I understand and agree with all your thoughts and principles however however I interpret your concepts for leaders leading men or mostly driven or other leaders who have a desire to make themselves better and maintaining the status yep so common misperception right is that you know the military and the seals I say this all time everyone thinks that the military in the seals I think that we’re leading terminator robots right and everyone is just driven and they’re gonna get up they’re gonna do everything and it’s I just talked about this on the last podcast it is a bell curve it is a bell curve and there’s a great bunch of guys at the top of the bell curve that are go-getters there’s a solid bunch of guys in the middle and there’s the low of guys that are bums and so this interpretation that the concepts that I talked about are just for leading these front running a personalities that just make everything happen mmm not correct you know there are seals that don’t want to work there are seals that want to take shortcuts there are seals that want to skate by then you get outside then you’re working with Iraqi soldiers that are unmotivated untrained poorly equipped we got to work with these guys we got bosses I mean I got bosses and the SEAL Teams that are either an egomaniac or that are ultra risk-averse you could have any of this stuff going on you can have your guys that are risk averse you can have guys that are too crazy you got all you know what they are they’re humans they’re individuals they’re human beings and because they’re human beings even in Special Operations and sometimes especially in Special Operations because when you get in Special Operations you guys that have huge egos and in attitudes and so oh you think that they just want to do whatever you tell them to do no they got their own idea they either got their own method they got their own plan they got their own what they think they’re a tactical genius so you got to get around that so what does it mean it means you have to lead them and it’s the common theme that I’m talking about all time it was I mean you got to build relationships you got to build the trust you got them make sure they understand why they’re doing what they’re doing you got to make sure they understand the strategic impact you got to empower them you got to set a good example you got to listen to them you got to take input you got to give them responsibility and when I say responsibility I mean real responsibility you got to build them up you got to make them better you gotta show them and let them see not in a not in a in your face way but you gotta subtly let them see what self-improvement means them and how they can better the position and what drive will get them you got to give them ownership of stuff and you gotta let that ownership grow into extreme ownership where they really want to own things you got to teach him to lead and you got to put them in leadership positions and you got to show your trust by actually following them sometimes and again people ask me these questions you know I’m a new leader how do I lead I got a new person how do I lead them it’s the same answers it’s the same answers all the time the principles of leadership now the nuances are there yes the nuances are there and I have to nuance for echo that I got a nuance for this guy over here and I got a nuance for this group over here the the nuances are there but the basic principles are the same am I never am I gonna Who am I gonna be in charge of that I’m not gonna try and build a relationship of trust with him ooh who’s that dance there’s nobody you know who is it that I don’t want to set a good example for the answer is nobody who is it that I’m not gonna listen to if you don’t listen to people you alienate them you don’t want to be part of the team I mean it’s if the things are universal mmm and again there’s nuances because you might have to make adaptations and you know when we when we did battle leadership with with adolf von shell and he talks about distinctly these three different types of commanders and how the the boss gave them each their own little adjusted order because he was dealing with their personalities so yes you got to deal with the personalities but that doesn’t mean you’re doing something different from the principles mm-hmm so when you get sure when you get to the bottom of the bell curve and you might see some people that might need to be replaced they might need to be removed but I’ll tell you what most likely they just need to be led hmm the reason that or I think one of the reasons why the perception is that all your guys are robots and you know you I’m gonna give you an order they follow it no questions eyes it’s like movies right like a few good men remembered Jack Nicholson he’s like people follow orders or people die yeah that’s the thing that kind of stuff yeah and but they do they do capture in some Hollywood movies where they show how mutinies take place and how things go wrong and how you know the new lieutenant Vietnam is gonna get fragged by his own people that stuff’s real yeah you know that’s that’s real so it’s just it’s it’s a misperception the other the other misperception is because of boot camp a lot of military movies are they show on they show a significant amount of time in boot camp but boot camp is a matter of weeks in a career you know I think Marine Corps boot camp is 13 weeks I think the army boot camp is 10 weeks boot camp is a very short period of time in your four-year six-year eight-year 10-year 20-year career boot camp is you know I talked about the indoctrination all times in the military they have very short periods of time compared to your whole career in in boot camp when your drill instructor says drop down and do push-ups you drop down to push-ups okay and boot camp when your Dro instructor says pick up that you know make your bed you make your bed when these and if you don’t they yell at you and they yell at you until you do make your bed so people get that idea that that’s the way the military’s run yeah yeah and that is like you know a great examples full-metal-jacket the movie which is a great movie but the boot camp scene is half the movie but in reality even if you were a guy in in Vietnam you know boot camp is 13 weeks and then you went on to into Vietnam for a year so it’s a fraction of what your real career is like and and so people get that impression that you’re just gonna be able to borrow quarters never was gonna listen you it just doesn’t work that way yeah and there’s actually there’s a great there’s