Jocko Podcast - 366: Place Duty Over Your Personal Feelings or Desires. "Fundamentals of Marine Corps Leadership"

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

You have to be able to educate people remotely. "Fundamentals of Marine Corps Leadership". An analysis. With Dave Berke and Jocko.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 366 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Also joining us tonight, Dave Burke. Good evening, Dave. Dave happens to be kind of in San Diego right now, so here you are. Leadership Strategy and Tactics wrote a book called Leadership Strategy and Tactics. And in that answer is, of course, both.

People are born with certain characteristics that are beneficial for leadership, right? the ability to simplify things the ability to detach being articulate these are all things that you can be born with various levels of and Thankfully they're all things that you can improve right you can learn to simplify things You can learn to detach you can learn to become more articulate It's not easy and some people can learn more easily how to simplify things some people can can learn more easily how to detach. Some people have a really hard time with it. There's some things that you can't improve. Right. I know in the book I used the example of being able to speak loudly because being able to speak loudly in combat is beneficial. And even if you're

trying to get, you know, you've got an event going on and you've got to get everyone to move through a different room. It's good to have a loud voice and a loud voice is a genetic thing. And sure, you could train it a little bit, but you, some people can only talk so loud. Genetic in my family. It's loud at my house. A bunch of loud people. So it's genetic trait. So everyone's got some level of inherent leadership capability.

And when you have some kind of a lack, like if you don't have a loud voice, cool. You get someone on your team that does. And there are some natural leaders out there, right? And the, I don't know how. Look, natural leadership means that they might have some better characteristics, but what it really means is that they're humble and throughout their lives, they've developed themselves over time, right? Some people have very little leadership, natural ability. And then you have everyone in between.

I mean, there's some people that they just don't, they just got, they didn't get the positive leadership characteristics. And they might be really awesome at other things. Right, they might be a great athlete, right? How many great athletes are there that weren't great coaches? There's a lot of them. In fact, some of them are actually bad coaches. They were a great player, but they're a bad coach.

They've great skills, athletic skills, great ability. You have great peripheral vision. They have great skills for athletics, but they didn't have a great leadership capability. And maybe they never developed it. I imagine if you're like the best ball player, you can end up with a pretty big ego. Maybe you don't need to listen to a bunch of people,

so maybe you don't end up being the best. the leader. But leadership is what drives the success of an organization. So the question is, how do you develop leaders? And we know, we talk about it all the time. We do it. Dave and I do it for a living. We develop leaders.

We teach leaders. We train them, mentor them. We put them in leadership positions, put people in leadership positions. We coach them. We have developed those programs inside of organizations, all very hands-on. So how do you train leaders if you're in an organization that, has hundreds of thousands of people. Obviously, you're going to use decentralized command, right?

Because you as the leader in charge of a couple hundred thousand people, you're not going to be able to train everyone yourself. So you have to use decentralized command so that the training and the mentoring and the coaching is going to take place at the subordinate levels. But then if you have a few hundred thousand people in your organization, how do you set a baseline of knowledge that's going to drive the leadership? training and drive a leadership culture inside your organization. Well, a couple months ago, Dave handed me a manual.

And the manual is called, it's from the Marine Corps. I know it's a big shocker coming from Dave Burke, handing me a manual. It's called the fundamentals of Marine Corps leadership. And for all practical purposes, it's a correspondence course, which is kind of a joke in the military, right? In the military, it's like, oh, you're into, buds through the correspondence course, meaning you just filled out some paperwork and then

you graduated or you went to flight school. Would you do correspondence course to get through this? But correspondence course, it's a real thing. It's something that is necessary. You have to be able to educate people remotely. And now it's a lot easier to do that, right? Because now we have online training and everyone does online training. It's advanced a lot. We have the we have the extreme ownership academy and we've got a whole new platform rolling out with that. What date does that come out? What date's a new platform? January 1. Oh, my goodness.

It's happening. Oh, so this will be live. So we have a new platform with that. And even, you know, when, when Laif and I first started talking about having an online training platform, both of us, I think Leif more so. Because I had seen some other possibilities. Laif was just thinking about what we had, you know, in the, in the Navy, these online trainings that you had to take. They were super boring, super not user friendly. And it didn't seem like a viable.

option of course COVID hit and all of a sudden everyone's online everyone understood the benefits and so luckily we had kind of started the Academy now and then we went hard on it now we've got an outstanding the new the new one that's outstanding yeah it's awesome I was pretty impressed I was extreme I could actually I couldn't have been more impressed so we've got the extreme ownership Academy but before that was available things like this manual were out and the manuals dated October of 2000 so there wasn't really a big online training capability.

And also this is something to think about. This is before the war kicked off. So there's sometimes, as I read through this manual, that I was like, hmm, we've been at peace for a while, haven't we? Because war teaches and reteaches lessons, unlike any other instructor. And you'll see some of those. So anyways, that being said, there's a bunch of good lessons and reminders about leadership, and I want to talk through

some of those today. And also put this up as kind of an example of the type of program you can put in place if you're running a large organization or if you're running a small organization. How often do we talk to clients that have 40 people? But they've got a decent churn rate, a little higher than they want. They got new people checking in all the time, or like you get a medical staff, let's say. Medical staff, you've got professionals, but they might work with a different team for three days and then not see that team again.

There's certain environments where you're gonna have a rapid turnover. So it's nice to realize that you can set up a standard operating procedure that you can give people some level of baseline knowledge very quickly and you could move forward as a unified team if you have a good plan around it. And this is sort of an example of that. So I also really appreciate the Marine Corps. because they have an ability to speak to their audience in a way that can be pretty

transformational. So a young Marine stopped by the gym today, just out of boot camp, you know, and you're looking at him, yep, 100%. You know, as soon as I saw him, I was like, this guy, this kid just graduated from Marine Corps boot camp. You know, he's standing in attention waiting to talk to me. I'm like, check. He's like, you know, good afternoon, sir.

Yep, good afternoon. When did you graduate from boot camp? Four days ago. Outstanding, you know. So the Marine Corps gets that job done. So let's go to this book, the fundamentals of Marine Corps leadership. It starts off by saying congratulations, which is a really? Like, again, they're getting in your brain right away.

Congratulations on your enrollment in a distance education course from the distance learning and technology's department of the Marine Corps. And since 1920, Heritage. Heritage. Since 1920, the Marine Corps Institute has been helping tens of thousands of hard-charging Marines. What kind of Marine art? I'm a hard-charging. You got this, but you're already a hard-charging. You're already in the game.

