Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win

Three types of armored vehicles recur in the book. In the book, they’re used by Army units either to push into enemy territory or to defend and/or rescue SEAL teams when they get into jams. These vehicles aren’t critical to the story or the lessons, but they crop up frequently in battle scenes, often enough to become terms of interest.

The biggest vehicle used in Ramadi is the Abrams M1 tank, since 1980 the artillery mainstay of the Army and Marines. It fires a shell nearly five inches wide, “bring[ing] the thunder” (19) to bear on the enemy. An Abrams tank can knock down walls, blow up enemy gun nests, and generally destroy things in its path.

The Bradley Fighting Vehicle transports up to six soldiers through dangerous territory. It has an anti-tank missile launcher and two mounted machine guns, one of which spits out one-inch-wide bullets. Bradleys help evacuate SEALs and other soldiers who get into pitched battles with larger enemy groups.

The Humvee is a large truck that replaces the Army’s traditional Jeep. The full name is “High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or HMMWV, spoken as ‘Humvee’” (1); it’s big and wide and often armed with a gun turret. The Humvee transports leaders and other troops as needed. Humvees and the other vehicles are vulnerable to IEDs, which caused most of the US casualties in Iraq during 2006.

The Commander’s Intent is the “end state” of a mission plan. If, for example, an enemy-controlled neighborhood must be retaken, the Commander’s Intent is that the neighborhood is cleared of hostiles and put under friendly control. All planning should lead to the fulfillment of the Commander’s Intent. It’s vital that, during mission briefings, this end state be expressed clearly and that all participants understand and support it. “While a simple statement, the Commander’s Intent is actually the most important part of the brief” (204).

Cover and Move is a technique for maneuvering across a battleground or contested area: “One team covered, their weapons trained on threats, while the other team moved. Then those teams reversed roles. In this way, the teams leapfrogged in bounds” (119). The authors consider this technique foundational to group success, as it maximizes a team’s strengths. Cover and Move extends not merely to one team’s maneuvers but to coordinating at all times with other teams in the organization. The technique also translates to business situations, though in that case, it involves departments and subsidiaries protecting each other as they take turns promoting and developing products while under pressure from competing businesses. Cover and Move gets its own chapter, Chapter 5, but it crops up elsewhere in the book.

In Decentralized Command, junior leaders receive clear instructions about a mission’s purpose, then they get leeway to adapt to situations in the field. It works best when leaders at each level take charge, not of large groups, but of four to six sub-leaders who, in turn, take charge of a handful of leaders beneath them. In this system, the main goal—the Commander’s Intent—is made clear to everyone, while more specific goals are handled at lower levels of command so that upper leaders don’t get overwhelmed by details. Team members focus on their particular duties, and they adapt on the fly to best serve a mission’s purpose. Communication is open in both directions so that everyone understands fully and stays on the same page, keeping the team apprised of changes. The principles of Decentralized Command at war apply also to business situations. Like Cover and Move, Decentralized Command has its own chapter, Chapter 8, but it recurs as a topic in other chapters.

The central theme of the book is Extreme Ownership, by which leaders accept responsibility for every detail of an operation or mission that they take on. Under Extreme Ownership, it’s the job of the leader to make sure all problems get fixed. The authors discovered that in the military, such leaders “made no excuses. Instead of complaining about challenges or setbacks, they developed solutions and solved problems” (33/4974). Extreme Ownership also applies to business, civic, and even family leaders—anyone who assumes responsibility for the outcome of a project. 

Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are “the deadly roadside bombs that accounted for roughly 70-80 percent of U.S. casualties in Iraq in 2006” (89). These bombs are detonated when coalition forces in Iraq drive past; the bombs, made from salvaged materials, can damage, injure, and kill. A deadly form of IED is the vehicle-born bomb, or VBIED, that contains “several thousand pounds of explosives” (90) and is driven into US military outposts with devastating effect.

In Iraq, most of the insurgents are members of the mujahideen, “those engaged in jihad,” or religious struggle (18). US troops called them “muj” (pronounced “mooj”) for short. In Ramadi, mujahideen are controlled by al Qaeda. They’re the chief opponents arrayed against SEAL teams during the Battle of Ramadi. They’re viewed as dangerous but ultimately too disorganized to defeat military units, especially those steeped in the lessons of Extreme Ownership.

The SEALs (Sea, Air, Land) are a special operations division of the US Navy’s Special Warfare Command. Their purpose is to infiltrate enemy strongholds, sabotage opponents, rescue friendlies, gather intelligence, and assist other military units in capturing territory. The SEAL training program is severely difficult, and most recruits wash out. The program stresses technical skills, high-level fitness, and mental toughness; SEAL teams have a deep sense of camaraderie and share a relentless can-do attitude. Both authors are retired SEAL officers; the leadership lessons they learned during their tours of war-torn Iraq inform the book’s message.

A SEAL platoon contains 16 members divided into two squads that can be subdivided further for specific tasks. SEAL Team 3 is the US Navy’s special operations detachment assigned to the Middle East; it consists of 8 platoons. Lieutenant Commander Willink manages two of those platoons, C and D (“Charlie” and “Delta”). Co-author Leif Babin served as the Navy lieutenant in charge of Platoon Charlie. 

Ramadi—or “ar Ramadi”—is the capital city of Anbar Province, which lies west of Baghdad in Iraq. Located on the Euphrates River, and with a 2006 population of nearly 400,000 Iraqi Arabs, it’s a major trade center that’s been fought over several times since its founding in the late 1800s. During the Iraq War, insurgent Sunni troops loyal to al Qaeda contested Ramadi against NATO coalition forces that included American Navy SEALs and US Army and Marine units.

One of a SEAL team’s jobs is to go behind enemy lines and disrupt their operations. In Ramadi, SEAL teams often penetrate uncontrolled districts, set up temporary outposts in tall buildings, and, from hundreds of yards away, guard Army and Marine missions into enemy territory. From this vantage point, SEAL snipers fire on enemy troops who advance on US units. The snipers are well equipped and exceptionally capable, and their work helps coalition forces take the city back from Al Qaeda militants. During the course of a day’s work, the enemy will figure out the SEAL sniper position and attack it; much of the book’s action centers around these firefights. The snipers’ efficient, if deadly, competence reflects the values of organization and leadership emphasized by Extreme Ownership, values that also are useful in the peaceful, if vigorously competitive, civilian world of business.

Task Unit Bruiser, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Jocko Willink, consists of two platoons of US Navy SEALs—Platoon C, or “Charlie,” commanded by the book’s co-author, Lieutenant Leif Babin, and Platoon D, or “Delta”—engaged in the 2006 Battle of Ramadi in Iraq. Task Unit Bruiser’s main job in Iraq is to penetrate enemy territory in the embattled city of Ramadi in 2006, where they gather intel, rescue friendlies, and, using snipers, disrupt insurgent operations in support of US Army and Marine operations to retake the city.