checklist they use with their teams in Navy SEAL combat situations to ensure communication is clear, tasks have been appropriately delegated, efficiency is optimized, risks have been mitigated, and the plan with the greatest chance of success has been confidently selected. Otherwise, enjoy the quotes below and comment below which quotes resonated with you the most!
The List: 18 Powerful Quotes from Extreme Ownership That Will Help You Lead and Win
“Leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield and the principles of good leadership do not change regardless of the mission, the environment, or the personalities of those involved. Leading is leading.”
Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership (Page xiv)
“There are no bad teams, only bad leaders. The leader’s attitude sets the tone for the entire team. The leader drives performance—or doesn’t. And this applies not just to the most senior leader of an overall team, but to the junior leaders of teams within the team.”
Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership (Page 49)
“In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission. Even when others doubt and question the amount of risk, asking, ‘Is it worth it?’ the leader must believe in the greater cause. If a leader does not believe, he or she will not take the risks required to overcome the inevitable challenges necessary to win. And they will not be able to convince others—especially the frontline troops who must execute the mission—to do so.”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 76)
“Leaders must always operate with the understanding that they are part of something greater than themselves and their own personal interests. They must impart this understanding to their teams down to the tactical-level operators on the ground. Far more important than training or equipment, a resolute belief in the mission is critical for any team or organization to win and achieve big results.”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 77)
“When it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate. When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable—if there are no consequences—that poor performance becomes the new standard. Therefore, leaders must enforce standards. Consequences for failing need not be immediately severe, but leaders must ensure that tasks are repeated until the higher expected standard is achieved.”
Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership (Page 54)
“Leaders should never be satisfied. They must always strive to improve, and they must build that mind-set into the team. They must face the facts through a realistic, brutally honest assessment of themselves and their team’s performance. Identifying weaknesses, good leaders seek to strengthen them and come up with a plan to overcome challenges. The best teams anywhere, like the SEAL Teams, are constantly looking to improve, add capability, and push the standards higher. It starts with the individual and spreads to each of the team members until this becomes the culture, the new standard.”
Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership (Page 55)
“As with many of the dichotomies of leadership, a person’s biggest strength can be his greatest weakness when he doesn’t know how to balance it. A leader’s best quality might be her aggressiveness, but if she goes too far she becomes reckless. A leader’s best quality might be his confidence, but when he becomes overconfident he doesn’t listen to others.”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 281)
“When you’re too embarrassed to ask for help, that’s a little knock at your door saying, ‘You’re insecure!’”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 308)
“Everyone has an ego. Ego drives the most successful people in life—in the SEAL Teams, in the military, in the business world. They want to win, to be the best. That is good. But when ego clouds our judgment and prevents us from seeing the world as it is, then ego becomes destructive. When personal agendas become more important than the team and the overarching mission’s success, performance suffers and failure ensues. Many of the disruptive issues that arise within any team can be attributed directly to a problem with ego.”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 100)
“A leader must be calm but not robotic. It is normal—and necessary—to show emotion. The team must understand that their leader cares about them and their well-being. But, a leader must control his or her emotions. If not, how can they expect to control anything else? Leaders who lose their temper also lose respect. But, at the same time, to never show any sense of anger, sadness, or frustration would make that leader appear void of any emotion at all—a robot. People do not follow robots.”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 275)
“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, providing he or she possesses the humility to admit and own mistakes and, most important, to learn from them.”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 287)
“It is such a good opportunity when you have a weak leader above you. Don’t get all downtrodden because your leader doesn’t motivate you. Motivate yourself! Take charge of things. Take advantage of it. Make things happen. It’s awesome to have a weak leader. I love it. I get after it. It give me so much more mobility in my job. If I have a strong leader, obviously, that’s great too. But a weak leader is a no factor. Step up and take advantage of it. Step up and lead.”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 303)
“Once people stop making excuses, stop blaming others, and take ownership of everything in their lives, they are compelled to take action to solve their problems. They are better leaders, better followers, more dependable and actively contributing team members, and more skilled in aggressively driving toward mission accomplishment. But they’re also humble—able to keep their egos from damaging relationships and adversely impacting the mission and the team.”
Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership (Page xii)
“There is an answer to the age-old question of whether leaders are born or made. Obviously, some are born with natural leadership qualities, such as charisma, eloquence, sharp wit, a decisive mind, the willingness to accept risk when others might falter, or the ability to remain calm in chaotic, high-pressure situations. Others may not possess these qualities innately. But with a willingness to learn, with a humble attitude that seeks valid constructive criticism in order to improve, with disciplined practice and training, even those with less natural ability can develop into highly effective leaders. Others who were blessed with all the natural talent in the world will fail as leaders if they are not humble enough to own their mistakes, admit that they don’t have it all figured out, seek guidance, learn, and continuously grow.”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 285)
On Building Trust:
“Trust is not blindly given. It must be built over time. Situations will sometimes require that the boss walk away from a problem and let junior leaders solve it, even if the boss knows he might solve it more efficiently. It is more important that the junior leaders are allowed to make decisions—and backed up even if they don’t make them correctly. Open conversations build trust. Overcoming stress and challenging environments builds trust. Working through emergencies and seeing how people react builds trust.”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 191)
On Constant Reflection:
“No matter how exhausted from an operation or how busy planning for the next mission, time is made for this debrief because lives and future mission success depend on it. A post-operational debrief examines all phases of an operation from planning through execution, in a concise format. It addresses the following for the combat mission just completed: What went right? What went wrong? How can we adapt our tactics to make us even more effective and increase our advantage over the enemy? Such self-examination allows SEAL units to reevaluate, enhance, and refine what worked and what didn’t so that they can constantly improve. It is critical for the success of any team in any business to do the same and implement those changes into their future plans so that they don’t repeat the same mistakes.”
Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership (Page 208)
On Making Time:
“I learned in SEAL training that if I wanted any extra time to study the academic material we were given, prepare our room and my uniforms for an inspection, or just stretch out aching muscles, I had to make that time because it did not exist on the written schedule. When I check into my first SEAL Team, that practice continued. If I wanted extra time to work on my gear, clean my weapons, study tactics or new technology, I needed to make that time. The only way you could make time, was to get up early. That took discipline.”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 271)
Picture Quotes from Extreme Ownership To Share:
If you enjoyed these Leadership quotes from Extreme Ownership then you should definitely check out this book in full. It comes highly recommended:
By: Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
From this Book: 22 Quotes
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Great on Kindle. Great Experience. Great Value. The Kindle edition of this book comes highly recommended on Amazon.
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