The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win
Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
Description
In The Dichotomy of Leadership, Jocko and Leif dive even deeper into the unchartered and complex waters of a concept first introduced in their book Extreme Ownership: finding balance between the opposing forces that pull every leader in different directions. Here, Willink and Babin get granular into the nuances that every successful leader must navigate.
With examples from the authors’ combat and training experiences in the SEAL teams, and then a demonstration of how each lesson applies to the business world, Willink and Babin clearly explain the dichotomy of leadership — skills that are mission-critical for any leader and any team to achieve their ultimate goal: VICTORY.
Key words: Leadership, safety, teamwork, people, balance
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My Notes
Dichotomy – ‘A division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different’.
Mastering the dichotomy of leadership requires understanding when to lead and when to follow; when to aggressively manoeuvre and when to pause and let things develop; when to detach and let the team run and when to dive into the details and micromanage. In addition, every leader must:
Take extreme ownership of everything that impacts their mission, yet utilise Decentralise Command by giving ownership to their team.
Care deeply about their people and their individual success and livelihoods yet look out for the good of the overall team and, above all, accomplish the strategic mission.
Exhibit the most important quality in a leader — humility, but also be willing to speak up and push back against questionable decisions that could hurt the team and the mission.
Introduction
Finding the Balance
The foremost requirement for leadership is humility. No one can achieve perfection. What makes the best leaders and best teams great, is that when they make mistakes, they acknowledge them, take ownership and make corrections to upgrade their performance.
Leadership at every level is the most important thing on the battlefield.
Two most important pieces of info you need on a battlefield. 1) Where you are. 2) Where friendly forces are.
Part 1: Balancing people
The ultimate dichotomy a combat leader must face, is the duty to care about his troops more than anything in the world – and yet at the same time, a leader must accomplish the mission, which means taking such strategies that might cost the men their lives. We call this the ‘burden of command’. You have to balance caring for your people, while accomplishing the mission.
Own it all but empower others – I was still responsible for the operations, their plans, the manner they executed the missions. But my ownership had to be balanced with decentralised command; I needed to allow them to own the missions at their level, so they were fully empowered to execute with conviction. True extreme ownership meant that all responsibility rested with me, as the leader. It didn’t mean that I, as the leader, personally needed to do everything myself. I had to balance the dichotomy between taking too much ownership and not taking enough. If risk levels permit, a team can plan and execute a mission on its own. You need to find the balance between extreme ownership and decentralised command. When your team is too decentralised, no one knows in what direction to go. Too much ownership, and people won’t act with any level of initiative.
Resolute, but not overbearing – There is a time to stand firm and enforce the rules and there is time to give ground and allow the rules to bend. The most important explanation a leader can give to his team is ‘why’. Particularly when the leader must enforce standards. Why is it important, why will it help accomplish the mission and what are the consequences in failing to do so. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Be firm but not forceful.
When to mentor, when to fire – most underperformers don’t need to be fired, they need to be led, but once every effort has been made, sometimes the leader has a tough decision to let underperformers go. The goal of every leader is to get the most out of every individual, so the team can reach its maximum potential. The performance of a team trumps the performance of a single individual; don’t take your eye off the team helping one member too much. If you have given him direct feedback on his deficiencies, coached and mentored him, given him ample opportunity to correct himself, then getting rid of this guy is the only thing to do. If you don’t, you are letting the team down.
Part 2: Balancing the mission
Train hard, but train smart – there is no growth in the comfort zone. The whole point of training was to build a culture of decentralised command where everybody leads, where leaders at every level take charge, to act decisively to overcome obstacles and accomplish the mission. But training could not be so challenging that it overwhelmed the team to the point where no training took place. You train how you fight, and you fight how you train. Have tough conversations to correct underperformance. A team needs to do the basics well. Role play, force to make decisions, then analyse.
Aggressive, not reckless – Aggression is not always the answer. Aggression must be balanced with logic and detailed analysis of risk v reward. The default mindset of any leader must be: aggressive. This means that the best leaders and teams don’t wait to act. They understand the strategic vision, they aggressively execute to overcome obstacles, capitalise on opportunities, accomplish the mission and win. Aggressive = proactive. Aggression needs not be directed at people, but at solving problems. To be overly aggressive, without critical thinking, is to be reckless. The ‘disease of victory’ (overconfidence from wins) is a sign of recklessness.
Disciplined, not rigid - Leading wasn’t about him following the exact procedure – it required him to think and do what made the most sense so he could best support and lead his team. You need disciplined SOPs, but too strict a process inhibits teams to think.
Hold people accountable, but don’t hold their hands – It didn’t happen because I held them ‘accountable’ it happened because I told them ‘why’ the particular piece of equipment was important to them, for the mission, and for the team. Now they were holding themselves accountable. It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate. Balance accountability with educating the team and empowering its members to maintain standards without direct oversight from the top. The frontline troops always need to know ‘why’ they are doing it, but that thread has to tie back to them, to what is in it for them, and how their life would be improved. Tell him the whole big picture story, and how he is important in the role on the front line.
Part 3: Balancing Yourself
A leader and a follower – in order for my team to succeed, in order to be a good leader, I also had to be willing to follow. Leading didn’t mean pushing my agenda or proving I had all the answers. It was about collaboration to determine how best to accomplish the mission. It is the weakest form of leadership to win an argument through rank or position. A leader must be willing to learn on the expertise of others. To listen. It doesn’t matter who gets the credit, as long as the mission is accomplished. A good leader pushes the accolades down to the team. The relationship to build from follower to leader is that the leader; 1) Trusts you, 2)They value and seek your opinion and guidance, 3) They give you what you need to accomplish you mission and they let you go execute.
Plan, but don’t overplan – The most effective team builds flexible plans. Planning is critical. But not preparing for likely contingencies is to set the team up for failure. Leaders must focus on the most likely contingencies that might arise. Prioritise the likelihood of each contingency.
Humble, not passive – Humility must be balanced with knowing when to make a stand. While a leader can’t be passive, a leader must also carefully prioritise when to push back. Leaders must be humble enough to listen to new ideas, willing to learn strategic insights and open to implementing better tactics. But a leader must also be ready to stand firm when there are clearly unintended consequences that negatively impact the mission and risk harm to the team.
Focused, but detached – Leaders must be detached, must pull back to a position above the fray where they can see the bigger picture. That is the only way to effectively lead. I needed to detach – to not get so focused on the details but instead be mindful of the broader aspects of the planning and approval process. ‘An organisation does well only those things the Boss checks’. Regularly checking up on the team showed them what I found important.
