January 26, 2024 • 23 mins
Leadership is not something we can all pick up right away, of course there will be people who are born natural leaders. Though most of the time these skills have to be learned. And there is no better way to learn them then in the fires of combat.
In this episode, I unravel two compelling leadership insights from the book "The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win" that captured my attention. These lessons not only fascinated me but also left me eager to share the transformative power of this leadership style with you. Whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey, this episode promises to ignite your curiosity and inspire a fresh perspective on effective leadership. Tune in and discover how the fires of combat can forge exceptional leaders!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Colby (00:00):
Hello everybody and welcome back to the Ink Invites
podcast.
It's great to have you here.
Last episode was our very firstlonger form interview episode
and it was a really goodmilestone, not only for me but
for the show, because it taughtme how to do interviews.
It taught me how to hold aconversation for a while and we
did a really good job, I think,at navigating a variety of
(00:24):
different hobbies that Municornhas, because he has a variety of
hobbies.
So if you haven't listened tothat yet, I highly suggest it.
Like I said, it's one of thelonger form episodes, so it's
more of a you're driving for alittle bit or you like to listen
while on your computer, and soon and so forth.
It's about an hour and a half,but it's a really good
conversation and after Irecorded it and uploaded it, I
(00:47):
really spent the week buildingthis podcast up.
I swapped hosts, so I'm prettymuch on every single podcasting
platform now and I have a newsystem of uploading and
everything's just so much easier.
And I'm just focusing onbuilding up world builder as
this community of people and ofcontent that hopefully people
(01:11):
enjoy and want more of, and Iwant to put more time into
building this because I find itfascinating and helps me learn
and become a better human beingand I'm putting more time into
now.
But if anybody really enjoyswhat I'm doing and they want
more and maybe some specialperks and roles in a Discord
server if I ever set one up,which I plan on doing, a little
(01:33):
peek under the hood you cansupport me on Ko-Fi.
I just set up my own Ko-Fi andthat is ko-ficom slash world
builder, and right now there'sjust one role called supporter,
which is just a small donationmonthly but it allows me to
spend more time on this podcast,on my blog and all these
(01:56):
creative endeavors to bring morecontent that I think that you
would enjoy.
That would hopefully help youin any field you're interested
in, because, just like MooneeCorn has a lot of hobbies, I
also have a lot of hobbies thatI want to explore and talk about
and get more people on the showand just bring value to as many
people as I can.
So again, if you really likethe show and you want more of it
, check out ko-ficom slash worldbuilder and as time goes on,
(02:20):
there's gonna be more perks thatcome out and more roles that
come out and maybe exclusiveepisodes here and there, if I
can pull it off, which I think Ican because, again, I really
like doing this.
But, with that said, I want togive a shout out to the very
first supporter of this podcast,tj.
I just want to say thank you somuch for jumping in and showing
(02:42):
your support on this earlypodcast and this early project.
It really means the world to meand it really motivates me to
keep going.
It puts puts a little bit of afire under me, because I need
that, and I'm grateful for yoursupport and I'm so glad you
enjoy what I'm doing.
So thank you again, tj, foryour support.
Leadership is not something thatwe all can pick up easily.
(03:06):
Of course there's gonna be somenaturally born leaders that
have a knack for it.
It can lead a team to successwith relative ease and you can
just pick up and go.
But a lot of us, me included,have to learn about leadership
through books, through research,through practice and
application to real-worldsituations.
And there is no better way tosee leadership firsthand and
(03:30):
learn a good leadership and seeand experience bad leadership,
which will then help in learninghow to be a good leader, than
the crucibles of armed combat,and that is exactly how the
individual we're gonna betalking about today learned how
to be a fantastic leader andlearned how to share it with
others, to grow and build newleaders, not only in the
(03:56):
military sector, but in thecivilian sector.
Jocko served as a seal platooncommander during the battle over
Maudi in Iraq and seen thehorrors of war and got to see
good and bad leadership and seethe outcomes that they can lead
to.
And outside of that, once hewas done with service, started
(04:17):
his own company called echelonfront, which actually helps
companies in the civilian sectorbecome better and stronger
teams and build better productsand have, just overall, a
stronger unification of theirefforts.
And even outside of that, jacohas his own brand of health and
(04:38):
supplements that are fantasticat keeping you in the right
mindset, keeping you in shape,if you pair it with correct
exercise and food.
So, all around, jaco is areally great individual to look
at for what we're going to betalking about today and, once
again, he has a lot of books onleadership and we're only going
(04:58):
to be covering two of thelessons in one of these books
that I find fascinating, and thebook in particular is the
dichotomy of leadership.
But outside of that there'salso extreme ownership and
leadership strategy and tacticsand probably a few more than I'm
missing.
But highly recommend this book,kind of similar to the first
(05:19):
episode that we did.
I can't read the whole book.