Like you to improve their technical job performance skills through distance learning. By enrolling in this course, you have shown a desire to improve the skills you have and master new skills to enhance your job performance. So you can see how they're coming out of the gate. And then it says your personal characteristics. This isn't a question, by the way. It's not a survey about your personal characteristics. It's saying your personal characteristics, you are properly motivated.

You have made a positive decision to get training on your own. Self-motivation is perhaps the most important force in learning or achieving anything. Doing whatever is necessary to learn is motivation. You have it. This is outstanding. You seek to improve yourself. You are enrolled to improve those skills you already possess and learn new skills. When you improve yourself, you improve the Corps.

Listen, you, Lance Corporal, Schmucketele, you are helping the entire Marine Corps right now by reading this book. By going through these procedures, and we thank you for it. You have the initiative to act. Of course, Marine Corps is always trying to get you to take initiative. By acting on your own, you have shown you are a self-starter willing to reach out for opportunities to learn and grow. You accept challenges. This is like the affirmations that people say, but they're saying it to you. You have self-confidence and believe in your ability.

And by the way, it's all true. Like these are all factual things. You have the self-confidence and believe in your ability to acquire knowledge and skills. You have self-confidence to set goals and the ability to achieve them enabling you to meet every challenge. You are able to set and accomplish practical goals. You are willing to commit time, effort, and the resources necessary to set and accomplish your goals. these professional traits will help you successfully complete this long distance learning course. And then it goes on.

I could read the entire thing and just, you know, we could just sell a, what's an audio book, right? Just get fired up. But then it talks about how to begin the course and it tells you how to do it. It's like, oh, leaf through the text and do an assessment of the different phases and then study the first unit. It tells you how to study. Because, you know, look, a lot of these kids, they, you know, if you're enlisted in the Marine Corps, you may or may not have paid attention to one class in your entire high school, right? And then you're preparing for the final exam.

And it tells you, gives you these unused minutes. Apply what you have learned. Use the shakedown cruise technique. Ask another Marine to lend a hand by asking questions about the course. Choose a particular study unit and let your buddy fire away. This technique can be interesting and challenging for both of you. If you followed what the Marine Corps told you to do, you'd be an outstanding Marine.

The sooner you complete your course, the sooner you can better yourself by applying what you learned. However, you have two years from the date of enrollment to complete this course. I hope it doesn't take somebody two years to complete this. Graduating as a graduate of this distance education course and as a dedicated Marine,

your job performance skills will improve benefiting you, your unit, and the Marine Corps, Semper Fidelis. So that's the intro. They're coming out of the gate hard. They're getting right in your head. like 18 year old jaco, I'm ready to rocking. I'm ready to do some correspondence courses, bro. Now here's the thing.

This is what you've got to watch out for. How does this sound? It depends on who is reading it. Right? So you could look at this thing. Did you ever have like a slang term for Marines that were just, they didn't want to be there? Yeah, I'm thinking like strap hangers and some other terms.

There's probably some more derogatory ones that I'm blanking on right now. But yes, there were definitely terms. I just can't think of anything. Yeah, somebody with like a negative mindset. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. You could take, you know, the last podcast that we did,

we talked about building a palace or building a lean to. You could read this and be like, dude, this is such a load of shit. You could totally do that. Like, I can do it right now. We could go back through this thing. I could laugh at it, right? Totally.

It could be like, uh, uh, congratulations on your enrollment in distance education course. Since 1920, the Marine Corps Institute has helped tens of thousands of hearts. Hard charging, you know what I mean? Like you can see you see what I'm doing? Totally. I do see that.

Yeah. Man, Jamie got a client from an email the other day and she was mad about it. And I was like, because she doesn't have a, there's like a little, a little issue with the client and she's working through it. And I'm like, um, so she read me the email. She's like, can you help me this email? It's bad. And so she read it's me and the tone that she read it was like super negative and I go, I go cool I go read that again and pretend that I'm that it's an email from me and she just went quiet

Because what the email said was like hey we want to adjust some dates on this thing but it was like the way she read was like hey we need to adjust the dates I was like whoa girl So you got a kind of You're gonna you're gonna read it the way you want to hear it so why not build a palace instead of a lien to Why not turn this thing into something awesome? That's my recommendation So lesson one and the way this thing's laid out is it's like got the lesson plan got the learning objectives It's like sort of normal military stuff

It starts off placement and purpose of the Marine NCO in the chain of command the chain of command is the system of the Marine Corps Uses to to ensure that each Marine receives instructions for a particular task from only one supervisor Each immediate supervisor in turn receives instructions from his or her immediate superiors This process continues up to the commandant to the Marine Corps in this way each supervisor is a link in the chain of command Command from the commandant to each Marine That's a that's like a And they might as well put the president in there that the president of the United States is in there too They should throw them in there except for the fact that the look you don't really care

Hey man I work for the commandant never mind anybody else where I work for the common on the Marine Corps. That's where I'm at This chain serves two purposes. The first of these purposes is to decentralize authority. Since it is impossible for one person to assign duties to every Marine or to supervise every task personally, assignments are passed down through the levels of command. This is called decentralization of authority. For example, the mess officer tells the chief cook what foods to prepare for a meal. The chief cook then tells the section cook who in turn tells the other cook Cooks whenever duties are assigned to a subordinate that subordinate must be given the authority

to accomplish those duties the subordinates held responsible for accomplishing the task but overall responsibility for its success remains with the Marine originating the order This is a horrible example and there's a couple reasons why number one it's talking about cooks and we don't want to hear about cooks not that logistics don't win war because they certainly do and not that I don't love the people that make food for me when I'm in the military but that's not really what makes it a bad example it's actually good that they're given some various things but here's the thing the mess officer tells the chief cook what foods to prepare for a meal right that is wrong the the mess officer should be saying, hey, this is how many people we have to feed, make it happen.

Yeah. He could be like, hey, this is all we were able to get from headquarters supply. This is that, you know, like, he doesn't tell, it shouldn't tell him anything other than when he needs to get done and what he's got available to make that happen. Yep. Yeah. I just literally wrote down, I was showing like, I literally wrote down the word tell

with a question mark. Like, don't do that. Yeah. And really, then the chief cook should be like, hey, guys, you know, here's how many people we got to feed. what do you guys think we should make? And let the troops decide. This is authoritarian leadership and it's not the best way to lead.

So watch out for that. Let's watch out for that. Besides the decentralization of authority, another purpose of the chain of command is to link different levels of command. It is a way that the infantry private can talk to his battalion commander. The private first goes through his fire team leader with a problem. If the problem cannot be solved, of his fire team leader, he sent to squad leader,

then the platoon sergeant, and the platoon commander, and finally the company commander, if the problem cannot be solved by any of these Marines after they are seen in order of their authority, the private is sent to the battalion commander. Any Marine can go as high as necessary to get the problem solved. All that the Marine must do is follow the chain of command one step at a time. A Marine does not have to disclose the subject of a request mast

to anyone in the chain of command, except the commander with whom he is requesting the mask. This was always like a big threat of requesting mass. Did you, did you guys hear that threat? Oh, yeah, yeah. What would make a guy want to request mass? Usually the sense of being wronged or something like that. Listen, I heard, I mean, I obviously knew what requesting mass was.

