October 20, 2025 • 10 mins
Dave Berke is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, fighter pilot and TOPGUN instructor, -- his new book is The Need to Lead (pub date Oct 21). Currently Chief Development Officer at Echelon Front, Dave teaches readers the importance of leadership and how to implement it to become a better leader themselves.With a foreword by Jocko Willink, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Extreme Ownership, THE NEED TO LEAD argues that understanding leadership is crucial for universal success. By adopting proper leadership mindsets and behaviors, individuals can solve problems, support others, and correct mistakes. The book's wisdom and instruction stems from Dave's real-life experiences in training, combat, the boardroom, and at home as a husband and father.THE NEED TO demonstrates that we need to embrace the following 4 principles:Everyone at all levels is a leader and the more people see themselves as one the more they want to contribute to the team's successLeadership exists outside the professional world and the same behaviors should guide us as parents, spouses, family members and friendsThe problems we confront at work aren't caused by external factors, they are caused by our failure to leadLeadership is a skill that can be learned.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning. How are you doing today, Dave doing great?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Ero, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Absolutely first and foremost, thank you so much for serving
our nation. I'll tell you what. I just love sharing conversations.
Reminds me so much of Oliver North, who said, you
are not a radio broadcaster unless you talk to the
men and women who serve this nation. So it is
an honor to be here just to share a conversation
with you and to see what you're doing. The need
to lead, my God, you're so in tune with where
(00:24):
we need to be.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well listen, it was an honor to serve, and I'm
thrilled to be on here. I really appreciate that comment
very much.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Man, the need to lead, because I mean, here's the
thing that I see, and I don't know what I
don't want to be is called a curmudgeon. And the
thing is is that I'm seeing a lot of young
adults who I love, but they're becoming they're trying to
become managers with no skills. In other words, they're shooting
for the position. They're taking the test at these places
of business. But when it comes time to lead people
(00:51):
on that floor, it ain't happening. Where are we going
wrong here.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, listen, leadership is tough, and leadership is it's not
just the position. Leadership doesn't come with the title or
the rank or the fact that you're in charge of people.
That's not what leadership is. And I think what central
is to help people understand leadership is a skill that
has to be taught and even the best leaders out there,
they weren't born with that. So we have to start
(01:16):
very early on. And that was part of the goal
with this book was this concept of if we want
to be successful in life, we are going to need
to learn the skill of leadership. That will be the
most important thing we can learn. And if people are
struggling with it, it's the skills they need to get better.
Is the path for them to be successful?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well, and I don't think it's going to be on
chat GPT either, And that's the thing about it. I mean,
you've got to go get your hands dirty and eat
those potatoes fresh from the ground.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Leadership's about people. It's interacting with other people. It's relationships,
it's communication, it's all the things that involve other people.
In fact, we define a leader as someone who interacts
with another human being, and so like you said, this
is about how you're interacting with them. This is not
just on paper. This is not just what you read
in this book. It's what you do and your actions
are in real life with other human beings.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Don't you think that leadership also includes who is your customer?
What is their name? What kind of car are they driving?
Get to know who your customer is.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I love that. I think the foundation, and it doesn't
matter what environment you're in, the foundation of all leadership
is the relationship. It's understanding that person, it's listening to them,
knowing who they are, building trust, building trust, being respectful,
all the things that go into strengthening a bond between
two people what we call a relationship. That's the foundation
(02:32):
of all of it.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
One of the things that I had to do, Dave,
is that during the I've been in radio for forty
six years. That means I've sat in a studio all
by myself, imagining people. So I finally took a job
at a grocery store because I wanted to know what
it was like to be with real people. I had
no idea, and one of the things that I've learned
is that those real people on the other side it's
not that they're happy to see me. They're happy that
I see them. They want me to see them, and
(02:56):
I how do you teach that to people that they
are important?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I love that comment. The way you describe that, I
think really resonated. And that's something I think all of
us as people truly inside. That's something we feel, that
something we value. You know, the word that comes to mind,
and I know it's a little bit cliche away say
that is you got to care about the people around you.