It's way too big.
The concepts are too deep toexplore all of them in a short
form episode.
So pick up the book.
You can find it pretty much onany retail Fantastic stuff.
This is a great read and you'llsee what I mean as we explore
these two topics.
So before we jump in, you maybe wondering why I'm talking
(05:40):
about this.
Well, just like all the otherepisodes I recorded and I'm
going to record, I have animmense interest in this topic
and I want to bring it forwardto the world and kind of act as
a bridge for people so they canget into it themselves and
explore the granular topics thatI can't really cover today in
the short form episodes.
For a variety of reasons, andalso I have been impacted pretty
(06:03):
heavily by Jacko's literatureand his leadership style and I'm
fascinated by it and I justlove learning more about it,
just because I have experienceda lot of bad leadership that
made me want to learn how to bea good leader.
So if I'm ever put in aposition, I can be efficient in
that position.
So without further ado, let'sget into it.
(06:26):
So the micromanager tries tocontrol every thought and action
(06:52):
of each individual on the team.
Micromanagement fails becauseno one person can control
multiple people executing a vastnumber of actions in a dynamic
environment where changes in thesituation occur rapidly and
with unpredictability.
It also inhibits the growth ofsubordinates.
When people become accustomedto being told what to do, they
(07:15):
begin to await direction,initiative phased and eventually
dies.
Creativity and bold thought andaction soon die as well.
The team becomes a bunch ofsimple and thoughtless
automatons following orderswithout understanding, moving
forward only when told to do so.
A team like that will neverachieve greatness.
(07:38):
The hands-off leader with alaissez-faire attitude is on the
opposite end of the spectrum.
Such a leader fails to providespecific direction, in some
cases almost no clear directionwhatsoever.
Instead of a lack of thought,like a team that is
micro-managed, a team with ahands-off leader thinks too much
(07:58):
.
Its members have grand ideasand plans.
They come up with new tacticsand procedures.
They even start to developtheir own broad strategies
beyond the boundaries of theirresponsibilities and competence.
Such grandiose ideas andthoughts become a major problem
when they are not aligned withthe greater vision and goals of
(08:19):
the company.
So the troops, instead ofpushing the team towards its
strategic goals, move in randomdirections.
They not only fail to provideeach other with simple support,
but often work on projects orefforts that directly conflict
with what other members of theteam are doing.
We all had that manager at onepoint in our careers who was
(08:39):
always on an ego power trip andwhere everything always has to
be under their control, apurview or they won't trust it,
they'll protest, they'll riot orthey won't show up to work.
And the teams that areunfortunately stuck in positions
like that are often in a badstate mentally, emotionally,
physically and any other thingyou want to say, and probably
(09:02):
you're going to be aggravatedand won't want to do much of
anything.
These teams do not seeksolutions to problems.
Instead, its members sit inwait to be told about a solution
.
Even in an emergency, a teamthat is being micromanaged will
not mobilize and take action.
Bold and aggressive actionsbecome rare.
(09:23):
The team tends to stay insidetheir own silo, not stepping out
to coordinate efforts withother departments or divisions
for fear of overstepping andtheir boundaries.
People will say this in a lotof different ways.
Maybe they say everyone has tostay in their own lane.
And again from this, maybe it'severyone's in their own silo,
everyone's in their own box,everyone's in their own cubicle.
(09:44):
No one's allowed to see what'sgoing on around them or
communicate.
And really teams like that die.
They don't move and even if anemergency comes up, say in the
retail and service industry, thedistrict manager is coming in
and is going to check the store.
It's a really stressful momentfor a lot of convenience stores,
(10:07):
grocery stores and so on, andthe store is not where it needs
to be.
Maybe there's nothing on theshelves, maybe the produce is
behind, maybe there's just alack of team members and the
team leader is pointing atthings and saying do this this
way, make magic happen.
And the team can't say anything.
But yes, maybe as they're doingit, they actually have a better
(10:29):
way of doing it, but they can'tbring it up to their leader
because they're going to be shotdown and probably even
reprimanded for it Again.
Teams like this don't performas well as they can because
micromanagement, extrememicromanagement, does not work.
Now, on the flip side of that,you may have had a boss in the
past who was Really hands off.
(10:52):
They don't necessarily careabout how things get done and
they might be a really niceperson and they probably were
and the team under them mightseem better Emotional,
emotionally, mentally,physically and so on but there's
actually a good amount ofstress that can come from a
situation when a leader doesn'treally care that much and
(11:13):
doesn't want to get involved andgives all of the responsibility
To their subordinates.
For example, it could be a lackof coercion Two different
people can run off into separatedirections and not go back and
communicate it with their teammembers or their leader, and
what that leads to and what itstems to is a leader who doesn't
really know what's going oninside of their team, inside of
(11:34):
their company, inside of theirdivision, and that is something
that you would want to avoid.
