We wrote this so that the leadership lessons can continue to impact teams beyond the battlefield in all leadership situations—any company, team, or organization in which a group of people strives to achieve a goal and accomplish a mission.
JOCKO WILLINKThe greatest of these was the recognition that leadership is the most important factor on the battlefield, the single greatest reason behind the success of any team.
More Jocko Willink Quotes
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If mistakes happen, effective leaders don’t place blame on others. They take ownership of the mistakes, determine what went wrong, develop solutions to correct those mistakes and prevent them from happening again as they move forward.
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For this reason, they must believe in the cause for which they are fighting.
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As a leader, it is up to you to explain the bigger picture to him—and to all your front line leaders. That is a critical component of leadership
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Establishing an effective and repeatable planning process is critical to the success of any team.
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Good leaders are rare; bad leaders are common.
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All animals, including humans, need to see the connection between action and consequence in order to learn or react appropriately.
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A good leader does not get bogged down in the minutia of a tactical problem at the expense of strategic success.
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Plans and orders must be communicated in a manner that is simple, clear, and concise. Everyone
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When it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.
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Leaders must accept total responsibility, own problems that inhibit performance, and develop solutions to those problems.
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You have to BE VIGILANT. You have to be ON GUARD. You have to HOLD THE LINE on the seemingly insignificant little things— things that shouldn’t matter—but that do.
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A mission statement tells your troops what you are doing.
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Although discipline demands control and asceticism, it actually results in freedom. When you have the discipline to get up early, you are rewarded with more free time.
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A leader must lead but also be ready to follow. Sometimes, another member of the team—perhaps a subordinate or direct report—might be in a better position to develop a plan, make a decision, or lead through a specific situation.
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The most impressive thing about this improvement in performance was that it did not come from a major process change or an advance in technology. Instead, it came through a leadership principle that has been around for ages: Simple.
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We learned that leadership requires belief in the mission and unyielding perseverance to achieve victory, particularly when doubters question whether victory is even possible.
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A leader must care about the troops, but at the same time the leader must complete the mission, and in doing so there will be risk and sometimes unavoidable consequences to the troops.
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People do not follow robots.
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There is only hard work, late nights, early mornings, practice, rehearsal, repetition, study, sweat, blood, toil, frustration, and discipline.
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More than a decade of continuous war and tough combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan gave birth to a new generation of leaders in the ranks of America’s fighting forces.
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The Warrior Kid treats people with respect, doesn’t judge them.
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Most important of all, he believed winning was possible.
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The goal of leadership seems simple: to get people to do what they need to do to support the mission and the team.
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In the SEAL Teams, the bond of our brotherhood is our strongest weapon. If you take that away from us, we lose our most important quality as a team.
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Waiting for the 100 percent right and certain solution leads to delay, indecision, and an inability to execute.
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I can remember many times when my boat crew struggled. It was easy to make excuses for our team’s performance and why it wasn’t what it should have been. But I learned that good leaders don’t make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get it done and win.
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