When you demonstrate to another person, when that person recognizes
(03:22):
that you see them that you care about them, You're
interested in them, you have their business interest in mind.
You want them to be successful. Man. The power that
is hard to overstate, and it's often overlooked. We see
people as tools or implements to get the job done. No,
they are human beings and you got to see them
for who they are. That is a huge part of
building the relationship.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Well, you're gonna think I'm a freak here. I want
to see your notes and the reason why is because
I'm a I've been writing daily since nineteen ninety four.
I'm a dfragger. That means I ask the questions I
question the answers, and I really build and construct things
like you say in the book. And the thing is
is that I want to see your notes to see
how you even put this book together, because I'll you've
got a lot of scrubles on there that you're going,
(04:01):
what did I write on that? I can't even read
my handwriting right now.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
That process was so humbling, man. I mean from the
very beginning to where it is now, the evolution of that,
I probably wrote hundreds of thousands of words to turn
into what this says now. So it was a process, man,
no doubt.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Building that team requires what in a no call, no
show zone, and you've got to be experiencing that even
at your level, sir.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, this is a different environment, right, This is a
different environment we're operating in. And we don't just all
sit around in the breaker room together. We don't all
sit around face to face together. You have to take
every opportunity you can, every call, every zoom meeting, every interaction,
every chance to interact with another person, no matter what
the medium is. You've got to look to build and
strengthen the relationship. And that means you have to be
(04:49):
really really proactive things we took for granted in the
past no longer reply. That means you, as the leader,
it is on you to find ways to build those relationships.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
It is easier said than done locating solutions. Most people just,
you know, just kind of just throw it off their shoulders.
Oh my god, that is such a valuable part of
what you need to do on a daily basis. Solutions.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the name of the game,
right is solving problems, accomplishing things, figuring things out, completing tasks.
Solutions are essential to us being successful and whatever we're doing.
One of the things I think about when I think
about solutions, I have to remember, especially in a leadership role,
the solution doesn't have to come from you. It has
to come from the team. And it's very likely if
(05:32):
you do a good job focusing on the outcome you're
trying to achieve, in a focus on the mission, your
team's gonna have good ideas and good solutions. A good
leader helps them discover that and implement that for themselves.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Please do not move. There's more with Dave Burke coming
up next. The name of the book The Need to
Lead from Dave Burke, Leaders tend to go through that
bully stage, and you know, I guess this is where
the old man attitude comes out in me. I'll look
at him, I'll go, you know what, dude, I've already
put up with people like you all my years. I
really don't get this. Let's work together here and figure
(06:04):
this out. How do you deal with situations like that?
The bully system?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, that can be frustrating for all of us. But
I have to remember too early in my leadership career,
I did not have all the right actions of behaviors.
My ego got the best to me. It's a part
of it. You gotta be a little bit patient, but
also recognize too that that leadership approach doesn't work. It
does not work. And when we try to impose our
will on people and try to bully people around, we
(06:30):
might get for a very short period of time, some
immediate response, some immediate gratification, but in the long term
it is a loser. You cannot impose your will on
people and it cannot be a bully if you want
long term success, and that's something we have to learn
and discover. Our ego doesn't necessarily like it, but that
is the absolute truth. You gotta build good relationships. You
can't bully your way to success.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Am I wrong to think that everyone everyone is at
their own level of leadership? You're not an employee. You
are a leader. Now showcase it.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
You're one hundred percent right. That is exactly right, and
that means the CEO, the founder, the president, all the
way down to your newest, brand new frontline individual contributor.
You are a leader. You're in a leadership role. And
just like the name of the book, we need you
to lead. It's absolutely required.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I got to tell you who I want to give
this book to, and this is the God's honest truth.