And maybe the team membersOverstep the bounds of authority
in both individuals and team,carry out actions that are
beyond what they have theauthorization to do and,
depending on the industry thatyou're in, that could be quite
harmful.
Maybe Someone again go toretail, maybe someone does
(11:57):
something with money that theyaren't allowed to do, like they
don't have the training, and allof a sudden, tills and drawers
are messed up and a cashshortage of a thousand dollars
happen.
Maybe you're in a cybersecurity firm and someone who is
a blue teamer tries to dosomething in a red team and
accidentally exposes an attackvector, and now the security
(12:18):
company who's supposed to helpother people actually gets
hacked, and that's.
That's not that good and just aoverall, a failure to
coordinate.
All of these things aresomething to avoid, and what
this shows Are two sides of thetable micromanaging and
laissez-faire, not caring enoughand what a leader has to do is
(12:39):
Find the dichotomy of this, finda solid middle ground.
Give the goal, give the endobjective and why the team's
mission is important, but allowthe team to do the rest.
Now.
The common way of explainingthis in Jocko's book and in
other pieces of literature thathe wrote and speeches that he
(13:00):
gives is when a mission comesdown, the needs to be executed,
jocko will get everybodytogether and, as a unit, will
make a plan, and he will justgive the base.
Out lie outlining likeObjectives or resources.
So maybe he'll give theresources.
This is a target.
We need to go to this locationand just let them do the rest.
(13:21):
Now, what's that?
What's that do?
Most importantly, it kind ofgives everybody this feeling of
Responsibility.
They helped make the plan andeveryone's gonna know what's
going on.
No one's gonna be confused,because if it was just Jocko
making the plan and he gave itto everyone and said, alright,
time to execute this, everyonewould have their individual
(13:42):
roles and they wouldn't reallyknow if they can step out of it.
And what that does is say anemergency comes up, maybe
someone gets wounded, enemyreinforcements are coming.
The position is more fortifiedthan everybody thought.
There will be less Movement.
People won't be able to respondto it as well, because no one's
gonna know what to do.
They don't know if they'reallowed to break out of this
(14:04):
predefined mission that wasgiven to them.
In Business, it might look alittle different.
Maybe there is a new socialmedia strategy that's coming out
and and someone from themarketing team basically just
gives a outline to follow a copyand paste procedure over and
over and over again and you andother people are just kind of
(14:28):
forced to do it Blendly andmaybe the content is not working
at all.
Maybe it's actually hurting thebrand and hurting the company,
but you can't respond to itbecause you're not allowed to
leave this copy and paste planand procedure that you were
given.
All of a sudden, every singleplatform loses traction, you're
not getting in front of people,you don't make sales, you don't
(14:48):
make forward movement andeventually you die and you go
bankrupt.
Extreme example, but that'sreally the gist of it.
Micromanagement doesn't workand laissez-faire management
doesn't work.
And, just like the title of thebook, it's up to the leader to
find a dichotomy of both.
Lesson number two Resolute butnot overbearing.
(15:10):
I Just want to mention before Ijump back into the book.
We're about to see aperspective shift for this
second lesson.
We're gonna go from JockoWillens perspective to Leif
Babbins, because in thedichotomy leadership we often
see that it expresses eventsdifferently, and Leif is a good
friend of Draco and also servedtogether.
(15:31):
An embedded civilian journalistwith a US Army unit we were
working alongside took somephotos of Task Unit Bruiser
Seals in action.
The photos were shared withtheir higher headquarters staff
and eventually shared with Jacoand his senior enlisted advisor.
In the photos, the Task UnitBruiser patch could clearly be
seen on the shoulders of severalof our SEALs.
(15:53):
The senior enlisted advisorblew up about it and prepared to
drop the hammer on us.
He was just trying to do hisjob and enforce Jaco's order.
I had expected to feel thewrath of Jaco and since I had
orchestrated the violation, Iplanned to fully own the brunt
of the punishment.
But a day passed and then,another day, jaco didn't mention
(16:15):
it.
I was surprised.
Jaco knew we had violated hisorder Willful disobedience but
in this case Jaco didn't holdthe line and enforce the
standard he had set.
He let it go.
This section is referencing isthe strict uniform policy that
was enforced on the platoon.
Everyone had had clean andstandardized uniforms, and lafes
(16:39):
, alongside of some other teammembers, put together a custom
unit patch and secretly put iton their uniforms when they
would go out to missions.
And, as you just heard, it gotdiscovered.
But instead of gettingabsolutely obliterated and
having the textbooks thrown atthem, jaco didn't mention it and
let it go.
He didn't hold the line.
(17:00):
He was resolute, but notoverbearing the mere action of
not throwing the textbook at histeam for simply wanting to wear
a patch that symbolized theirtask unit built unity and
allowed for better performanceand gave Jaco what he terms
leadership capital.
