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

But what I can tell you is this: when it comes to performance standards, It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.

Laws of Combat that Jocko had taught us: Cover and Move, Simple, Prioritize and Execute, and Decentralized Command

by his very position as leader—received the most scrutiny from the instructor staff.

The good leaders took ownership of the mistakes and shortfalls. That’s the key difference. And how do you think their SEAL platoons and task units reacted to this type of leadership?”

“They must have respected that,”

All they did was make excuses and ultimately never made the adjustments necessary to fix problems.

The best leaders checked their egos, accepted blame, sought out constructive criticism, and took detailed notes for improvement.

you know who I blamed?” I asked, pausing

slightly for this to sink in. “Me,” I said. “I blamed me.”

I continued: “As the commander, everything that happened on the battlefield was my responsibility. Everything. If a supporting unit didn’t do what we needed it to do, then I hadn’t given clear instructions. If one of my machine gunners engaged targets outside his field of fire, then I had not ensured he understood where his field of fire was. If the enemy surprised us and hit us where we hadn’t expected, then I hadn’t thought through all the possibilities. No matter what, I could never blame other people when a mission went wrong.”

“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.”

Such a leader, however, does not take credit for his or her team’s successes but bestows that honor upon his subordinate leaders and team members.

As individuals, we often attribute the success of others to luck or circumstances and make excuses for our own failures and the failures of our team. We blame our own poor performance on bad luck, circumstances beyond our control, or poorly performing subordinates—anyone but ourselves. Total responsibility for failure is a difficult thing to accept, and taking ownership when things go wrong requires extraordinary humility and courage. But doing just that is an absolute necessity to learning, growing as a leader, and improving a team’s performance.