Everybody who's doing instacart and anything that has to do
with creating their own business in their homes because they're
making decisions, leadership decisions of if I'm going to go
to the grocery store today to pick up some stuff
for people because of that, to me, is the new
age of entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah, I think the world. One of the great upsides
of the current world is that it gives people opportunity
to do the things they want to do. And really,
what you're talking about is leading yourself. Yes, And I
think that's one of the central components. You know, we
lead teams, we lead our communities, we lead our families,
but we also lead ourselves. That is essential to all
of this. I love that.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Comment, what have you learned personally from this? Because I mean,
you're getting the opportunity to share a lot of conversations
with a lot of broadcasters today that have been through
hell and yet we continue to march forward.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Well, what I've learned about this process is one is
writing is hard. Yeah. Things, yeah, you know, things that
make sense in your head that you know in your
own mind. That's one thing. But to get it out
on paper, to express it in a way that makes
sense to other people, that is a That's a whole
other story. I struggle with that. It was very humbling
the other thing. And I kind of knew this, but
(08:29):
the book really solidified it. Is the biggest teachers in
my life. The places where I learned the most important
lessons were from my own mistakes, my own failures, and
my own shortcomings. And for me to write a successful book,
I had to admit and reveal those. So this book
is filled with kind of embarrassing stories about things that
I did wrong throughout my career and the lessons I
(08:50):
learned from them with the hope that they would help
other people.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
You know what's great about this is and this is
just just me be the way that the reason one
of the reasons why I write is the fact that
you wrote, You put it on paper, you put it
in a book. And the thing is is that you
gave your family something to hold on to after you've transitioned.
You've given something to the future, dear future reader, and
you should be proud of this moment and this book.
The need to lead.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Well, I appreciate that, and I had a little bit
of sense to that when I got my first copy
and I opened up the box and I was like,
holy cow, this is this is in triple tuity, this
is in time. So I have that sense of that,
and I wanted to leave something that could be valuable
and impactful and useful to them. So I really appreciate
that comment. To you, man, that means a lot.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Where can people go to find out more about you?
Because I know there's a podcast brewing somewhere inside of
you as well, because your leadership is just not in
a book.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Well, if you want to find me, I'm most available
at Echelon Front. It's a company that I work with
with Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, guys that I've known
for years and years. Those are awesome guys. That's where
I work. I've been with them for a long time
and so that's the easiest place to find me the
things we teach, and of course anybody wants to find
me on social I'm big on Instagram and whatnot, but
the work that we do certainly trans ends. Just this book.
(10:01):
I love the idea of people reaching out asking leadership
trip questions and trying to engage with us. Exchellent Front
is the best place to do that. Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Well, please come back to this show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Ero. This was awesome man, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Okay, right on, Thanks dude,
Good morning. How are you doing today, Dave doing great?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Ero, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Absolutely first and foremost, thank you so much for serving
our nation. I'll tell you what. I just love sharing conversations.
Reminds me so much of Oliver North, who said, you
are not a radio broadcaster unless you talk to the
men and women who serve this nation. So it is
an honor to be here just to share a conversation
with you and to see what you're doing. The need
to lead, my God, you're so in tune with where
(00:24):
we need to be.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well listen, it was an honor to serve, and I'm
thrilled to be on here. I really appreciate that comment
very much.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Man, the need to lead, because I mean, here's the
thing that I see, and I don't know what I
don't want to be is called a curmudgeon. And the
thing is is that I'm seeing a lot of young
adults who I love, but they're becoming they're trying to
become managers with no skills. In other words, they're shooting
for the position. They're taking the test at these places
of business. But when it comes time to lead people
(00:51):
on that floor, it ain't happening. Where are we going
wrong here.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, listen, leadership is tough, and leadership is it's not
just the position. Leadership doesn't come with the title or
the rank or the fact that you're in charge of people.
That's not what leadership is. And I think what central
is to help people understand leadership is a skill that
has to be taught and even the best leaders out there,
they weren't born with that. So we have to start
(01:16):
very early on. And that was part of the goal
with this book was this concept of if we want
to be successful in life, we are going to need
to learn the skill of leadership. That will be the
most important thing we can learn. And if people are
struggling with it, it's the skills they need to get better.
