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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.

Jocko Willink

Generally, when a leader struggles, the root cause behind the problem is that the leader has leaned too far in one direction and steered off course. Awareness.
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Direction Leader Problem Struggle
Waiting for the 100 percent right and certain solution leads to delay, indecision, and an inability to execute.
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Ability Action Decision Right Wait
And the more you build your will by doing hard things, the stronger your will becomes.
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Strong Willing Yourself
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
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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Development Leadership Mistake Wrong
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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Explanation Leadership Photograpgh
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
His realistic assessment, acknowledgment of failure, and ownership of the problem were key to developing a plan to improve performance and ultimately win.
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Development Failure Himself Improvement Problem Win
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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Decision Development Leadership Team
For this reason, they must believe in the cause for which they are fighting.
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Believe Fight Inspirational Reason
Calm but not robotic, logical but not devoid of emotions.
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Emotional Logic Technology
The best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas.
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Leadership Virtue
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
The focus must always be on how to best accomplish the mission.
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Accomplishment Best Focus
Trust is not blindly given. It must be built over time.
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Time Trust
Leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities, between one extreme and another.
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Leadership Quality
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
Even the most competent of leaders can be overwhelmed if they try to tackle multiple problems or a number of tasks simultaneously.
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Leadership Problem Try
Is this what I want to be? This? Is this all I’ve got—is this everything I can give? Is this going to be my life? Do I accept that?
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Acceptance Generosity Life Myself Philosophy
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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Age Change Improvement Leadership Simplicity Technology
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
But we can’t ever think we are too good to fail or that our enemies are not capable, deadly, and eager to exploit our weaknesses. We must never get complacent. This is where controlling the ego is most important.
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Control Enemy Failure Goodness Important Thinking
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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Achievement Belief Leadership Learning Perseverance Possible Victory
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
There is no growth in the comfort zone.
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Comfortable Growth One Liner
Faster. Stronger. Smarter. More humble. Less ego.
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Humble Instagram Captions Strong
The U.S. Navy SEAL Teams were at the forefront of this leadership transformation, emerging from the triumphs and tragedies of war with a crystallized understanding of what it takes to succeed in the most challenging environments that combat presents.
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Challenge Leadership Present Success Team Tragedy Transformation Understand War Win

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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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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Popular Authors

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