Effective and Ineffective Leadership Styles - Jocko Willink

Jaakko there's an army cliche that I'm sure you've heard of or you've heard that goes everyone's leadership style is different I've heard it used many times as a cover-up for a failed mission or with someone who just isn't getting it done what's your opinion on this for all the advice that you give there seems to be a continuous method to your madness and some basic principles for being a good leader does everyone have a different leadership style or is there an optimal optimal method with personality that's just amazing how well this jujitsu comparison - this

is this is this is just an incredible translation and if you know the way broad broadly you see them all things because what this question is is exactly the same as the question above and and the fact of the matter is if you know jujitsu Brazilian Jiu Jitsu you know the fundamental principles of it you can do these tweaks him if you don't know the fundamental principles of it you're just gonna get destroyed yeah now okay if you're a catch wrestler that those have the same sort of fundamental things going on you know what I

mean if you know samba so if you know judo so I'm saying if you understand I don't know what to call him but if you understand like the fundamental principles of submission grappling of any kind if you know what those are then you can make some tweaks to them you can make some some adjustments to them to bait based on your style and your body type and your personality and your strengths and weaknesses yes it is the same thing with leadership so people are gonna have different styles they're gonna have different styles of leadership some

people are super charismatic right and that person could take advantage their charisma some people like connect with other people really easily some people don't you're gonna have just different little nuances to your personality and your brain that are going to that you're gonna make little adaptations in your leadership style that's okay where it gets not okay is if you leave the fundamental principles that's where you have a pro there was a there's an example that I thought of when I read this question there was a guy that was coming through my training when I was

running the the advanced training for the seals and he was making an actually Leif's told story you remember left he's told the story I think it's in the book too I don't remember but it's it's podcast book we've talked about in a bunch we talk about it when we took go talk to clients Lafe tells the story about how he was trying to give commands over the radio and no one's doing anything because it's ineffective to give commands in a radio you know when there's a lot of machine-gun firing all the stuff going on so

I said hey life used verbal commands and he kind of like looked at me like I was crazy and I said him and just give it a try he did it it worked a couple years later I'm running training and there's a guy that's given a bunch of commands on the radio and I go to I go hey man use verbal commands anything he said what do you mean and I'm like yellow and everyone so they know what it is you want them to do mmm they can't hear you on the radio there's a lot

of stuff going on and he goes I don't lead that way that's what he said to me I don't lead that way and you know they just got destroyed because you know his I don't know if he thought like hey look I'm not gonna yeah I wasn't tell him to yell at his people mmm I was telling him like yelled of verbal commands and he wouldn't do it and they just got annihilated all the time and he ended up not doing well as a leader because he was breaking the fundamental principles of combat leadership like

simple clear concise commands that everyone understands it if they don't understand it was faulted it's yours and if you're talking on the radio given these complex orders people aren't gonna understand what to do but if you give them the the the standard operating procedure maneuver command peel right that's gonna get passed but everyone's gonna do it so he strayed away from the fundamental principles it's like it's like saying well you know with me if I give you if I use a pressure point on your neck then I'll win it's like no actually that's not gonna

be effective you know you did the pressure point thing is a fantasy mm-hmm oh no it's real oh okay it is real you know what and there's a there's certain parts of your body that hurt a little bit more when you press into them I understand that that doesn't change you from getting choked it doesn't change you from getting double leg takedown you try and hit some other pressure point while they're doing a double leg takedown on you you're not gonna make it no it's not gonna happen so you you you have and I've told

this story too about the guy that wasn't very loud and I told him like hey you gotta get louder and eventually he got the guys that were loud in his platoon to start giving the verbal commands because he wasn't loud enough to do it and that was an effective way still using the same principle just using a little bit of a different technique that's fine so yes different leaders are gonna lead differently but the principles are gonna remain the same that the principles of ownership cover moves simple prioritize and execute decentralized command and balancing the

dichotomies and then there's plenty of them in leadership the good leaders out there they will follow those principles and they'll make little tweaks to them based on their personality and that's fine but a tweak doesn't require an excuse and also effective or ineffective like if you make a change if you do something a certain way and it's not effective then whatever you change this isn't working it's not working so use the fundamental principles make little app two adaptations it's okay but if a leader is ineffective and they're failing guess what their little adaptations like hey

