Generally, I don’t pick up leadership books mostly because I work for myself and don’t have a team or group that I am leading on a regular basis. I have heard Jocko Willink speak on a few different podcasts and really like his energy and I have had this book recommended by some other people I know so I decided to check it out.
On the plus side I am really fascinated by military stories so through each of the lessons in this book there are some vey interesting stories being told. The book follows a very set formula, war story, talk about principle, business story then review principle and how it applies between the two.
The book introduced 12 leadership principles of those there were 4 of the principles that really resonated with me:
Extreme Ownership, this is the premise of the book and it is something that I truly believe in. If you accept responsibility and take ownership for everything that is happening then you empower yourself to have control over any situation.
Keep it Simple, this is something I am learning to embrace that just because a plan is more complex it isn’t necessarily better. Many times, the simpler idea is a better solution to the problem.
Act Decisively Amidst Uncertainty, again is a great principle especially in uncertain times you have to make up your mind of the best course of action then take decisive action and start the momentum of moving forward.
Discipline Equals Freedom, this is counter intuitive but from working for myself over the last number of years I have discovered the more discipline that I have, especially with my time and schedule the more freedom I have because everything that needs to get done gets done first leaving more free time.
The authors of this book made a statement a couple of times at the start of the book that this is not intended to be a book of military stories however much of the book was a retelling of these stories. In my opinion some of the principles overlapped where I thought there could have been some combining of ideas. Many of the sections of the book reviewed the same point several times in an effort to make the point this redundancy was a little too much at times.
Overall, I love the general theme of the book and the principle of taking ownership over everything that happens in your life. I am fascinated by military books, both because of the amount of respect that I have for all the men and women that serve and I have a general interest in the inner workings of the military and mindset of these high performers.
This book is good, could have been shortened and been a little less repetitive and it would definitely apply more to someone in a leadership role but I thought it was a good book with some good takeaways and a great overall principle.
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