And at some point in my career, I was going to be the person that they were going to be requesting. Did you ever have one? Dude, it never happened. Wait, what is it? It's basically like, and I know Jock could add to it, but like you want to make sure Marines understand that they, They do have the latitude that if somehow that there's, there's some misconduct occurring in their chain and command, they can go up the chain to the right authority to have their grievance error, their concern articulated to the boss. So somebody isn't getting the way. So you can go up to the chain.

And I can actually skip my boss. It's rudimentary in this example, but I can skip my boss and go to the big boss if I need to request mass. And like he was describing, it can almost be like he used like a threat or like, I'm going to request. That said Captain's Mass. No. That is different. Captain's Master's. That's in the other direction.

That's like Echo, you did something dumb and you lost equipment or you did something dumb, got in trouble. Now you're going to Captain's Mass. Okay. So it's like, okay, got it. But this one is, this one is like, you know, I'm in an argument with Dave. Dave is my boss. And I think Dave's making us do a dumb plan. And I could literally say, I'm requesting Captain's.

Matt, I'm requesting you asked. I'd be like, Jocko, you're not on duty tomorrow, but you're going to come in. And it's like Christmas Day or something. And you're like, no, I'm not on duty and I don't have to do that. And like, this is the duty roster and I have the day off. I'm like, nope, you're coming in. And he, in theory, could be like, I'm going to go over your head and I'm going to go to the boss and say like, hey, I think he's treating me unfairly. And that way he's not a victim by my really awful leadership of making him do something that's dumb or not fair.

So it's like, or it is an official, like, what do you call protocol? To go above the chain or whatever. That's it. Off discussed. Rarely executed. When we had that mutiny, that was kind of like that. It wasn't quite official because,

but we were like, hey, we want to talk to the skipper. And we went to talk to the skipper. But it wasn't like we didn't have to go to the fall. There was another time. There was almost like a request mast scenario that someone was talking about. But I don't remember what it was. All right.

Uh, purpose of the Marine NCO in the chain of command. The Marine NCO, non-commissioned officer is the lowest rank link in the chain of command. The first purpose of that link is to carry the orders and information passed from the NCO's immediate supervisor to the NCO's support. And pass requests from the Marines up the chain of command. And let me give you a little hint to everybody. You're going to be translating what is said down the chain of command and translating what is said back. up the chain of command. So if I'm working for Dave and Echo works for me and Echo says, this is the dumbest thing we've ever done. I say, hey, sir, we'd like to reconsider the way

approach that we're taking. And when when Dave says, tell those guys to shut up and do what I told him to do, I say, hey, Echo, I did brief the skipper about this and we're going to go ahead, we want to proceed with what we've been directed to. So you're going to do translation. And your translation, you're actually buffering the friction that's going to be there because it's definitely going to be there. In this manner, the NCO is a link between Marine subordinates and their commanding officer. As this link, the NCO is responsible for enforcing the orders of the commands, orders and commands of the commanding officer.

The NCO accomplishes this by assigning tasks and then supervising work. That's what, you know, I mentioned that this is coming out in the year 2000, and you can see it's, and we're going to get to some part where they go more decentralized. And they're using the term decentralized, but what we're reading is not decentralized. This is orders and execution and following duties, right? That's the way this reads. And again, this is aimed at a very low rank. It's written in here somewhere,

but this is aimed at like corporals and Lance corporals, like E1s, E2s, E3s, maybe E4s. Yeah, and I didn't read that opening piece. But when I hear NCO in the Marine Corps, a corporal in the Marine Corps is an NCO. That's actually not common across. So I see this as a way to teach enlisted Marines, E1, E2, E3, private,

Lance Corps, a private, private, private first glass Lance Corpull, how to one day become an NCO. And I'm hearing it's like, man, this is rudimentary. It's almost like they're doing it on purpose. Like, they're describing decentralized command in a way that's actually not decentralized command because it's so rudimentary. Like, don't tell people what to do,

but I got, okay, I think what they're trying to explain is like, this is how it works in the Cheney Command. It's really low level in the way that's described. When a subordinate is given a task to supervise, the NCO must also give the Marine enough authority to accomplish the task, but overall responsibility remains with the NCO. Remember, then here's a great point. As a supervisor in the Marines or civilian life, you can delegate authority, but you can never delegate responsibility. And this is something we talk about giving ownership. You know, when I give ownership to Dave to go and accomplish a project and he messes it up, I still own the failure.

So a second purpose of the Marine NCO is to train Marines to perform their assigned tasks. This training usually in the Marines MOS is a combination of on-the-job training and classroom instruction. The Marine NCO must be able to demonstrate and teach. More important, he must inspire the Marines, making them want to learn the skills he's expected to master. Or they expected to master. And the third purpose is to ensure close supervision and personal guidance of junior Marines. And this part disturbed me. Without a supervising NCO,

many tasks would not be finished properly, if at all. The personal guidance provides a junior marine with someone else to turn to with help for personal problems or finances. So we don't like that. We, meaning me. I don't know if you do it. I say, I don't like it.

I understand exactly what you're saying. So you don't want to have a group of people who unless they are supervised closely, they don't do things right. That means I'm failing in like 19 different ways. Yeah, the leader. So that's not our goal. Our goal is not to just have everything so supervised

that it gets done. Because if we're supervising that closely, well, then we're too close to the problem and we aren't seeing the other things. We're not seeing the big picture. And by the way, why do we have troops that aren't doing what they're supposed to do? So if you're a leader in an organization,

if you're working at a company and the only way things get done properly is if they are being strictly supervised, this is a horrible sign. You need to start going down the path of giving more ownership, giving more autonomy, giving people parameters, giving them mission type orders, which means telling them what needs to get done, why it needs to get done, but not how to do it. That's what we're going to go for. Yeah. You said it already and I was thinking about this.

this, the concept of decentralized command and how it's different from, I tell you, you tell your subordinate, you tell your, like, that is not decentralized command. That's the direction of which the things flow in the chain of command, if you want to use that from a hierarchy. But I just, I can't help but think about the timing of this, like October of, sorry, October of 2000. Yeah. Like that's like 9-10. It's like right before 9-11. And before that was like Desert Storm, which, listen, Desert Storm was legit.

but it was like four days long. Like, and so you have an era here. And what I had, what I wrote down is like DC works. Decentralized command works. But it doesn't, it doesn't become as, is, it doesn't reveal the necessity of it until you're an environment, but which nothing else will work other than decentralized command. And in Garrison, you can kind of, you can kind of power your way through. You can, you are, you can still micromanage.

and chain of command lead in garrison. And if you spend a like a career in garrison, what they're describing, and this is not to defend it. Like you just, you said it well, like this is not, we don't want to do this. But unless you've been in a situation like combat, like, oh crap. The only way that the only way we will be successful is if we have real decentralized command, mission type orders jacca goes and makes things happen because all we know is the outcome and I can't help him with anything else because he's off doing his thing.