(17:21):
What's that?
Well, simply put, leadershipcapital is the ability you have
as a leader to not I don't wantto say enforce, but impose
certain things on yoursubordinates.
If you have a lot of it, you'reable to tell people what to do
without much pushback.
If you don't have that much ofit, people really aren't going
to listen to you.
A leader that holds the line onsomething insignificant and
(17:45):
silly as the books example is apatch on a uniform there will be
less leadership capital forthem to utilize when things of
strategic importance come up oran emergency arises.
Instead, they'll have a teamthat pushes back, is generally
aggravated or is just won'tlisten, and there will be little
(18:06):
to no team unity.
Now, in a business example,we've seen a lot of this occur
when COVID happened.
Maybe a team lead is very strictwith a camera policy.
Your camera has to be on everysingle meeting or you will not
be allowed into the meeting oryou'll be kicked and you have to
be wearing A professionalclothing cameras on, dress,
(18:30):
professional.
What that does is maybe it addsstress, maybe people are likely
to get annoyed and they'll comeinto the meeting aggravated and
there'll be less communication.
And maybe someone doesn't havethe camera on because it's
broken.
Is the team leader going tohold the line and not allow them
to be in the meeting becausethey don't have a camera on and
(18:51):
they won't be able to contributetheir valuable words to the
discussion.
What does that lead to?
Leads, a less productivity,less movement and a less
effective team.
So once again, we see this ideaof finding an economy between
being resolute but notoverbearing.
When should you use yourleadership capital to step in as
(19:14):
a leader and put orders intoplace, and when should you just
let your team go and do whatthey're going to do?
It's the role of a leader and agood leader to be able to
balance these two things.
You want to have a lot ofleadership capital, you don't
want to have none.
Because I like this lesson somuch and I resonated with it so
(19:35):
profoundly, I'm going to giveone more example that many
people are going to find moreapproachable.
We all like to listen to music.
It makes the time go by, so onand so forth.
It's just helpful.
The picture you are a stalkerand you have an earbud in and
you have one out, so obviouslyyou can still hear and respond
to things around you and youstill have your uniform and you
(19:56):
work hard.
You do everything you'resupposed to do, but the manager
is very opposed to any type ofelectronic device or music when
you're on the sales floor orwhen you're doing your job.
Maybe they go so far as to putyour phone in a box every time
you clock in.
You cannot have it when you'reworking.
You only have it on your breakand when you're done.
Now what's that going to cause?
People are going to be mad,they won't work as good, they're
(20:21):
probably going to performpoorly and again, less unity,
more aggravation, and thatmanager is going to have less
leadership capital.
So for when something happens,maybe the district manager is
coming.
They're not going to have asmuch sway with the team than
they would if they said you canlisten to music, but just don't
let it be a distraction.
In that case, that leader isprobably going to have more
(20:41):
leadership capital and the teamis going to want to make the
store look nice for when thishead honcho comes in.
See what I mean.
Finding the middle ground isimportant in every leadership
situation, not only in this bookbut in many of the other
lessons that Jaco teaches.
Before we close out and roundout this discussion, I just
really briefly want to mentionthe concept of extreme ownership
(21:03):
because I love it so much andobviously I can only plant the
seed because it's the title ofan entire book.
This entire concept is expandedon in extreme ownership, which
is their first book.
Highly recommend that too.
We'll probably talk about it inanother episode, just about
this one thing, but I want toplant the seed.
So what is extreme ownership?
(21:24):
Very simply, it is takingextreme ownership of the team.
So maybe you do everything right.
For example, you found thedichotomy between
micromanagement andlaissez-faire.
You're right in the middle, youhave a perfect balance, but the
mission still fails.
Instead of saying the starsweren't aligned or the cards
(21:47):
were stacked against us, you'llinstead say what could I have
done better?
Who could I have supported more?
How can I improve so thisdoesn't happen again?
Because I failed as a leader?
And it hurts really bad toswallow that pill because maybe
you thought you did everythingright, maybe it was a damn good
plan, maybe the team dideverything it needed to do and
(22:09):
they had it right, but still theuniverse works in mysterious
ways and it fell apart and it'shard to swallow that pill and
it's a really good way to keepthe ego in check and it's just a
really powerful leadershipconcept if you're able to
internalize it and incorporateit into your own ethos.
So again, I just wanted toplant that seed.
(22:30):
If you're interested in extremeownership, read the book.
If you're interested in thesetwo lessons, there's many more
in the economies of leadershipHighly recommend it, and it's a
valuable tool in your tool beltif you're a leader at any level
at any industry.
Thank you so much for listeningto another episode of Ink and
Bytes and I really hope youfound something valuable in
these leadership lessons andthese are only two, so I hope
(22:54):
you found something that you cantake and think on to help you
in your own career.
