Leadership Lessons from a Former Navy SEAL
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Re: Leadership Lessons from a Former Navy SEAL
#2Jocko's podcast is pretty good. The recent one with Harley Flanagan was a bit of an eye opener. http://jockopodcast2.com/2017/05/10/74-hard-times-violence-d...
Re: Leadership Lessons from a Former Navy SEAL
#3You can get these lessons in the regular Navy, I'm assuming, since you can get these lessons in the regular Army. You get a free pair of boots, too.
Re: Leadership Lessons from a Former Navy SEAL
#4The real leaders in a war of aggression are those who don't show up or fight on the other side. "Leadership" and "excellence" and all that wank is really just that, wank. It's a compensation price for those who got broken as kid and never mustered any resolve worth a crap later on.
> He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
-- Albert Einstein
Prove me wrong. Me, directly, instead of hiding behind each other. In other words: lead, follow, or get out of the fucking way.
Re: Leadership Lessons from a Former Navy SEAL
#5Reading this bit:
During a competitive boat race in Navy SEALs BUDS training, six teams competed for victory. After the first five races, there was a clear split: Team A placed first after every single race, and Team F had finished dead last. Jocko and the other instructors wanted to try something: what would happen if they took the group leader from Team A and put him in Team F's boat?
Guess what? Team F won the next race. And the next. And the next. See, it wasn't because the crew weren't good enough. It's because the new leader in Team F's boat wouldn't tolerate anything but the best. He set a new performance standard through his action and lifted the achievements of those around him.
I was reminded of the Athenians in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War. The Sicilians were being badly beaten by the Athenians, and in desperation they appealed to Sparta for help. Sparta didn't send thousands of troops but one general, Gylippus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gylippus). That pretty much did for Athens in Sicily.
Re: Leadership Lessons from a Former Navy SEAL
#6The real leaders in a war of aggression are those who don't show up or fight on the other side. "Leadership" and "excellence" and all that wank is really just that, wank. It's a compensation price for those who got broken as kid and never mustered any resolve worth a crap later on. > He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for h…
Eistein apparently wrote that in 1931 - but in 1939 when faced with the appalling prospect of a nuclear armed Nazi Germany he co-authored a letter to FDR with Leo Szilard recommending that the US research atomic weapons.
I'm not disagreeing with your sentiment, war is literally hell and the people I know who feel this more strongly are combat veterans, but outright pacifism in the face of a relentless aggressor like the Nazis would have achieved nothing but utter disaster and a "sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age".
Edit: From my own perspective I think our potentially fatal weakness as a species is how easy we are to lead. With a powerful enough leader people will do anything - good or bad.
Re: Leadership Lessons from a Former Navy SEAL
#7The real leaders in a war of aggression are those who don't show up or fight on the other side. "Leadership" and "excellence" and all that wank is really just that, wank. It's a compensation price for those who got broken as kid and never mustered any resolve worth a crap later on. > He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for h…
None of what you said actually makes sense. "Real leaders in a war of aggression are those who don't show up or fight on the other side", then what about people who command from the field? What about the massive ability of a General's ability to affect the outcome of a war from the planning rooms?
Even your final phrase, "lead, follow, or get out of the way" makes no sense because there are literally no other courses of action available and you make no real defense of any of the three beyond preceding that statement with a quote from Einstein which you seem to feel is sufficient simply because... Einstein said so?
Re: Leadership Lessons from a Former Navy SEAL
#8What is it with business media fawning over SEALs? It has nonstop SEAL articles.
The articles all suffer from the same problem: they tell you the results, implying that reading about them will get you the results, at least partly.
If that were the case, SEALs would just read these articles. They don't because reading the articles doesn't get you results. Training does. It's like expecting to get strong by reading about lifting weights.
People who want the results would do better by training. You don't have to train like a SEAL to get helpful results in business, but you need to do more than just read.
Re: Leadership Lessons from a Former Navy SEAL
#9The real leaders in a war of aggression are those who don't show up or fight on the other side. "Leadership" and "excellence" and all that wank is really just that, wank. It's a compensation price for those who got broken as kid and never mustered any resolve worth a crap later on. > He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for h…
Eistein apparently wrote that in 1931 - but in 1939 when faced with the appalling prospect of a nuclear armed Nazi Germany he co-authored a letter to FDR with Leo Szilard recommending that the US research atomic weapons. I'm not disagreeing with your sentiment, war is literally hell and the people I know who feel this more strongly are combat veterans, but outright pacifism in the face of a relentless aggressor like…
> he co-authored a letter to FDR with Leo Szilard recommending that the US research atomic weapons.
That should clue you in about how this has nothing to do with "pacifism". It would be more pacifistic to not express disgust than to express it, and it would be more pacifistic for me to not comment. Yet here we are.
To oppose death and its apprentices, you do NOT have to march in rank and file, and you DON'T need "heroism on command". You have to organize, but there is nothing there that cannot spring from strength and cooperation. It doesn't have to be weakness and obedience under the guise of "leadership" and "team spirit".
Re: Leadership Lessons from a Former Navy SEAL
#10The real leaders in a war of aggression are those who don't show up or fight on the other side. "Leadership" and "excellence" and all that wank is really just that, wank. It's a compensation price for those who got broken as kid and never mustered any resolve worth a crap later on. > He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for h…
None of what you said actually makes sense. "Real leaders in a war of aggression are those who don't show up or fight on the other side", then what about people who command from the field? What about the massive ability of a General's ability to affect the outcome of a war from the planning rooms? Even your final phrase, "lead, follow, or get out of the way" makes no sense because there are literally no other courses…
> what about people who command from the field? What about the massive ability of a General's ability to affect the outcome of a war from the planning rooms?
What about it?
> Even your final phrase, "lead, follow, or get out of the way" makes no sense because there are literally no other courses of action available and you make no real defense of any of the three beyond preceding that statement with a quote from Einstein
No, I preceded that with "if you disagree, deal with me, don't hide behind others".
> a quote from Einstein which you seem to feel is sufficient simply because... Einstein said so?
Not because he said it, but because he said it well. I can and have put this in my own words. I can write you a book about it. But why not quote Einstein? I mean, this is in a thread about an article with a whole lot of gibberish such as "Leaders find a way to win by taking extreme ownership of a situation and raising the expectations of those around him. That is a hallmark of true leadership." -- and we're supposed to even give it a thought because some Navy Seal said so? Hahaha.