You don't understand how, not just how, it is, but how it actually works. And there's these little, there's these like little, little pieces of like, Garrison leadership inside it. Even, it's like, oh, that's the wrong word. Don't use that word, it's the wrong word. And without the context of knowing when and how it works,

and I know it's kind of like, arrogant to say the real world, but I'll talk about combat. Without that, you are gonna use the words that they're using and they're not the right words. The psychology of military incompetence, that book was so, spot on and it was able to capture sort of the things that I always thought about. But the fact that in the garrison environment, you can totally micromanage.

You can totally micromanage. It's like if you work at a restaurant and you only have, like you've got, you've got 10 tables and, hey, here's the rules at our restaurant. Only five tables are going to be filled at a time. We've got five tables. We actually have five waiters and we've got five cooks. And boom, waiters going to talk to that cook and okay, cool. Yep.

Hey, do you get them what they need? Yep. Everything's like you micromanage everything. You can, hey, bring them their bread. Bring the table that bread. You know, you can do it. Do they get their drinks? You can micromanage everything in a restaurant that has five tables, five waiters,

and five cooks because everything is just going to work. And even when someone says, you know, hey, can I get extra onions? Like, no, no, no, that's not on the menu. You can't get that. Now, if you go to a real restaurant, like a big restaurant, a bunch of different people and they're like, those waiters are going to have to make some decisions. The cooks are going to be like, all right, we're going to get this done. Hey, run over to Vons and grab some extra milk.

Because that stuff's got to happen. People got to make decisions. So in the garrison environment, you can micromanage things. But as soon as you get into a dynamic environment, as soon as you get into a combat environment, you have to use decentralized command 100%. And in any organization that's going to progress, you have to use decentralized command. So yes, if you work at a completely controlled environment,

you can micromanage. It's not going to be as efficient, but it is a feasible thing. Yeah. It's not going to be as efficient, but it's going to be a feasible thing. As soon as you get to any kind of dynamic environment, you're going to fall apart if you try and micromanage.

everything just the way things work all right four areas of NCO responsibility your country one responsibility as a Marine NCO to your country is to demonstrate behavior that dignifies the United States of America and the American people for example when you're in a foreign country conduct yourself in such a way that the people of that country will not be offended convey the feeling that you are an ally and are in their country as a guest, friend, and protector of freedom. Not every Marine read that section when I was in the SEAL teams in the 1990s on ships with the Marines pulling into port. The Marine Corps, as a Marine NCO, it is your duty to be loyal to the Marine Corps policies. You have responsibility to develop leadership skills, professional knowledge, and proficiency.

You develop this skill, knowledge, and professionally through on-the-job experience, reading, taking correspondence courses, attending service schools, and by seeking new tasks. You also have the responsibility presenting a favorable image of the United States Marines to both public and our sister services. Community activity and friendly inter-service competitions are ways of presenting a favorable image. Check. Organization, your responsibilities to your own organization are many. One important responsibility is training Marines as a team and developing that team's loyalties.

And it says here, to achieve good teamwork, a unit must show unhesitating response to orders and regulations. You accomplish this by demanding discipline within your unit by taking responsibility at all times for the conduct of your Marines. So they're going hard in the paint for the garrison life. Yeah. You're bummed out, you gave me this book, aren't you?

Well, no, I think it's awesome because I'm like, I can't help us like, I know what you're trying to say. That's what I'm telling myself. I'm like, I hear what you're saying. I know what you're trying to say. And so inside that and you do a good job, Like you can pull out the components of like, this is really what you need to be doing. And so words like demanding, we're not going to say that.

But in the end, I go, oh, I know what they're getting at. So I think it's actually a really cool exercise to go through this and other things and actually look and go, hey, this is what they're talking about here. This is a better way to do that or this is a way to pull out what the lesson could be, even though it's not explained very well or not written very well. And they decided it's like, it'd be better if they just did it, said it differently. And so, like, this book is awesome and everything's perfect in here, which is not. The crazy thing is we've covered so many Marine Corps manuals where they literally are perfect. I mean, you read war fighting and it's just like, okay, yep, this is a, don't change a word. And as a matter of fact, embrace this and put it into you every aspect of your life.

Yeah, and maybe the thing about this. And, dude, we always talk about this. We always try to picture the room of the people that are like in here writing this and who these people are. I wonder if they, like, it's a. almost like you fall into the trap of like, oh, these young Marines, they need to be, they need to have it explain to them at some. And it's like not like you don't need to do that quite so much. Like I almost feel like they fell in the trap of, oh, these kids are so young. They're so uneducated. They're so inexperienced. We have to make this so rudimentary that they actually don't do it

correctly as opposed like, no, we need to explain this the way you'd explain it to anybody, whether you're the CEO of a giant company. Now, is there differences? Sure, depending on a lay of leadership, but it's almost like they make it too narrow because they maybe don't think the audience would understand it. Well, I'm going to go one step further. I think you're right where they're like, hey, we're telling these guys what they need to do is shut up and unhesitatingly follow all orders. Yeah.

That's basically it. Like you're going to get told what to do and you should do it immediately. Right. That's what they're saying. That's literally what it says. Unhesitating response to orders and regulations. Like, that's what it's saying. Now, listen.

Is there an element of that in any? organization sure however unhesitatingly what what we're getting at is I'm not going to question anything that I'm told that this is the last thing I actually want totally and if I'm dealing with a brand new guy that doesn't know anything I still want him to go hold on sir can you explain to me why we're doing it this way because I want him to know that yeah and they don't they don't reveal the fact there's a balance in any of this or dichotomy because there's actually examples you give where you're like hey do this and actually you need your people to respond right away

And when they don't, you need to realize, oh damn, they know something. I don't know. And there's a reason they're not doing it unhesitatingly. So even inside that, there's a balance in that dichotomy that's just not revealed. So you're going to read and go, whatever the word, do exactly what I say when I say it. I know what you're saying, but that's not right. What podcast did we talk about, Colonel Pogue? What were you doing?