And again, if you really lovewhat I'm doing and you want to
support my work, make sure tohead out to ko-fi-worldbuilder
and you'll be able to see mypage, and any support is much
appreciated.
It allows me to put more timeinto this and bring you more
(23:15):
content and more impactful andvaluable work.
So thank you for listening andI'll see you all in the next
episode.
Hello everybody and welcome back to the Ink Invites
podcast.
It's great to have you here.
Last episode was our very firstlonger form interview episode
and it was a really goodmilestone, not only for me but
for the show, because it taughtme how to do interviews.
It taught me how to hold aconversation for a while and we
did a really good job, I think,at navigating a variety of
(00:24):
different hobbies that Municornhas, because he has a variety of
hobbies.
So if you haven't listened tothat yet, I highly suggest it.
Like I said, it's one of thelonger form episodes, so it's
more of a you're driving for alittle bit or you like to listen
while on your computer, and soon and so forth.
It's about an hour and a half,but it's a really good
conversation and after Irecorded it and uploaded it, I
(00:47):
really spent the week buildingthis podcast up.
I swapped hosts, so I'm prettymuch on every single podcasting
platform now and I have a newsystem of uploading and
everything's just so much easier.
And I'm just focusing onbuilding up world builder as
this community of people and ofcontent that hopefully people
(01:11):
enjoy and want more of, and Iwant to put more time into
building this because I find itfascinating and helps me learn
and become a better human beingand I'm putting more time into
now.
But if anybody really enjoyswhat I'm doing and they want
more and maybe some specialperks and roles in a Discord
server if I ever set one up,which I plan on doing, a little
(01:33):
peek under the hood you cansupport me on Ko-Fi.
I just set up my own Ko-Fi andthat is ko-ficom slash world
builder, and right now there'sjust one role called supporter,
which is just a small donationmonthly but it allows me to
spend more time on this podcast,on my blog and all these
(01:56):
creative endeavors to bring morecontent that I think that you
would enjoy.
That would hopefully help youin any field you're interested
in, because, just like MooneeCorn has a lot of hobbies, I
also have a lot of hobbies thatI want to explore and talk about
and get more people on the showand just bring value to as many
people as I can.
So again, if you really likethe show and you want more of it
, check out ko-ficom slash worldbuilder and as time goes on,
(02:20):
there's gonna be more perks thatcome out and more roles that
come out and maybe exclusiveepisodes here and there, if I
can pull it off, which I think Ican because, again, I really
like doing this.
But, with that said, I want togive a shout out to the very
first supporter of this podcast,tj.
I just want to say thank you somuch for jumping in and showing
(02:42):
your support on this earlypodcast and this early project.
It really means the world to meand it really motivates me to
keep going.
It puts puts a little bit of afire under me, because I need
that, and I'm grateful for yoursupport and I'm so glad you
enjoy what I'm doing.
So thank you again, tj, foryour support.
Leadership is not something thatwe all can pick up easily.
(03:06):
Of course there's gonna be somenaturally born leaders that
have a knack for it.
It can lead a team to successwith relative ease and you can
just pick up and go.
But a lot of us, me included,have to learn about leadership
through books, through research,through practice and
application to real-worldsituations.
And there is no better way tosee leadership firsthand and
(03:30):
learn a good leadership and seeand experience bad leadership,
which will then help in learninghow to be a good leader, than
the crucibles of armed combat,and that is exactly how the
individual we're gonna betalking about today learned how
to be a fantastic leader andlearned how to share it with
others, to grow and build newleaders, not only in the
(03:56):
military sector, but in thecivilian sector.
Jocko served as a seal platooncommander during the battle over
Maudi in Iraq and seen thehorrors of war and got to see
good and bad leadership and seethe outcomes that they can lead
to.
And outside of that, once hewas done with service, started
(04:17):
his own company called echelonfront, which actually helps
companies in the civilian sectorbecome better and stronger
teams and build better productsand have, just overall, a
stronger unification of theirefforts.
And even outside of that, jacohas his own brand of health and
(04:38):
supplements that are fantasticat keeping you in the right
mindset, keeping you in shape,if you pair it with correct
exercise and food.
So, all around, jaco is areally great individual to look
at for what we're going to betalking about today and, once
again, he has a lot of books onleadership and we're only going
(04:58):
to be covering two of thelessons in one of these books
that I find fascinating, and thebook in particular is the
dichotomy of leadership.
But outside of that there'salso extreme ownership and
leadership strategy and tacticsand probably a few more than I'm
missing.
But highly recommend this book,kind of similar to the first
(05:19):
episode that we did.
I can't read the whole book.
It's way too big.
The concepts are too deep toexplore all of them in a short
form episode.
So pick up the book.
You can find it pretty much onany retail Fantastic stuff.
This is a great read and you'llsee what I mean as we explore
these two topics.
So before we jump in, you maybe wondering why I'm talking
(05:40):
about this.