a great video it’s called Charlie Company and V anyways I forget the name of the video but it’s about a company in Vietnam Charlie Company and maybe if you remind me I’ll put it on the on the website it shows two company commanders but anyways to make a long story short these guys they don’t like their new company commander and at first they’re resistant to him and you know he says listen these guys gotta learn that there’s gonna have to do what I tell him and then it fast forwards a couple months and they interview him again he goes you know how’s everything going he goes you know they get it now and they realize that they just had to listen to me and do what I told them and then they go out in the field with the guys and the guys in the field they’re supposed to be doing things they’re just not doing them mmm they’re just they’re literally calling back like yeah where did we did yeah we did a patrol you know they didn’t do it yeah we moved positions they didn’t move positions yeah we’re gonna do another you know another foot patrol tonight they’re not doing it so he was under the impression that everyone had like buckled to his will they were just completely snowing him and he had no idea so that’s what happens in the military if you’re don’t lead to your people and you just order them around and you think that everyone’s just this this this how they described it here men who are mostly driven or leaders who have a desire to make themselves better I mean if anybody in a position with guys like that it’s gonna the leadership job is gonna be very easy you just tell them what to do and they do it I mean I could give you example upon example upon example of stuff and the SEAL Teams where what I had to do to get people convinced that this was the right thing to do you know I mean it is like you know a classic example is telling guys okay we’re gonna take Iraqi soldiers on every operation you know so these guys were saying are you kidding me well the they didn’t go hey cool Jocko we’ll do exactly what you tell us right no they look what are you talking about I’m taking these guys out why would we do that it’s gonna be risky these guys aren’t swarthy they don’t they’re not trained then a million reasons why not to do that mmm but how do you get her to do it you explain to them why you explain to them the strategic importance you have built trust with them you tell them that they’re gonna take ownership of their Rockies I mean it’s everything that I just said that’s what you do that’s a classic example so yes once again you have if you’re at a leadership position you have to lead you’ve seen the movie Saving Private Ryan yes yeah there was a part and then when that movie that that they weren’t down for the orders remember that way it was kind of like a little pivotal part where they were gonna go take a gun nest and they’re like man we don’t have to do this so they all kind of got together and a you know seems like unnecessary risk and he’s like he kind of tripped out a little bit and kind of forced them to do it and they were like all right whatever kind of reluctantly then one of the guys died and stuff but anyway that’s an example yeah he’s worth it you know and especially you know you when we were just doing talking about World War one that one portion of the book where he says you know what we got order to do this thing I didn’t feel good about it but it was an order we were going to do it so there’s examples from the past especially where you know it’s definitely was more like that in the past in World War one obviously it was like that obviously was like that unfortunately it was like that yeah because it caused people to continue you know to execute these operations that we’re just gonna get people killed and you know actually life and I were talking about that last week Pickett’s Charge get it Pickett’s charge Gettysburg they sent the troops up and they got slaughtered and they came you know their survivors came back in Lee was you know basically in tears like hey I’m sorry this happened I knew this was my fault he took ownership of it and I hope I’m getting the story right but but that’s the that’s the general the general gist of the story but then they you know the big story was that the guys were like hey we’ll go again hmm if you know cuz you’re such a great leader we’ll go again and Lafe you know what’s kind of likely that’s what World War you know that’s what that’s what happened that shows you that guys were willing and I said yeah but the difference is in World War one they sent them again they sent him over and over you know Lee was regretting and I’m sorry and I did something I got you know a bunch of guys killed it’s horrible and World War one they’re like yeah it happened going again yeah oh yeah and that happens again we’re doing it again and again and again and it’s just a I’ll always just be horrified by that and hopefully man progresses beyond that and again part of that is as a person you have to question you have to be a rebel you have to question what people are telling you and why they’re telling it to you if my boss doesn’t tell me why I’m doing my operation it’s and I could continue to execute it that’s my fault I need to raise my hand and say boss what are we doing why are we doing this I don’t understand you got to take that initiative because if you’re just blindly following orders I don’t want somebody that’s blindly following orders I never want people that blindly follow my orders I want people that say oh get boss wait why are we doing this why is this happening cuz I want people I won’t think I want leaders underneath me that know how to lead mm-hmm and you know what when you build the trust and you build the relationships those guys will do anything for you and my guys might ask me to do anything I mean I know it they did over and over again did operations that were crazy and hard and dangerous and risky never did anyone say odd you know we’re not doing this is it okay we understand what’s the mission alright so you’ve got to build that rule it’s against the same basic principles of leading human beings and that’s what you got to do but to think that you’re just gonna order people to do things it’s not happening long answer to a to a good question that was actually interesting perspective and I know it’s a perspective that a lot of people have people always think well you know you led seals and they’re alien so that was easy yeah but before you said no before you told me that’s kind of what I figured yeah
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