It was one of those Marine Corps, I believe it was one of those manuals in which. you were picturing. Like there was one guy kept throwing in a sentence. And like it was like the last paragraph of each section. It was all these awesome paragraphs in this morning like, that sucks. That's not right. And you pictured like that guy in charge was Colonel Pogue who took all like through his

junior Marines awesome writing. And he's like, I'm going to make sure they also know at the end. The person in charge still gets to do what he wants to do with some garbage like that. And it was that I don't remember which one was that Colonel Pogue. Yeah. And if you don't know what a Pogue is,

that's a slang military term for like the rear echelon person. That's all authoritarian leadership style and never does anything real. That's the poke and speaking of Colonel Polk unit courtesy is clearly related to the unit's discipline and cooperation An example of unit courtesy is coming to attention for an officer This is like so pre 9-11 unit courtesy as a special and practical use often instructions for a mission must be given in noisy surroundings time and effort are saved for if If the commander has the attention of all Marines at once rather than waiting for Marines to be quiet, the officers should not be expected to shout over the voices of the Marines and compete with the surrounding noise too. So like, you see they put a nice element of truth in there like, oh yeah, oh, you're kind of like, yeah, yeah. But also you're like thinking, mm-hmm.

It's like telling you, it's, and there is, I am a believer that there is truth that being a good follower is to get you on the path of being a good leader. Like being a good follower is important. And there's just this this overarching piece of how to be a followers, like the foundation of this. Like, oh, when Colonel Burke walks in Reuter stand at attention, like, oh, Roger that, you know, like, I know what you're saying. But, yeah, that followership in there is like this blind obedience is not what you want from your people. When the skipper would, when we'd be getting ready to do, like, at Seal Team 1, when I got to Seal Team 1, and the skipper would come and talk to everyone like we'd all be in the classroom. And when the skipper would walk in, they'd say feet. That's what they'd say.

Did they say that to you guys? Tension on deck, but they'd say feet. I was like that because it was a big change from, you know, you go to boot camp and it's a tension on deck, attention on deck. And you get to the Seale Team One and I'm young Jocko in there. Like, you're all standing by and he comes in here, feet. And you were just like, boom. And I was motivated by some weird stuff when I was younger. Developing unit loyalty is another of your responsibilities to your organization.

Just as you must ensure loyalty toward Marine Corps policies, You must ensure your Marines have loyalty toward the organization's policies. It's kind of strange to be talking about policies like in this book at this juncture. I don't know. Like, let's talk about combat people. Let's talk about every Marines a rifleman. And belief in the mission. Yes.

And taking care of your brothers. Is that what you're talking about? Is that what you mean? Yeah. Do you mean, do you mean take care of your fellow Marine? Is that what you mean here? Totally. Is that what you mean by?

If unit PT is required, this is how you know. This is how you know. If unit PT is required, you must conduct real PT session. You can't just go through the motions, making each assigned task as interesting as possible, and doing each task enthusiastically will help you develop your unit loyalty. Okay. We'll give it to them. Subordinates as a Marine NCO, you have certain responsibilities to your subordinates.

It's a qualifier of certain, right? You have certain responsibilities to subordinates. Actually, you're 100% responsible to your subordinates. You must train subordinates in their MOS to develop the proficiency and skills Marine. The Marine Corps needs. Often proficiency in MOS means life and death, either to the individual Marine or to another Marine. You must educate your subordinates in the military skills and encourage individual self-improvement. You must be aware of educational opportunities and the unit's policies to know where to direct Marines desiring aid.

Cool. They want to educate their Marines. This is, this is when you invest in your people, when you, you know, when you're working at a bank and you got a teller and you're like, hey, we can pay for your, you know, to get your CPA and you can become a financial advisor. Like, when you set people up and you invest in them, you want to talk about developing loyalty. That's how you develop loyalty. You take care of your people. Invest in their education. Give them more opportunity. Talk to them about what it's going to get to get them promoted.

It says here, perhaps the most important of the responsibilities of the NCO towards subordinates is taking care of their physical needs. These needs include quarters and food. You have no control over building, which is an interesting thing to say. You have no control over building. Okay. But you can ensure that the assigned areas are as good as the situation allows by enforcing high standards of police cleanliness and discipline. You can make the quarters as comfortable as possible with. With building you have no control over food preparation

But by ensuring that the Marines are on time for meals and improper uniform You can make meals more pleasant I'm starting to lose it dude I'm starting to lose it well here's it here's one thing that's crazy me I get it man I have no you have no control that right there I've I don't think I've ever told a person in my life you have no control over this particular thing right I don't think I've ever I don't think I've ever told I certainly would never teach a group of individual human beings you have no control over your building I was like oh wait a second what you're talking about we don't like where we live okay

what can we do to fix it what we can do to make it better well let's let's let's get together and explain what the shortfalls are so we can pass up the chain of command so we can get some improvements we want you know to get this the the sink in the bathroom to stop dripping cool we I do that maintenance myself like what I have no You have no control over what you eat. Really? No control over what you eat. Like maybe today, but if I'm going to live here and I'm in this chow hall

and you don't think that I can raise problems and get things fixed and adjusted and moved, please don't tell me I have no control over something. There you go. I'm firing up a bunch of Marines right now are getting fired up. This is the first time the Marine Corps at large is going to be mad at me. Everyone's going to be going to the chow hall like, we want steak. Semper five brothers, you deserve steak. In the field you will be the last one to eat check

You can take care of your Marines needs by ensuring that all problems such as those in quarters maintenance food quality and food quantity are brought to the attention of the media super So you have control come on Marines like everybody else need relaxation recreation time is made available for all Marines organized organizational sports and unit get together's our ways of letting Marines relax mentally and physically you must ensure that Marines get their fair share of liberty this responsibility to your subordinate Marines is as of much such importance that it will be discussed in a later separate lesson before you can expect the most of your subordinate Marines you must ensure their well-being

Take care of your team and they will take care of you take care of your people and they will take care of you Mayhem out there importance of leadership why'd you hand me this manual just to make me like frustrated It sounds worse you know you know sometimes I've I've told you I've told both you guys like we'll read a book like when it especially early on when I'd read a book for the the podcast and I would it first happened with the forgotten Highlander I was reading that book and I was like damn this is a pretty heavy book but when I read it out loud it was so amplified in my head you know it's so much more emotional and so much more harsh when I was reading this a few days ago I read it on a plane and I was like that's kind of funny but now it's like actually cracking me up check all

right leadership in general importance of leadership why is leadership so important. The answer to this question is simple. Without leadership, nothing requiring teamwork can be accomplished. Check. Before you can talk effectively about leadership, you must know what leadership means. There are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are leaders. The definition that combines all the ideas is simply this. The sum of those qualities of intellect, human understanding, and moral character that enables a person to inspire and control a group of people successfully. Can we come up with a different word than control? Maybe.