Is the path for them to be successful?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well, and I don't think it's going to be on
chat GPT either, And that's the thing about it. I mean,
you've got to go get your hands dirty and eat
those potatoes fresh from the ground.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Leadership's about people. It's interacting with other people. It's relationships,
it's communication, it's all the things that involve other people.
In fact, we define a leader as someone who interacts
with another human being, and so like you said, this
is about how you're interacting with them. This is not
just on paper. This is not just what you read
in this book. It's what you do and your actions
are in real life with other human beings.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Don't you think that leadership also includes who is your customer?
What is their name? What kind of car are they driving?
Get to know who your customer is.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I love that. I think the foundation, and it doesn't
matter what environment you're in, the foundation of all leadership
is the relationship. It's understanding that person, it's listening to them,
knowing who they are, building trust, building trust, being respectful,
all the things that go into strengthening a bond between
two people what we call a relationship. That's the foundation
(02:32):
of all of it.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
One of the things that I had to do, Dave,
is that during the I've been in radio for forty
six years. That means I've sat in a studio all
by myself, imagining people. So I finally took a job
at a grocery store because I wanted to know what
it was like to be with real people. I had
no idea, and one of the things that I've learned
is that those real people on the other side it's
not that they're happy to see me. They're happy that
I see them. They want me to see them, and
(02:56):
I how do you teach that to people that they
are important?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I love that comment. The way you describe that, I
think really resonated. And that's something I think all of
us as people truly inside. That's something we feel, that
something we value. You know, the word that comes to mind,
and I know it's a little bit cliche away say
that is you got to care about the people around you.
When you demonstrate to another person, when that person recognizes
(03:22):
that you see them that you care about them, You're
interested in them, you have their business interest in mind.
You want them to be successful. Man. The power that
is hard to overstate, and it's often overlooked. We see
people as tools or implements to get the job done. No,
they are human beings and you got to see them
for who they are. That is a huge part of
building the relationship.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Well, you're gonna think I'm a freak here. I want
to see your notes and the reason why is because
I'm a I've been writing daily since nineteen ninety four.
I'm a dfragger. That means I ask the questions I
question the answers, and I really build and construct things
like you say in the book. And the thing is
is that I want to see your notes to see
how you even put this book together, because I'll you've
got a lot of scrubles on there that you're going,
(04:01):
what did I write on that? I can't even read
my handwriting right now.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
That process was so humbling, man. I mean from the
very beginning to where it is now, the evolution of that,
I probably wrote hundreds of thousands of words to turn
into what this says now. So it was a process, man,
no doubt.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Building that team requires what in a no call, no
show zone, and you've got to be experiencing that even
at your level, sir.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, this is a different environment, right, This is a
different environment we're operating in. And we don't just all
sit around in the breaker room together. We don't all
sit around face to face together. You have to take
every opportunity you can, every call, every zoom meeting, every interaction,
every chance to interact with another person, no matter what
the medium is. You've got to look to build and
strengthen the relationship. And that means you have to be
(04:49):
really really proactive things we took for granted in the
past no longer reply. That means you, as the leader,
it is on you to find ways to build those relationships.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
It is easier said than done locating solutions. Most people just,
you know, just kind of just throw it off their shoulders.
Oh my god, that is such a valuable part of
what you need to do on a daily basis. Solutions.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the name of the game,
right is solving problems, accomplishing things, figuring things out, completing tasks.
Solutions are essential to us being successful and whatever we're doing.
One of the things I think about when I think
about solutions, I have to remember, especially in a leadership role,
the solution doesn't have to come from you. It has
to come from the team. And it's very likely if
(05:32):
you do a good job focusing on the outcome you're
trying to achieve, in a focus on the mission, your
team's gonna have good ideas and good solutions. A good
leader helps them discover that and implement that for themselves.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Please do not move. There's more with Dave Burke coming
up next. The name of the book The Need to
Lead from Dave Burke, Leaders tend to go through that
bully stage, and you know, I guess this is where
the old man attitude comes out in me. I'll look
at him, I'll go, you know what, dude, I've already
put up with people like you all my years. I
really don't get this. Let's work together here and figure
(06:04):
this out. How do you deal with situations like that?