Well, just like all the otherepisodes I recorded and I'm
going to record, I have animmense interest in this topic
and I want to bring it forwardto the world and kind of act as
a bridge for people so they canget into it themselves and
explore the granular topics thatI can't really cover today in
the short form episodes.
For a variety of reasons, andalso I have been impacted pretty
(06:03):
heavily by Jacko's literatureand his leadership style and I'm
fascinated by it and I justlove learning more about it,
just because I have experienceda lot of bad leadership that
made me want to learn how to bea good leader.
So if I'm ever put in aposition, I can be efficient in
that position.
So without further ado, let'sget into it.
(06:26):
So the micromanager tries tocontrol every thought and action
(06:52):
of each individual on the team.
Micromanagement fails becauseno one person can control
multiple people executing a vastnumber of actions in a dynamic
environment where changes in thesituation occur rapidly and
with unpredictability.
It also inhibits the growth ofsubordinates.
When people become accustomedto being told what to do, they
(07:15):
begin to await direction,initiative phased and eventually
dies.
Creativity and bold thought andaction soon die as well.
The team becomes a bunch ofsimple and thoughtless
automatons following orderswithout understanding, moving
forward only when told to do so.
A team like that will neverachieve greatness.
(07:38):
The hands-off leader with alaissez-faire attitude is on the
opposite end of the spectrum.
Such a leader fails to providespecific direction, in some
cases almost no clear directionwhatsoever.
Instead of a lack of thought,like a team that is
micro-managed, a team with ahands-off leader thinks too much
(07:58):
.
Its members have grand ideasand plans.
They come up with new tacticsand procedures.
They even start to developtheir own broad strategies
beyond the boundaries of theirresponsibilities and competence.
Such grandiose ideas andthoughts become a major problem
when they are not aligned withthe greater vision and goals of
(08:19):
the company.
So the troops, instead ofpushing the team towards its
strategic goals, move in randomdirections.
They not only fail to provideeach other with simple support,
but often work on projects orefforts that directly conflict
with what other members of theteam are doing.
We all had that manager at onepoint in our careers who was
(08:39):
always on an ego power trip andwhere everything always has to
be under their control, apurview or they won't trust it,
they'll protest, they'll riot orthey won't show up to work.
And the teams that areunfortunately stuck in positions
like that are often in a badstate mentally, emotionally,
physically and any other thingyou want to say, and probably
(09:02):
you're going to be aggravatedand won't want to do much of
anything.
These teams do not seeksolutions to problems.
Instead, its members sit inwait to be told about a solution
.
Even in an emergency, a teamthat is being micromanaged will
not mobilize and take action.
Bold and aggressive actionsbecome rare.
(09:23):
The team tends to stay insidetheir own silo, not stepping out
to coordinate efforts withother departments or divisions
for fear of overstepping andtheir boundaries.
People will say this in a lotof different ways.
Maybe they say everyone has tostay in their own lane.
And again from this, maybe it'severyone's in their own silo,
everyone's in their own box,everyone's in their own cubicle.
(09:44):
No one's allowed to see what'sgoing on around them or
communicate.
And really teams like that die.
They don't move and even if anemergency comes up, say in the
retail and service industry, thedistrict manager is coming in
and is going to check the store.
It's a really stressful momentfor a lot of convenience stores,
(10:07):
grocery stores and so on, andthe store is not where it needs
to be.
Maybe there's nothing on theshelves, maybe the produce is
behind, maybe there's just alack of team members and the
team leader is pointing atthings and saying do this this
way, make magic happen.
And the team can't say anything.
But yes, maybe as they're doingit, they actually have a better
(10:29):
way of doing it, but they can'tbring it up to their leader
because they're going to be shotdown and probably even
reprimanded for it Again.
Teams like this don't performas well as they can because
micromanagement, extrememicromanagement, does not work.
Now, on the flip side of that,you may have had a boss in the
past who was Really hands off.
(10:52):
They don't necessarily careabout how things get done and
they might be a really niceperson and they probably were
and the team under them mightseem better Emotional,
emotionally, mentally,physically and so on but there's
actually a good amount ofstress that can come from a
situation when a leader doesn'treally care that much and
(11:13):
doesn't want to get involved andgives all of the responsibility
To their subordinates.
For example, it could be a lackof coercion Two different
people can run off into separatedirections and not go back and
communicate it with their teammembers or their leader, and
what that leads to and what itstems to is a leader who doesn't
really know what's going oninside of their team, inside of
(11:34):
their company, inside of theirdivision, and that is something
that you would want to avoid.
And maybe the team membersOverstep the bounds of authority
in both individuals and team,carry out actions that are
beyond what they have theauthorization to do and,
depending on the industry thatyou're in, that could be quite
harmful.