Just maybe we can use the word influence. Yeah. But they use the word control. Totally. Yeah. So again, we're talking garrison mindset. Like, I'm going to get my waiters to do exactly what I tell them to do because I have control over everything and I can control them. Not a good sign.

That's so funny, man. Yeah. There, I don't remember the exact saying, but there's like this metaphor of like when someone's, sort of in the right area, but off the mark, they'll say something like, and I wish I could remember it like you did in the right front. You're shooting, you're shooting on the right target,

which means I'm on paper. I'm sure, yeah, but I'm missing the, the mark or whatever. It's like, if I'm way off, I'm like shooting on somebody else's target.

Like, that's a real problem. So I can't help with like, I know what you're, you're sort of in the right, like you're pointed at the right place, but you're, you're hitting all over the,

you're not off. the target, but you're off the mark. We would say in the teams like, you're on paper. Okay. Meaning like there's a bull's eye that's a little black thing. Yeah, yeah. And then there's like rings around it. Yes.

You're not in the rings, but there's a broader like big giant piece of paper at the butts at Penn. Penelton or an island and it's like, okay, you're, actually, you're on paper. I mean you're hitting it. Yeah. You're off the mark. Yeah. You have shooting on the right target, which is like if Echo's like shooting at someone else's

target, like okay, we need like, this is a whole different problem. But I just get like you are not hitting the target but but you're on the press I know what you're trying to say but you're just they're on paper but they got some they got some make some adjustments and and that difference is is 20 years of war it's like yeah yeah yeah and that difference on being on paper versus being that's a kill shot versus not you know you're you're all going to die because you can't shoot straight totally man crazy elements of leadership and you know what's funny is you're going to see we're not going to cover this whole manual but you're going to see when they get. back to sort of fundamentals. It seems like they're trying to explore new territory here. That's what it seems like to me. You can almost picture like, hey, go back and come up with, you know,

like the best example you can. Yeah. And they're like, okay. Okay. I remember this time when I was like the mess hall. Like they're not remembering Raleadi or Fallujah or Baghdad or they're remembering cooking or like,

which is fine. But that's all they have in their repository to come out of like, oh, the scenarios that they want to use to illustrate these. examples they don't have you know the examples yeah and what the problem here's the problem with those examples the problem isn't the example of being being logisticians in the marine corps and cooking in the marine corps god bless you and in the navy god bless you the problem is they're not the dynamic situations that demand the type of leadership that we know to be effective so it just doesn't work as well

If you are cooking in a combat environment, you're talking about how these people need to make decisions on what they're going to put forward. Like those are things that's decentralized command. It's the only way it's going to work. How are you going to get food to four, four platoons are in four different locations right now? Right.

Doing like crazy 24-7 operate. Yeah, totally. Elements of leadership, this definition does not mention the military because leadership is not exclusive to the military. We concur. Leadership is necessary wherever two or more people get together to perform a common test.

Check the leader's primary purpose is to ensure that the job is done or in the words of the military The mission is accomplished three essential elements are needed to perform the role of a leader The leader is the first essential element the second element leadership is the group and the third is the situation and I'm not gonna cover this because Again this is something that I'd never seen before and it seemed like maybe somebody had an idea And the ideas that in these for leadership to happen there has to be a leader there has to be a group and there has to be to be a situation and that's what leadership is. So I get it, but we're not going to spend a bunch of time on it. The objective of military leadership.

The United States military has the mission of keeping our country free. To accomplish this mission, strong military leadership is essential. Marines are all potential leaders and military leadership should be important to everyone. The objective or goal of military leadership is the creation and maintenance of an organization which will loyally and willingly accomplish any reasonable task assigned or indicated and will initiate suitable action in the absence of orders. So what's interesting is it's interesting that it says the goal of military leadership and it doesn't really say anything about war and combat.

That's number one. Because that's what the military is for, by the way, is for war and combat. And it can do a bunch of other things as well. And it does. Here's another thing. willingly, loyally and willingly accomplish any reasonable task. You know what that should be? It should be legal task, right?

Because we want to make sure that people are doing things that are within the code of contact, within the law of land warfare. And then they get it right at the end, which is suitable action in the absence of orders. That's like the tiniest sliver of what we want. Yeah. Even in the beginning, like, I think it said something like all Marines are potential leaders. Like, stop. All Marines are leaders.

Yeah. Just as something as simple. Marines are all potential leaders. No. No, everybody beats. Every Marine is a leader. Yes. Every one of you.

Yes. Yeah. Totally. It's like you said. They're on paper. They're on the paper. We get what you're saying. Yeah.

We hear what you're saying. Three reasons for military leadership. The first reason is the coordination of people and activities within a unit. That is getting the. right people to do the right job okay that's good without such coordination capable people will not be assigned the right tasks okay second reason for military leadership is to hold a military unit together a military unit is made up of people organized to accomplish a mission that requires a successful

completion of a series of tasks when the unit is deployed a number of set tasks must be assigned and completed again it's all top down this is like this is the top down manual The unit must be inspected to ensure readiness. Training schedules must be prepared and logistics plans must be made up. Because it would be difficult for one leader to do all things alone. Unit leaders are needed. Okay, so we want a little decentralized command.

Thank you. In the Marine Corps, these unit leaders form a chain of command from the commandant on down to the smallest unit. So third reason for military leadership is to ensure a unit's success. The unit achieves success by accomplishing the assigned mission. through demonstration, motivation, and hard work, leaders ensure that all missions are accomplished. A leader's failure to ensure that subordinates accomplish their task leads to the failure of the unit to accomplish its mission

and thus failure of the military service and carrying out a larger mission. And if the military service fails, our country and way of life are in danger. Okay. Somebody cool wrote that little section and didn't get too heavily edited by Colonel Pogue. Responsibilities of leadership. Leadership implies responsibility

within the military structure, there are two general areas of responsibility for every leader in every situation. They are, one, the responsibility for ensuring that the mission is accomplished and two, the responsibility to the subordinates who work to accomplish that mission. Excellent, right?