The bully system?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, that can be frustrating for all of us. But
I have to remember too early in my leadership career,
I did not have all the right actions of behaviors.
My ego got the best to me. It's a part
of it. You gotta be a little bit patient, but
also recognize too that that leadership approach doesn't work. It
does not work. And when we try to impose our
will on people and try to bully people around, we
(06:30):
might get for a very short period of time, some
immediate response, some immediate gratification, but in the long term
it is a loser. You cannot impose your will on
people and it cannot be a bully if you want
long term success, and that's something we have to learn
and discover. Our ego doesn't necessarily like it, but that
is the absolute truth. You gotta build good relationships. You
can't bully your way to success.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Am I wrong to think that everyone everyone is at
their own level of leadership? You're not an employee. You
are a leader. Now showcase it.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
You're one hundred percent right. That is exactly right, and
that means the CEO, the founder, the president, all the
way down to your newest, brand new frontline individual contributor.
You are a leader. You're in a leadership role. And
just like the name of the book, we need you
to lead. It's absolutely required.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I got to tell you who I want to give
this book to, and this is the God's honest truth.
Everybody who's doing instacart and anything that has to do
with creating their own business in their homes because they're
making decisions, leadership decisions of if I'm going to go
to the grocery store today to pick up some stuff
for people because of that, to me, is the new
age of entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah, I think the world. One of the great upsides
of the current world is that it gives people opportunity
to do the things they want to do. And really,
what you're talking about is leading yourself. Yes, And I
think that's one of the central components. You know, we
lead teams, we lead our communities, we lead our families,
but we also lead ourselves. That is essential to all
of this. I love that.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Comment, what have you learned personally from this? Because I mean,
you're getting the opportunity to share a lot of conversations
with a lot of broadcasters today that have been through
hell and yet we continue to march forward.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Well, what I've learned about this process is one is
writing is hard. Yeah. Things, yeah, you know, things that
make sense in your head that you know in your
own mind. That's one thing. But to get it out
on paper, to express it in a way that makes
sense to other people, that is a That's a whole
other story. I struggle with that. It was very humbling
the other thing. And I kind of knew this, but
(08:29):
the book really solidified it. Is the biggest teachers in
my life. The places where I learned the most important
lessons were from my own mistakes, my own failures, and
my own shortcomings. And for me to write a successful book,
I had to admit and reveal those. So this book
is filled with kind of embarrassing stories about things that
I did wrong throughout my career and the lessons I
(08:50):
learned from them with the hope that they would help
other people.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
You know what's great about this is and this is
just just me be the way that the reason one
of the reasons why I write is the fact that
you wrote, You put it on paper, you put it
in a book. And the thing is is that you
gave your family something to hold on to after you've transitioned.
You've given something to the future, dear future reader, and
you should be proud of this moment and this book.
The need to lead.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Well, I appreciate that, and I had a little bit
of sense to that when I got my first copy
and I opened up the box and I was like,
holy cow, this is this is in triple tuity, this
is in time. So I have that sense of that,
and I wanted to leave something that could be valuable
and impactful and useful to them. So I really appreciate
that comment. To you, man, that means a lot.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Where can people go to find out more about you?
Because I know there's a podcast brewing somewhere inside of
you as well, because your leadership is just not in
a book.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Well, if you want to find me, I'm most available
at Echelon Front. It's a company that I work with
with Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, guys that I've known
for years and years. Those are awesome guys. That's where
I work. I've been with them for a long time
and so that's the easiest place to find me the
things we teach, and of course anybody wants to find
me on social I'm big on Instagram and whatnot, but
the work that we do certainly trans ends. Just this book.
(10:01):
I love the idea of people reaching out asking leadership
trip questions and trying to engage with us. Exchellent Front
is the best place to do that. Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Well, please come back to this show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Ero. This was awesome man, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Okay, right on, Thanks dude,
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