Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win

In SEAL training, Hell Week involves three straight days of constant activity and exertion with only an hour of sleep. Recruits are well prepared physically, but most drop out because they can’t withstand the mental challenge of “pain, misery, and exhaustion” (42).

After two tours in Iraq, Author Babin becomes an instructor at California’s Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training program. He oversees their Hell Week, where seven recruits on each crew must compete with other crews by carrying heavy inflatable boats across land, through obstacle courses, and offshore, paddling through heavy seas. Crew leaders receive complex instructions that they must pass along to their crews, and trainers scrutinize their performance for mistakes. Winning crews get a few moments of rest, while last-place finishers get extra physical duty.

During one session, Boat Crew II wins nearly every race; its members work well together, help each other, and, despite exhaustion, have smiles on their faces. Boat Crew VI, meanwhile, keeps coming in last; its team members, including the leader, complain, argue with each other, and look glum. The senior chief petty officer decides to switch leaders between Boat Crews II and VI. The Crew VI leader appears upset but immediately accepts his orders; the Crew II leader seems elated.

Crew VI promptly wins most of the next races; in second place is the old winner, Crew II. Good leadership makes the difference: “[T]here are no bad teams, only bad leaders” (49). Babin himself learned this when he went through Hell Week: He found that yelling less and instead encouraging his crew to focus fiercely on one goal at a time—a route marker, a beach landing—helps create a winning effort. He also realized that his team carried the mentally weakest members, hiding their weakness from instructors, which eventually affects those men on SEAL teams in real combat.

Harsh training can’t completely prepare SEALs for combat, where the life-and-death pressure is “immense, beyond their imagination” (51). During Babin’s tours, two SEALs under his command and one in a brother platoon die, which devastates him “beyond measure.”

Soldier Ryan Job, blinded by a bullet in the face, eventually returns to school, attains a business degree with a 4.0 GPA, marries the woman of his dreams, climbs Mount Rainier, and maintains his wonderful sense of humor. During later surgery to correct his war wounds, though, Ryan dies suddenly; this causes Babin agony beyond words. SEAL recruits can’t yet fully comprehend these tragedies of war. Babin teaches them what he learned of leadership and takes them to where two of his fellow SEALs lie buried near the training base in Coronado, California.

Babin discovered that teams do not what their leader preaches but what that leader tolerates. It’s important to set a high standard and have the team practice until it reaches the top level of performance. Focusing on teamwork gets members to help each other do better, and it prepares them to step into leadership roles later on. Leaders should create a culture of Extreme Ownership and constant improvement.

The CEO of a financial services company brings in Babin after a product launch goes badly and the firm loses money. Babin meets with key leaders and discusses the principle of Extreme Ownership. The chief technology officer (CTO), whose products have failed, doesn’t like the concept; instead, he pushes blame onto several factors within the company. Babin talks about the SEAL training course where the Boat Crew VI leader blamed circumstances, and his crew adopted that attitude and didn’t try to improve the situation until the new leader came onboard and redirected their thoughts from bickering toward problem-solving.

Meanwhile, Babin explains, Boat Crew II, already steeped in the concepts of Extreme Ownership and continual improvement, no longer needed explicit training from their original leader to keep operating at a high level. The Boat Crew VI leader, having moved to Crew II and watched his old team become winners, learned a valuable lesson and went on to a successful SEAL career.

The CTO insists that his people have already made the right decisions. Babin points out that, if they’re losing money on those decisions, then they’re not the right ones. The CTO is an example of a “Tortured Genius” who believes his ideas are brilliant but unappreciated, and who won’t see that those ideas clearly aren’t working. The other company leaders catch on to the Extreme Ownership concept, but the CTO complains to the CEO that such a belief can have “negative repercussions.”

The CEO finally fires the CTO and brings in a new one who shares the Extreme Ownership idea; teamwork improves, and the company climbs out of its financial hole. 

SEAL teams train together until they know each other so well that they can work in combat as a “synchronized team.” They maintain their physical fitness with constant workouts, even in the field. They use the most advanced equipment, which gives them tremendous tactical advantages. During Willink’s first deployment in Iraq, they fight side by side with elite US and NATO units.

On his second deployment, his SEAL teams receive orders to work alongside standard Iraqi soldiers, some of the worst-trained and least-motivated troops in the world. Most Iraqi soldiers have mixed loyalties; many have families threatened by insurgents; some occasionally fire on Americans. Their uniforms are a hodge-podge easily confused with enemy clothing, and their weapons are rusty Soviet issues or cheap copies. Few recruits can do more than a handful of pushups. It’s Task Unit Bruiser’s job to equip and train them, but the SEALs lack faith in the mission.

