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Repetitive exceptional performance became a habit.

Jocko Willink

For this reason, they must believe in the cause for which they are fighting.
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Believe Fight Inspirational Reason
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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Care Leadership Risk Time
Our egos don’t like to take blame.
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Blame Ourselves
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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Goodness Leadership Problem Success
There are no bad units, only bad officers. This captures the essence of what Extreme Ownership is all about.
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Bad Control Politics
So how can a leader become great if they lack the natural characteristics necessary to lead? The answer is simple: a good leader builds a great team that counterbalances their weaknesses.
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Greatness Leadership Necessary Simplicity Team Weakness
The 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.
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Greatness Leadership Team
And the more you build your will by doing hard things, the stronger your will becomes.
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Strong Willing Yourself
The most fundamental and important truths at the heart of Extreme Ownership: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.
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Bad Fundamental Heart Important Leadership Team Truth
Repetitive exceptional performance became a habit.
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Performance
The infamous they.
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Famous One Liner
Remember to keep your ego in check. Don’t judge people.
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Judgement People Remember Yourself
If the plan is simple enough, everyone understands it, which means each person can rapidly adjust and modify what he or she is doing. If the plan is too complex, the team can’t make rapid adjustments to it, because there is no baseline understanding of it.
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Planning Simplicity Team Understand
Cover and Move, Simple, Prioritize and Execute, and Decentralized Command.
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Act Simplicity
Don’t fight stress. Embrace it. Turn it on itself. Use it to make yourself sharper and more alert. Use it to make you think and learn and get better and smarter and more effective. Use the stress to make you a better you.
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Fight Learning Thinking
If we could execute with a monumental effort just to reach an immediate goal that everyone could see, we could then continue to the next visually.
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Effort Goal See
The leader must own everything in his or her world.
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Himself Leadership World
As a leader, you have to balance the dichotomy, to be resolute where it matters but never inflexible and uncompromising on matters of little importance to the overall good of the team and the strategic mission.
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Goodness Importance Leadership Team
People do not follow robots.
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People Technology
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.
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Blame Development Failure Leadership Mistake Oneself Win
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.
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Accomplishment Company Leadership Lesson People Team
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.
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Acceptance Expectation Leadership Tolerance
For leaders, the humility to admit and own mistakes and develop a plan to overcome them is essential to success. The best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas. They are simply focused on the mission and how best to accomplish it.
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Accomplishment Development Focus Humility Leadership Mistake Simplicity
Our freedom to operate and maneuver had increased substantially through disciplined procedures. Discipline equals freedom.
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Discipline Equality Freedom Ourselves
A mission statement tells your troops what you are doing.
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Team Yourself
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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Goodness Leadership Learning Myself Remember Struggle Time Win
The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails.
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Failure Success Team

Repetitive exceptional performance became a habit.

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Repetitive exceptional performance became a habit.

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