Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win

Babin’s Charlie Platoon launches an attack one evening during a coordinated mission to establish a base deep in enemy territory. They take command of a building complex and turn it over to US Army forces that quickly line the outpost with concrete barriers and concertina wire while al Qaeda soldiers fire on them. Early the next morning, 120mm enemy mortar shells land on the new outpost, wounding several US soldiers and killing one.

The Army lieutenant who’d been training an Iraqi unit proposes that it patrol several neighborhoods held by different US units, but Willink knows the new officer doesn’t realize the danger. Willink points out that this will require complex coordination and could strand the patrol on streets that aren’t yet cleared of IEDs. Instead, he proposes a shorter shakedown patrol within their new area; disappointed, the lieutenant complies.

The soldiers prepare for the patrol. Willink warns the lieutenant, “You are going to get contacted out there. It will happen quick. Stay sharp. Understand?” (135-36). Accompanied by a Platoon Charlie SEAL squad, and protected by Babin’s overwatch snipers, the patrol sets out. It takes only 12 minutes for shooting to start up. By radio, Willink confirms that two friendlies are wounded and the entire patrol is holed up in a building mapped as J51. They request evacuation. Quickly, Willink coordinates with an Army armored unit that sends two tanks and a troop carrier to rescue the patrol.

SEAL sniper fire pushes back the enemy assault on J51 as the armored units arrive. Two Iraqi soldiers suffer wounds—one is abandoned on the street by panicky fellows and must be rescued by SEALs—but the patrol escapes the building and, bracketed by tanks, makes it back to base. One Iraqi soldier dies of his wounds.

Willink thanks the patrol’s accompanying SEAL team leader for his quick, calm leadership. The lieutenant in charge of the Iraqi squad is shaken; he realizes that had they tried the much more complex patrol he’d wanted, most of them likely would have died.

Complex projects can be tempting, but in real life, they collapse under the pressure of things that always go wrong. Simplicity is vital to the success of a mission, whether on the battlefield or in the competitive world of business. The leader also must be sure to communicate clearly so that the lowest-ranking team member completely understands the mission. To enhance this, leaders must make it easy for frontline members to ask for clarification.

At one company, Willink finds that manufacturing workers get bonuses but don’t understand why. The manager and chief engineer complain that line workers simply aren’t taking advantage of the bonus system. Willink asks the leaders to explain their incentive plan; they describe an extremely complex system that assigns values to different products being assembled, values that are adjusted constantly for changes in each product’s demand. The bonuses are further adjusted for the number of workers who qualify for bonuses each month and for the number of quality issues that occur with each worker.

The managers “were so close to the bonus plan, so emotional and passionate about it, that they didn’t recognize the vast complexity of it” (143). Willink points out that the workers don’t understand it and therefore can’t adjust their behavior to its intricacies. If instead, the managers keep the program simple, line workers will be able to adjust their behavior to improve productivity.

The managers re-engineer the incentive plan to include only two variables: quality and current demand. Weighted demand is adjusted weekly and posted on a bulletin board. Productivity goes up immediately. (The weakest workers, who’d slowed down the others, are let go.) The success of the incentive plan hinges, then, on simplicity. 

Babin’s SEAL platoon regularly ventures deep into enemy territory and fierce fighting. The “Big Tough Frogmen” take pride in engaging in each “Big Mix-It-Up” and then return to base for “Big Chow” (151). Their job is to show the enemy that a given neighborhood belongs not to them but to coalition forces.

On this day, their four-story lookout takes heavy damage intermittently throughout the day, but it holds while SEALs fire back with devastating accuracy. Iraqi support troops, by now less panicky, also return fire ably. At nightfall, the attacks cease, and the SEALs and Iraqis prepare to depart. They discover a suspicious package lying against the wall at the bottom of their stairway exit, so they take a sledgehammer to another wall and exit through the hole to the roof next door. They also prepare to set off the IED package downstairs so it won’t hurt future US troops.

The rooftop is an exposed position, so they prepare to exit quickly. In the darkness, one SEAL steps onto a tarp over a roof hole, falls through, and lands, groaning, 20 feet below. The IED is about to blow, and enemy troops will soon close in. Babin’s team is in a fix.

From long training, Babin remains calm and remembers one of the Laws of Combat, “Prioritize and Execute” (158). He chooses the most urgent thing to do first: “Set security!” SEALs quickly shift into defensive rooftop positions. The next priority is opening the locked gate to a stairway access to the street; after that is “Head count” to make sure everyone’s there. Then, “Let’s move,” and quickly the men get downstairs, set up street positions, and retrieve the downed SEAL. As they move away along the street, the IED explodes, and shrapnel flies through the air, but everyone is fine. The SEAL who fell through the roof landed on his rucksack and suffers only a bad elbow laceration.

