If you aren’t winning, then you aren’t making the right decisions.

Keywords

Extreme Ownership, Tortured Genius, As a leader, you must believe, Cover and Move

Underlined

The right decision, even when all seems lost, can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat

Extreme Ownership: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.

Such training graduated men who were not only physically tough but who could also out-think their adversary.

I discovered that it was far more effective to focus their efforts not on the days to come or the far-distant finish line they couldn’t yet see, but instead on a physical goal immediately in front of them—the beach marker, landmark, or road sign a hundred yards ahead

Ultimately, they must fully accept that there truly are no bad teams, only bad leaders.

When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable–if there are no concequences– the poor performance becomes the new standard.

Teams need a forcing function to get the different members working together to accomplish the mission and that is what leadership is all about.

But I learned that good leaders don’t make excuses. Instead they figure out a way to get it done and win.

Each member demanded the highest performance from the others. Repetitive expectional performance became a habit.. Each individual knew what they needed to do to win and did it.

Each individual knew what they needed to do win and did

In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission

If a leader does not believe, he or she will not take the risks required to overcome the inevitable challanges neccessary to Win

Actions and words reflect belief with a clear confidence and self-assuredness that is not possible when belief is in doubt.

Every leader must be able to detach from the immediate tactical mission and understand how it fits into strategic goals.

Those leaders must take a step back, deconstruct the situation, analyze the strategic picture, and then come to a conclusion. If they cannot determine a satisfactory answer themselves, they must ask questions up the chain of command until they understand why.

The leader must explain not just what to do, but why.

You don’t understand or believe in the decisions coming down from your leadership, it is up to you to ask questions until you understand how and why those decisions are being made.

So, if you ever get a task or guiadence or a mission that you don’t believe in, don’t just sit back and accept it. Ask questions until you understand why so you can believe in what you are doing.

Discipline created vigilance and operational readiness, which translated to high performance and success on the battlefield.

Ego clouds and distrups everything: the planning process, the ability to take good advice, and the ability to accept constructive critisim. It can even stifle someone’s sene of selfe-preversation. Often, the most difficult ego to deal with is your own.

We are confident in our skills and are eager to take on challanging missions that others cannot or aren’t willing to execute

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 comacent. This is where controlling the ego is most important.

It was a rude awakening for me. I had become so immersed in the details, decision points, and immediate challanges of my own team that I had forgotten about the other team, what they could do for us and how we might help them.

Cover and Move: it is the most fundemantal tactic, perhaps the only tactic. Put simply, Cover and Move means teamwork.

All elements within the greater team are crucial and must work together to accomplish the mission, mutually supporting one another for that singular purpose. Departmants and groups within the team must break down silos, depend on each other and understand who depends on them. If they forsake this principle and operate independently or work against each other, the results can be catastrophic to the overall team’s performance.

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When something goes wrong- and it eventually does- complex plans add to confusion, which can compund into disaster.

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