Alexis Rondeau

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win (Extreme Ownership Series Book 1)

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Cover of Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win (Extreme Ownership Series Book 1)
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Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

318 highlights · 8 notes · last read October 2022

Highlights I wrote a note on are shown in full. The other 310 are scrambled: the words are the author's, so here you only see where in the book I underlined something.

Then it hit me.

Page 26

My note Important

As the SEAL task unit commander, the senior leader on the ground in charge of the mission, I was responsible for everything in Task Unit Bruiser. I had to take complete ownership of what went wrong. That is what a leader does—even if it means getting fired. If anyone was to be blamed and fired for what happened, let it be me.

Page 26

My note As the leader i was responsible for everything and

No doubt they were wondering whom I would hold responsible. Finally, I took a deep breath and said, “There is only one person to blame for this: me. I am the commander. I am responsible for the entire operation. As the senior man, I am responsible for every action that takes place on the battlefield. There is no one to blame but me. And I will tell you this right now: I will make sure that nothing like this ever happens to us again.”

Page 27

My note THERE IS ONLY ONE PERSON TO BLAME FOR THIS: ME.
I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENTIRE OPERATION.

I apologized to the wounded SEAL, explaining that it was my fault he was wounded and that we were all lucky he wasn’t dead. We then proceeded to go through the entire operation, piece by piece, identifying everything that happened and what we could do going forward to prevent it from happening again.

Page 28

My note I apologize for letting you down.

lets look at what went wrong

“Remember, it’s not about you,” I continued. “It’s not about the drilling superintendent. It’s about the mission and how best to accomplish it. With that attitude exemplified in you and your key leaders, your team will dominate.”

Page 106

My note It's not about you or me but the mission

A particularly effective means to help Prioritize and Execute under pressure is to stay at least a step or two ahead of real-time problems. Through careful contingency planning, a leader can anticipate likely challenges that could arise during execution and map out an effective response to those challenges before they happen. That leader and his or her team are far more likely to win.

Page 161

My note Effective Staying ahead one step

Enemy snipers were deadly. While they could never compare to the level of skill, training, and equipment that our own U.S. military snipers possessed, the enemy certainly had some skilled marksmen who inflicted substantial damage, regularly killing or wounding American and Iraqi soldiers with accurate rifle shots.

Page 169

My note Snipers are deadly

Those junior leaders learned that they were expected to make decisions. They couldn’t ask, “What do I do?” Instead, they had to state: “This is what I am going to do.” Since I made sure everyone understood the overall intent of the mission, every leader worked and led separately, but in a unified way that contributed to the overall mission, making even the most chaotic scenarios much easier to handle. *   *   *

Page 173

My note State: this is what i am going to do