Maybe Someone again go toretail, maybe someone does
(11:57):
something with money that theyaren't allowed to do, like they
don't have the training, and allof a sudden, tills and drawers
are messed up and a cashshortage of a thousand dollars
happen.
Maybe you're in a cybersecurity firm and someone who is
a blue teamer tries to dosomething in a red team and
accidentally exposes an attackvector, and now the security
(12:18):
company who's supposed to helpother people actually gets
hacked, and that's.
That's not that good and just aoverall, a failure to
coordinate.
All of these things aresomething to avoid, and what
this shows Are two sides of thetable micromanaging and
laissez-faire, not caring enoughand what a leader has to do is
(12:39):
Find the dichotomy of this, finda solid middle ground.
Give the goal, give the endobjective and why the team's
mission is important, but allowthe team to do the rest.
Now.
The common way of explainingthis in Jocko's book and in
other pieces of literature thathe wrote and speeches that he
(13:00):
gives is when a mission comesdown, the needs to be executed,
jocko will get everybodytogether and, as a unit, will
make a plan, and he will justgive the base.
Out lie outlining likeObjectives or resources.
So maybe he'll give theresources.
This is a target.
We need to go to this locationand just let them do the rest.
(13:21):
Now, what's that?
What's that do?
Most importantly, it kind ofgives everybody this feeling of
Responsibility.
They helped make the plan andeveryone's gonna know what's
going on.
No one's gonna be confused,because if it was just Jocko
making the plan and he gave itto everyone and said, alright,
time to execute this, everyonewould have their individual
(13:42):
roles and they wouldn't reallyknow if they can step out of it.
And what that does is say anemergency comes up, maybe
someone gets wounded, enemyreinforcements are coming.
The position is more fortifiedthan everybody thought.
There will be less Movement.
People won't be able to respondto it as well, because no one's
gonna know what to do.
They don't know if they'reallowed to break out of this
(14:04):
predefined mission that wasgiven to them.
In Business, it might look alittle different.
Maybe there is a new socialmedia strategy that's coming out
and and someone from themarketing team basically just
gives a outline to follow a copyand paste procedure over and
over and over again and you andother people are just kind of
(14:28):
forced to do it Blendly andmaybe the content is not working
at all.
Maybe it's actually hurting thebrand and hurting the company,
but you can't respond to itbecause you're not allowed to
leave this copy and paste planand procedure that you were
given.
All of a sudden, every singleplatform loses traction, you're
not getting in front of people,you don't make sales, you don't
(14:48):
make forward movement andeventually you die and you go
bankrupt.
Extreme example, but that'sreally the gist of it.
Micromanagement doesn't workand laissez-faire management
doesn't work.
And, just like the title of thebook, it's up to the leader to
find a dichotomy of both.
Lesson number two Resolute butnot overbearing.
(15:10):
I Just want to mention before Ijump back into the book.
We're about to see aperspective shift for this
second lesson.
We're gonna go from JockoWillens perspective to Leif
Babbins, because in thedichotomy leadership we often
see that it expresses eventsdifferently, and Leif is a good
friend of Draco and also servedtogether.
(15:31):
An embedded civilian journalistwith a US Army unit we were
working alongside took somephotos of Task Unit Bruiser
Seals in action.
The photos were shared withtheir higher headquarters staff
and eventually shared with Jacoand his senior enlisted advisor.
In the photos, the Task UnitBruiser patch could clearly be
seen on the shoulders of severalof our SEALs.
(15:53):
The senior enlisted advisorblew up about it and prepared to
drop the hammer on us.
He was just trying to do hisjob and enforce Jaco's order.
I had expected to feel thewrath of Jaco and since I had
orchestrated the violation, Iplanned to fully own the brunt
of the punishment.
But a day passed and then,another day, jaco didn't mention
(16:15):
it.
I was surprised.
Jaco knew we had violated hisorder Willful disobedience but
in this case Jaco didn't holdthe line and enforce the
standard he had set.
He let it go.
This section is referencing isthe strict uniform policy that
was enforced on the platoon.
Everyone had had clean andstandardized uniforms, and lafes
(16:39):
, alongside of some other teammembers, put together a custom
unit patch and secretly put iton their uniforms when they
would go out to missions.
And, as you just heard, it gotdiscovered.
But instead of gettingabsolutely obliterated and
having the textbooks thrown atthem, jaco didn't mention it and
let it go.
He didn't hold the line.
(17:00):
He was resolute, but notoverbearing the mere action of
not throwing the textbook at histeam for simply wanting to wear
a patch that symbolized theirtask unit built unity and
allowed for better performanceand gave Jaco what he terms
leadership capital.
(17:21):
What's that?
Well, simply put, leadershipcapital is the ability you have
as a leader to not I don't wantto say enforce, but impose
certain things on yoursubordinates.
If you have a lot of it, you'reable to tell people what to do
without much pushback.
If you don't have that much ofit, people really aren't going
to listen to you.