Completion of the mission is the first priority of leadership. I swear, I was just about to say, I wish he had just reversed those two in the previous paragraph, like the way he wrote it in order. And here's the thing. these two the men and the mission the subordinates and the mission taking care of the and and putting the mission as the priority listen there are times and that's that's what the military does

the military has to sacrifice or at least put at risk their troops in order to accomplish the mission sometimes but if you continually put the mission above the troops You won't have any more troops and by the way you'll probably have a mutiny as well Totally because if you're just throwing people to die to accomplish the mission Then they're gonna rebel against you Yeah, I mean this is I mean this is an ongoing debate this conversation I've heard and been a part of and listen to Countless times all throughout my military career and even to now even in business You know this mission or people debate and

And I remember when I was out, I was on an exchange with the Air Force when the Air Force changed their motto. And I think the motto became, motto is the wrong word. Not their motto, but some guiding principle that said like, yeah, like it's, they ended up becoming like resolving to like mission first people always. And the way I, I heard that was like, yeah, it's really hard to articulate. This is more important than that. I mean, obviously, we have to achieve the mission. the concept of the people, if you want to say the people are the mission or the people are first, it's actually in the vein of making sure the mission gets done.

It's not to subordinate the mission over the people. It's to recognize as the number one thing I have for me to make sure that I'm successful in my mission, which you could say is the most important thing, is my people. And if you can recognize that, then all of a sudden you don't, this isn't a debate of like what's more important than the other. But if you get them out of order, you undermine your ability to be successful in that mission because without your people, it will not happen. And in fact, the best thing I can do to be successful in my mission is put my people ahead of myself and the chance of me being successful in the mission go up. The other thing is, when you accomplish your mission, even with sacrifice, you should. it should be a win for everyone.

So if you're doing missions where there's not like every single person to be saying, yes, this is what I want to do because I want to take, I want to protect our way of life. I want to protect freedom. I want to protect my family. I want to protect my country in order to do that. I want to do this mission. So when you accomplish, when you execute, you plan and execute and execute and accomplish a mission, you have the mission is taking care of the people, right?

That's what should be happening. You shouldn't be going, oh, we're going to go and do this mission, but no one in my platoon will benefit. Every single person in your platoon should benefit from executing a mission because you're protecting their families, their way of life. Like, that's what we're doing. And nowhere is that more true than in combat. And that's how that manifests itself. That's how it becomes to be so real. When you're in a leadership position is that concept of the meaning behind those mission is like, you would never send your seals out on a

a mission that didn't do anything to accomplish the mission. And in that same vein, you wrote about it, that is the core of that is the ultimate dichotomy is you care about your people enough that you know when you send them out there, they might not come back and the balance of inside that. But that reveals itself and magnifies itself so much in war, that understanding of what am I actually having to go to? And I wouldn't waste an ounce of human life on something that doesn't actually help us win. But if it does, the risk. of that as they don't come back. Yeah.

Gets into this section here, leadership styles. There are two extremes in leadership styles. The authoritarian, autocratic, and the persuasive, democratic. Each leader is free to choose a style of leadership. Oh, the choice of leadership style is influenced by the situation, the subordinates and the leader's personality. Authoritarian style the authoritarian leader leads by personal control Characteristics of the authoritarian leader style are as file are as follows

Let's support let's subordinates know he is in charge Makes subordinates into a team but remains outside the team membership Tell subordinates what to do and how to do it makes all decisions without asking for suggestions And then there's the persuasive style. The persuasive leader uses personality to lead and influence subordinates. Characteristics of the persuasive leadership style are as follows. Doesn't emphasize that he's in charge. Develops subordinates into a team of which the leader is a member.

Asks subordinates to do their jobs, makes the decision, but asks for, listens to, and sometimes takes subordinates. advice. Oh, it's beautiful. I like how even in the extreme example of the persuasive style, it's sometimes going to take the advice and still have to make sure that he's making the decision. Yeah. So that's good stuff. And it says that the two styles of leadership mentioned above are the extremes.

Each style has its bad and good points. What are the good points of the first one? Like letting everyone know I'm in charge, making people in a team, but not being a part of it, telling supporters what to do and how to do it and making decisions without. There's like, there's no upside in there. Dang, man. And how about like, oh, hey, by the way, you're, Jocko, you're free to pick whatever you want to do this as outdo.

Not one is good and one is bad. Yeah, it just, you know, you can pick which one. As displayed in front of subordinates, the authoritarian must be perfect or the subordinates will lose respect for the leader. That's a great that's you so hey look if you want to be authoritarian obviously just be perfect That's you know hey just go ahead and be perfect The persuasive leader must be very alert that subordinates won't play on friendships to get out of doing their work Oh gosh very few marine leaders are strictly authoritarian or strictly persuasive so we finally get a taste of some dichotic balance Most of them fall somewhere between the two styles taking bits and pieces from each the pieces used from each style are determined by the

individual leader, the subordinates in the situation at the time. Every Marine from private to general needs leadership, whether Marines are aware of it or not. They seek leadership and it goes in to talk about these tangible reasons for needing leadership and intangible reasons for leading ship. The tangible things are like training, instruction, physical necessities like your shelter and your food. Those are why you need leadership because you won't build to get them on your own, I guess. incentives you want to fulfill the need for incentives and challenges that's why you need

leadership the intangible ones are you have the people have the the desire for adventure and security and belonging and recognition so those were not going to spend a bunch of times on those things and we into the leaders code lesson six the leaders code to be an effective leader you must know your profession professional strengths and weaknesses the leader's code is a guideline to use in making an honest evaluation of yourself in leadership. After you determine these areas, you can improve weak areas and exploit the strong areas. I didn't think we were going to have this much fun with this.

Here's a good example, like the leader's code. This is obviously a big deal, and you've never heard of it before, and it didn't make it out of this book. It's not horrible, but I become a leader by what I do. This is the leader's code. I become a leader by what I do. I know my strengths and my weaknesses,

and I strive constantly for self-improvement. I live by a moral code with which I set by an example that others can emulate. I know my, isn't there a little bit of arrogance in that statement? I'm just wondering. Hey, you know what I'm just going to, I'll be over here just setting an example that you guys can emulate. You guys good? I know my job and I carry out the spirit as well as the letter of the orders I receive. I take initiative and seek responsibilities and I face situations with boldness and confidence.

I estimate the situations and make my own decisions as to the best. course of action. No matter what the requirements, I stay with the job until the job is done. No matter what the results, I assume full responsibilities. Cool. I train my men as a team and lead them with tact and enthusiasm and with justice. I command their confidence and their loyalty. Interesting. You see the word. They know that I would not assign them any duty. I would myself would not perform. Check. I see that they understand their orders. and I follow through energetically to ensure that their duties are fully discharged.

I keep my men informed, check, and I make their welfare one of my prime concerns. Check. These things I do selflessly in fulfillment of the obligations of leadership for the achievement of the life, of the group goal, check. So make their welfare one of your prime concerns. This should be up there somewhere, you know.