I could make up a new move right for jujitsu and I and I call it the the the whiz-bang sure and I say hey I made up this cool move it's called the whiz-bang and let me show it to you and so I show it to you you're like well I don't know if that'll work or not and I like no it'll definitely work the cool thing about jujitsu is when I try it we find out if it works now something doesn't work immediately right but let's say I keep drilling it on you and drilling

it on you and I can never get you in the Wiz Bank okay and then I go in a tournament and I try the whiz-bang and I get smashed and defeated and then I I go through the consolation bracket I try the whiz-bang and it gets smashed and defeated then I go in the next tournament I tried the whiz-bang and get smashed and defeated then I get in the consolation bracket I try the whiz-bang and get smashed and defeated and I do this for six months and the whiz-bang never works effective or ineffective its ineffective

its ineffective if you're in a leadership position or someone's in a leadership position and they're failing and they're failing to execute the mission over and over and over again they're little tweak their little leadership thing that they think is good to go it's not mm-hmm it's not good to go and it probably in fact I'll tell you it violates one of the fundamental principles of combat leadership hmm if you can identify which one of those things it's violating you can get them to clean it up and fix it so there you go whiz-bang don't try

it don't yeah a whiz-bang I don't know though I mean these jujitsu moves you know how like guys will like busts out moves man I don't know it's a it's this endless thing we ask you to know new moves come out yeah and then you won't hit a move a hundred percent of the time and you definitely won't hit it when you first start doing it it's gonna be hard how many arm locks do you think you put on someone before you made someone tap mm-hmm in the beginning you probably did fifty arm locks before

you got someone to tap yeah probably more yeah yeah maybe even more mm-hmm so that doesn't mean with after the first fourteen I know it's ineffective I'm not gonna do it yeah the that the big differences the big differences an arm lock is a proven known entity coverin move is a proven known entity simple is a proven known entity prioritize and execute is a proven known entity yeah extreme ownership is a proven known and decentralized command is a proven it's like in our markets I could choke that's why when some people say to me oh

well my boss doesn't like extreme ownership you know I I know what's happening like it's there the boss's ego is offended because there's some other some somebody telling them a different way to lead no it's like what do you believe in I don't believe in extreme ownership oh I blame and I believe in placing the blame on other people that's how I lead that's complete really completely ridiculous everybody knows that's ridiculous it's completely ridiculous cover and move I don't believe in karma move oh so you just like your other team members to go and take

care of themselves and you take care of yourself how does that work don't work it doesn't work keep the oh I don't like to keep things simple no I like to make things so complicated that people don't understand what I'm talking about does that make any sense whatsoever no it doesn't yeah prioritize and execute no don't do that what I what I'm gonna do is spread myself so thin that I don't have the assets or resources to actually accomplish anything that's what I'm gonna do because that makes sense because I don't believe in extreme ownership

or those fundamental laws of combat leadership that's where you're at decentralized command I don't believe in that so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make every single decision myself from the headquarters position when you guys want to make a decision out there on the battlefield or out there in the on the manufacturing floor I want you to run every single definitive decision up through me because that's gonna be effective so if you violate one of these principles you're gonna have problems as a leader if you tweak these principles that's fine if you look at

decentralized command and you're like you know what I know that the normal kind of span of control is five people I can handle more than that I can handle nine and you step it up that's that's tweak that's okay right that's fine if you probably when you prioritize and execute hey oh the way I prioritize and execute and this is the truth the way I prioritize and execute isn't I look at my number one problem and I only focus on that one I assign somebody to my number one problem and I say hey bill go

handle that room over there it's a problem and then I look at Mike and say hey Mike get the rest of this hallway cleared so I'm actually handling two things but I give build a priority priority so that's a tweak I'm using assets that's fine so sometimes yes you've got to make these little adjustments everyone's got a different leadership style but you don't violate the principles of leadership