The informal version of “Prioritize and Execute” I “Relax, look around, make a call” (161). It’s how good leaders and their teams respond to situations where a lot of bad things happen at once. When time runs short during a business crisis, prioritizing becomes important. It’s also wise to anticipate and plan for crises, organizing teams around likely scenarios; when problems suddenly multiply, team members can respond to the most important issues without waiting for instructions.

During an emergency, leaders might be tempted to focus on small details, but they should instead step back and look at the big picture. Everyone should stay flexible so they don’t fixate on one problem when another rises to take first priority.

The CEO of a pharmaceutical company, facing a revenue crisis, makes plans to launch new product lines, inaugurate a new training program, set up new distribution centers, enter the lab-equipment market, revamp the company website, refurbish the sales force, and start a new compensation plan. Willink asks which is most important; the CEO points to the sales force. Willink asks what would happen if the company focuses for a few months on supporting only that task before tackling the other problems; the CEO admits that it would help a lot.

The entire company rallies around the sales force: Marketing develops new brochures, sales revamps its scheduling goals, labs offer tours, and so on. Prioritization works its magic, and revenues rise. 

Willink can’t be everywhere at once, so he trains his men carefully to lead missions independently. After weeks of experience in Ramadi, they become more capable, and he trusts them to make good decisions. This frees him to focus on strategy and coordinating forces.

Such trust takes time, and Willink’s teams first practice for months at the Navy’s Fort Knox facility, where a mini-city of buildings simulates urban situations the SEALs will encounter in Iraq. Trainers put trainees under constant pressure; they cheat and do whatever they can to rattle the trainees, especially the leaders. At first, leaders try to over-control the situation; over time, though, they learn to communicate the purpose of a mission and delegate the details to team members. Thus, a platoon commander focuses on his two squad leaders and platoon chief; they focus on their fire team leaders, who, in turn, manage four shooters each. Willink need only think about his platoon commanders. Rather than adding to the chaos of battle, this system, based on a common understanding of mission goals, tends to keep operations running smoothly.

Early in their deployment, Willink’s SEALs suffer their first casualties. Marc Lee is shot dead; Ryan Job is blinded by a bullet and, years later, dies during corrective surgery; Babin is shot in the back but continues fighting.

Later, the SEALs return to this area. Willink’s two platoons make their way to pre-selected buildings, where they set up positions that support each other and target the most enemy routes possible. They have leave to make adjustments on the fly. Platoon Delta finds that its building won’t do, and they call Willink to inform him of their decision to move to a better building, number 94 on the map, located nearby. Willink confirms this, and Army and Marine forces are notified.

As the main units move in to establish a new fort, reports trickle in on enemy movements, including a report of a rooftop sniper nest. The enemy deploys its own snipers who, though not as good as SEAL team members, can cause trouble; some recent coalition casualties are from mujahideen snipers. The SEALs would love to eliminate these opponents, but a Bradley Fighting vehicle is brought in for the job. Willink and his team double- and triple-check the location to make sure the sniper nest isn’t actually the new Platoon Delta SEAL position. The nest is confirmed to be on another rooftop.

Just to be sure, Willink asks the armored company commander to have the Bradley crew count the buildings between his vehicle and the sniper nest. Reluctantly, the Bradley officer does so, then reports back that his team miscounted their initial sighting and that the sniper nest is atop building 94. They’ve sighted directly on the SEAL team. The division commander orders them to hold their fire, and a catastrophe is averted. Because Willink was free to focus on the big picture, he noticed something amiss.

No one can manage dozens or hundreds of people. Instead, they manage group leaders, who manage leaders of sub-groups. Importantly, “Every tactical-level team leader must understand not just what to do but why they are doing it” (183), and this closely connects to a leader’s ability to believe in the mission, as discussed in Chapter 3. Communication also is vital to keep everyone apprised of changes and keep their situational awareness up to date.

It’s important that leaders in any occupation not get so far ahead of their people that they perform all the detailed work of front-line team members; equally important is that they don’t fall so far behind their advance teams that they no longer know what’s going on. Standing somewhere in the middle maximizes their awareness and flexibility.

Willink consults with a financial services company, whose CEO shows him an organizational chart of the firm’s far-flung operations. Some branch managers run three people, some as many as 22. The CEO admits that the heads of large branches don’t perform as well once they manage dozens of people. Even at the small, under-financed branches, managers tend to do much of the work that an underling would do.

Willink explains to the CEO that military units tend to organize around fire teams of four to six people. Team leaders report to higher-level officers, and groups of those officers in turn report still higher up. At every level, leaders deal with four to six personnel. A communication handed down from the top is expressed as “simple, clear, concise orders” (189), including why it’s to be done that way, so it doesn’t get distorted while passing down the chain of command. Thus, all decisions by lower-level leaders remain consistent with the general goal.

This system isn’t easy, and it requires a lot of trust. Trust requires that leaders communicate well, allow their juniors to make mistakes while learning, and support them when they act.