Believe

[tj]

Hi everyone. I don’t know if Jocko or Leif read these posts, but this is meant for them. I’m a Dr. of Educational Leadership so I am very familiar with the literature and research base surrounding leadership. In educational leadership it is often said that the “leader is repsonsible for everything” and I know you guys say at the end of the book that your ideas and principles are nothing new, but I do appreciate how you fleshed out the idea of extreme ownership, I think you do a better job of explaining the concept better than most of what is out there.

I do have a question/comment though. In your chapter, Believe, you explain how you were required to bring Iraqi forces with you on every mission. At first, I didn’t really think what you were talking about was “believing” although that became apparent later. I thought maybe you were talking about another principle of leadership/improvement. It really mentioned anywhere else in your book, that is, lateral capacity building. Basically, working with others to help them improve so the entire system improves. You touched on that briefly, but I think it could be a chapter/principle all on its own.

[mynewunit]

Jocko has explained this a few times. The problem is that people misunderstood the starting point. The starting point is not should we involve Iraqi troops or not, like coke or Pepsi. The starting point is taking Iraqi troops with us is the wrong answer. The team has to believe in what they are doing. I think it is Simon Sinek who says "start with why". To get the unit onboard with bringing Iraqi troops they had to understand that path was the only way the USA ever gets to go home. Yes it makes their mission harder, and the undisciplined soldiers are at least as dangerous as the enemy, but that is the only way we train new forces.

Good question and if I missed the specific aspect of your question, let me know.