A leader that holds the line onsomething insignificant and
(17:45):
silly as the books example is apatch on a uniform there will be
less leadership capital forthem to utilize when things of
strategic importance come up oran emergency arises.
Instead, they'll have a teamthat pushes back, is generally
aggravated or is just won'tlisten, and there will be little
(18:06):
to no team unity.
Now, in a business example,we've seen a lot of this occur
when COVID happened.
Maybe a team lead is very strictwith a camera policy.
Your camera has to be on everysingle meeting or you will not
be allowed into the meeting oryou'll be kicked and you have to
be wearing A professionalclothing cameras on, dress,
(18:30):
professional.
What that does is maybe it addsstress, maybe people are likely
to get annoyed and they'll comeinto the meeting aggravated and
there'll be less communication.
And maybe someone doesn't havethe camera on because it's
broken.
Is the team leader going tohold the line and not allow them
to be in the meeting becausethey don't have a camera on and
(18:51):
they won't be able to contributetheir valuable words to the
discussion.
What does that lead to?
Leads, a less productivity,less movement and a less
effective team.
So once again, we see this ideaof finding an economy between
being resolute but notoverbearing.
When should you use yourleadership capital to step in as
(19:14):
a leader and put orders intoplace, and when should you just
let your team go and do whatthey're going to do?
It's the role of a leader and agood leader to be able to
balance these two things.
You want to have a lot ofleadership capital, you don't
want to have none.
Because I like this lesson somuch and I resonated with it so
(19:35):
profoundly, I'm going to giveone more example that many
people are going to find moreapproachable.
We all like to listen to music.
It makes the time go by, so onand so forth.
It's just helpful.
The picture you are a stalkerand you have an earbud in and
you have one out, so obviouslyyou can still hear and respond
to things around you and youstill have your uniform and you
(19:56):
work hard.
You do everything you'resupposed to do, but the manager
is very opposed to any type ofelectronic device or music when
you're on the sales floor orwhen you're doing your job.
Maybe they go so far as to putyour phone in a box every time
you clock in.
You cannot have it when you'reworking.
You only have it on your breakand when you're done.
Now what's that going to cause?
People are going to be mad,they won't work as good, they're
(20:21):
probably going to performpoorly and again, less unity,
more aggravation, and thatmanager is going to have less
leadership capital.
So for when something happens,maybe the district manager is
coming.
They're not going to have asmuch sway with the team than
they would if they said you canlisten to music, but just don't
let it be a distraction.
In that case, that leader isprobably going to have more
(20:41):
leadership capital and the teamis going to want to make the
store look nice for when thishead honcho comes in.
See what I mean.
Finding the middle ground isimportant in every leadership
situation, not only in this bookbut in many of the other
lessons that Jaco teaches.
Before we close out and roundout this discussion, I just
really briefly want to mentionthe concept of extreme ownership
(21:03):
because I love it so much andobviously I can only plant the
seed because it's the title ofan entire book.
This entire concept is expandedon in extreme ownership, which
is their first book.
Highly recommend that too.
We'll probably talk about it inanother episode, just about
this one thing, but I want toplant the seed.
So what is extreme ownership?
(21:24):
Very simply, it is takingextreme ownership of the team.
So maybe you do everything right.
For example, you found thedichotomy between
micromanagement andlaissez-faire.
You're right in the middle, youhave a perfect balance, but the
mission still fails.
Instead of saying the starsweren't aligned or the cards
(21:47):
were stacked against us, you'llinstead say what could I have
done better?
Who could I have supported more?
How can I improve so thisdoesn't happen again?
Because I failed as a leader?
And it hurts really bad toswallow that pill because maybe
you thought you did everythingright, maybe it was a damn good
plan, maybe the team dideverything it needed to do and
(22:09):
they had it right, but still theuniverse works in mysterious
ways and it fell apart and it'shard to swallow that pill and
it's a really good way to keepthe ego in check and it's just a
really powerful leadershipconcept if you're able to
internalize it and incorporateit into your own ethos.
So again, I just wanted toplant that seed.
(22:30):
If you're interested in extremeownership, read the book.
If you're interested in thesetwo lessons, there's many more
in the economies of leadershipHighly recommend it, and it's a
valuable tool in your tool beltif you're a leader at any level
at any industry.
Thank you so much for listeningto another episode of Ink and
Bytes and I really hope youfound something valuable in
these leadership lessons andthese are only two, so I hope
(22:54):
you found something that you cantake and think on to help you
in your own career.
And again, if you really lovewhat I'm doing and you want to
support my work, make sure tohead out to ko-fi-worldbuilder
and you'll be able to see mypage, and any support is much
appreciated.
It allows me to put more timeinto this and bring you more
(23:15):
content and more impactful andvaluable work.
So thank you for listening andI'll see you all in the next
episode.
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