Willink finally realizes that unless US soldiers train Iraqis in the field during combat operations, the Iraqis will never gel into a fighting force capable of protecting their country against insurgents. Willink tells his men that unless special operations forces want to protect Iraq for generations, they must build a domestic military that can do the job itself. Though such trainees will never be as good as SEALs, they’ll be “good enough.” If SEALS and other special ops teams can rout the Ramadi insurgents, newly trained and tested Iraqi troops can hold the city. Because Willink believes in the mission and explains it so it makes sense, his men believe in it, too.

Thereafter, all SEAL missions are carried out in the company of Iraqi soldiers. Some of the Iraqis make mistakes that endanger SEALs, like firing their weapons accidentally or over their shoulders as they run away. Other Iraqis abandon wounded comrades. On the other hand, they know how to open gates without loud explosives, can identify insurgents by their dress and mannerisms, and their mere presence guarantees approval for SEAL team operations in dangerous territory. Over time, locals switch their allegiance to the coalition forces; enemy operations dwindle, and the Iraqi soldiers begin to take over patrol duties. In that respect, the mission succeeds.

In business, all team members should be aligned with the goals of a project. Even a good one, if misunderstood, can fail, so executives must make the purpose clear to everyone. As well, lower-level leaders need to ask questions up the chain of command to ensure understanding of the mission and to provide feedback to the executives.

One business firm that later consults Willink tries to implement a compensation plan that middle managers hate because it appears to reduce sales pay and might drive sales reps to leave the company. Willink asks the salespeople to reason out why their leaders have launched this plan; they don’t know. He wonders if they’ve asked for the reasons; everyone admits they’re afraid that if they do so they will look incompetent.

Willink later chats with the CEO, a very capable and experienced leader who nonetheless believes that her managers will have no problem coming to her with any questions. He tells her they don’t understand the new plan and don’t believe in it; they’re afraid it will drive salespeople away. She explains that the plan penalizes low performers who, if they leave, won’t much affect the bottom line. Meanwhile, lower sales costs let her reduce product prices, which makes sales easier for the remaining salespeople. It’s a win-win. Willink convinces her to explain this to her managers; they ask one or two questions and quickly get onboard.

The managers realize that they should have asked for clarification, which is their job under the principles of Extreme Ownership. One manager says the CEO should have taken the initiative to explain her strategy; Willink points out that she did just that moments earlier, but that the managers can’t always expect her to be a mind-reader. It’s their job as leaders to make sure they fully understand the mission and explain it to their people. Otherwise, they let down the boss and the team. 

Al Qaeda considers Ramadi to be the capital of their region of control, and they control two-thirds of the city. Coalition forces that try to regain neighborhoods suffer severe casualties, and US outposts on the road into town suffer constant attacks, many of them sophisticated, coordinated, and fierce, often culminating with a powerful truck bomb driven directly at an outpost. Army and Marine units almost always deflect such attacks, and they always fight heroically; Willink considers them true warriors.

Some American special ops units, including a few SEAL teams, consider themselves superior to the US general-purpose forces, and they refuse to coordinate with them. The authors make it clear to their platoons that Army and Marine troops are to be treated with “nothing but the highest professional respect and courtesy” and that SEALs are to “check our egos and work together” with those troops (92). Task Unit Bruiser makes it its business to support the main battle units in retaking the city; the result is good coordination and lots of help when the SEALs need it.

Camp Corregidor, located near the most dangerous Ramadi neighborhoods, contains Willink’s Task Unit Bruiser alongside members of the US Army 101st Airborne First Battalion. When word gets out about the camp’s successes, another SEAL team wants to join in, and they bring with them a highly trained and equipped Iraqi unit. One of Willink’s platoon commanders worries that the new SEALs will do better and take over. Willink replies that the enemy is out there, not among the friendlies, and that if the other SEAL team dominates, Willink will find a new task for his own people.

The new SEAL team, accustomed to informality, observes relaxed grooming standards that differ from the tighter rules of the 506th parachute unit and Willink’s own SEALS. The new soldiers also carry an attitude of superiority; they talk down to the Army troops and show no interest in learning from the camp’s experienced soldiers. They also refuse to coordinate with the other units but go out on their own. Within two weeks, the 506th colonel has them removed from his camp.

Task Unit Bruiser’s goal is to be confident, not cocky, and never complacent. Egos get set aside, and the team and its mission become primary.

Author Babin consults for a drilling company manager whose otherwise excellent field chief blatantly ignores office protocols, costing the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. The manager fears he’ll get in a fight with the chief, but Babin explains that he can correct the problem quickly by taking the blame for not explaining company needs clearly, then describing how the correct procedure saves money for the firm. This keeps the other person’s ego out of the conversation and puts the focus back onto the mission.