Extreme leadership on a big ship

[Allied Officer]

Commander.

I am an officer in an Allied naval force and I have exercised extreme ownership (in some form for years) but perfected it after yours and Lt/ Cdr Babins book.  I'm not going to tell you which ally I'm a member of, as the boys in the wardroom keep hearing about extreme ownership, they'll triangulate my signal and I'll get my ass kicked if they hear about my messaging you.....ha ha

My question is this.  I can see extreme ownership and its dogma succeeding on a small scale where a relatively small and well connected team can allow the leader exercise ownership.  I would like to know how you can expect the CO of a larger operational unit (frigate and beyond) to take ownership for the performance (or lack thereof) of the boots or in industry, the people on the floor?  If the kid in the galley, 7-8 ranks down through department heads etc, under fries the burgers and gives the whole complement food poisoning, can the old man reasonably take ownership of that?  It's a pretty simplistic example, but I hope you get my gist.  Or must I read your newer book?

Ready Aye

[mynewunit]

Can an admiral take responsibility for the mistakes of a seaman in a galley? My answer is yes. The over simplification is that shouting down the chain of command will not fix problems. I think to a great extent it is more nurture than nature. Is the Admiral the only one who can fix the galley? Of course not. But if the Admiral is trying to fix the problem in the galley, who wouldn't try to help? What plan is too outrageous? The Admiral says the fix is to have an Ensign watch the cooks, and inspect every tray that is made. Do you think the cooks are going to try to do a better job. Do you think the crew will appreciate the better cooked food? Do you think that will encourage everyone aboard?

In my line of work we have similar trick. We have 40 people performing similar tasks. Most people can complete one assignment per day. If someone spends more than 2 days on an assignment and we tell them they are moving too slow, they tell us how complicated this specific task is. One of our junior leaders tried a different technique. When a team member hadn't completed an assignment in 2 days, she would tell them that our sector chief, their bosses boss, was specifically looking for this assignment. To date, it had not failed to yield the assignment by the end of that day. Why? Because it mattered. It wasn't just another task. It was their link to the Leadership, the mission, and the why.
Give this some thought and a test run. Let me know what you think.