And then you're supposed to do like a self-evaluation according to this code. An interesting concept. And you know, look, obviously I'm skipping through, but they've got like suggested activities that you can do. At some time in your career, you've been assigned a job which both you and your senior know you could do. For some reason, your senior stood over your shoulder

and kept telling you how to do it. The senior did not trust you with the authority of that job. How did that make you feel? To make matters worse, you discovered later that the job should not have been done in the way that you were instructed to do it, and your supervisor seemed to hold it against you that he was getting.

For the job what can you learn for it gives you a bunch of little examples which some of them are pretty good And then it gives you a test and little exercises to do so that's how you you complete these books Developing leaders leadership traits and principles and this is where you get to sort of fundamental more pragmatic stuff that is taken from more historical Yeah, I'm guessing doctrine when you get into traits and principles, those are, I'm guessing those are going to be like the traditional, like, ubiquitous Marine Corps, JJ did tieboggled, those type of things that have stood the test of time. Nature of leadership traits, leadership traits are individual characteristics, proper understanding of the 14

leadership traits will help you gain and respect, confidence, willing, obedience, and cooperation of your Marines. The purpose of leadership traits, the purpose of the 14 leadership traits is to help you set guidelines for yourself by a evaluating your own personality and with respect to your leadership traits. You can find personal strengths and weaknesses of leadership by following traits as a guide. You can exploit your strong traits and develop your weaker leadership traits. And then it talks about leadership principles as well. And here's the 14 leadership traits. Number one is integrity.

And it gives you a definition of what integrity is, but then it tells you sort of how to execute integrity. as leader you must have on question integrity honesty a sense of duty moral principles must be placed above all else you must be totally trustworthy for subordinates to have faith in you and for your seniors to have confidence in you the trade of integrity is developed by following four practices here's these four practices practice practice absolute honesty and be trustworthy at all times not only with yourself but with others never shade the truth be accurate and truthful in all statements don't tell your supervisors only what you think they want to hear tell it as is but tactfully stand for what you you believe, even if your belief is an unpopular one, place honesty and duty above all else. So that's the number one thing, integrity. Obviously very important.

Next one is knowledge. Nothing will gain confidence and respect of your subordinates more than quickly demonstrating knowledge. And it talks about correspondence courses and reading newspapers for current events and having discussions with experienced people. And it gives you the things to do. Read all kinds of articles and take courses. Listen to experience people.

Ask questions. The next trait is courage. Courage, the physical and mental control of fear is essential to leadership. Courage is a mental quality that allows you to recognize fear, yet enables you to meet danger or opposition with calmness and firmness. Courage is a quality of mind that gives you personal control, enabling you to accept responsibility and act in a dangerous situation. You show physical courage when you continue to perform in the face of personal danger. Physical courage also means controlling your emotions. You show moral courage when you stand up for and enforce decisions that are right even in the face of popular disfavor.

Admitting errors takes real moral courage to develop the leadership trade of courage and you need to do the following. It's funny that admitting errors is put on the pedestal of needing real moral courage. That kind of shows you the mental attitude of whoever's right. I'd be like, hey, bro, I mean, that's like one-on-one. There's no moral courage and saying, hey, you know what I made? I made a mistake here. For this dude, he's like, bro, you need so much moral courage to say, I was. was wrong.

This is a good one though. Place duty over your personal desires or feelings. Look for and accept responsibilities. Speak in a calm tone. Keep an orderliness in your thought process and not make any physical danger or hardship bigger than it really is. Stand for what is right. Even in the face of popular disfavor.

Never blame others for your mistakes. Check. recognize fear but control your emotions so there you go courage decisiveness I think we might I mean we might even call it like you never you ever met in a game where you're like all right dude hey we just need to walk away right now like we're calling the game this one might do it to Dave Burke it might do it to me I don't know so here we go next thing is decisiveness decisiveness is the ability to weigh all the facts in a situation analyze the facts and then arrive at a sound and timely decision.

But before you make a decision, you must be sure that you have all the facts. Decisiveness is largely a matter of practice and experience to develop the trade of decisiveness. So here's why we're laughing at that. There is no situation where you have all the facts. Doesn't exist. I mean, even the word facts is a strong word to use. In combat, facts is a word you probably shouldn't even use.

Yeah, just insert combat into that scenario and no combat leader would would they just wouldn't articulate it that way because all you're doing is recognizing you have to make decisions with the void of all sorts of useful information. That's just the nature of it. Forget about facts. Just like basic scenario understanding of what's going on, which is why decentralized command is so important because the close you are the more. Yeah, this one is almost like maybe you're off the target a little bit like no, no, this is on the paper I'll give it to you. This isn't like you, you just you didn't even hit the berm, bro. Yeah. Yeah. You missed. You had a misfire. So interesting. But, you know, when you look at the military in the 80s and 90s and look at you, but you and I were both in the nights where this isn't me pointing the finger. This is mean. This is what we did was, hey, We need to know everything.

We would plan these big missions with a 96-hour planning cycle. That was the standard in the SEAL teams. Right. Did you guys have a standard? I actually think there was, I know that phrase the 96-hour planning. 96-hour planning cycle. So if you wanted to go conduct a direct-action mission, you need to have a 96-hour planning cycle.

I have literally conducted direct-action missions with seven minutes and go and launch. Like, that's what we got to. Yeah. So, and if you think I had, quote, all the facts, bro, we had like a rough grid of where the target might be update us as we move. Well, we had, I mean, I think the term QRF is somewhat universal, like the quick reaction for us. We had a standing QRF all the time, which had a very short five minutes. We had some number, like it was five minutes, at some period of time from the time that got triggered to launch the QRF was a very, very short period of time, minutes, whatever it was. the most likelihood of direct action

happened on those Q. Like if you will launch on a QRF, you were going to get into some fight somehow. And you had no, there's no, I mean, you'd best you're like, you're like yelling at the turret gunner,

who might not even be your turret gunner because he's not actually like, he's in the chow hall, like, dude, we've got to launch. And so even inside that, and listen, somebody wrote this and, and that guy might even be listening to this.

Best intention. Best intentions fully in, every way, as I hear this, I keep telling myself, I understand what you're saying. That said, and I don't want this to become like a lesson of, oh, if you're not in combat, you don't understand this. That's not the point at all. Actually, the opposite is true is the point behind that is the recognition of all these things that you feel like you want to control when you get in the dynamic environment in business,

in raising your kids and having a relationship with somebody and in combat and all things, is the recognition is that you can't do any of these things. You can't do any of these things. So I don't want to be like Dave's over here like, oh, because I was in war. I know all this stuff. It's the recognition of how much less you can dictate and how much more you have to rely on the people around you, which is why I think the frustration or some of there's the humor coming out of like, bro, did you just say control? Like you can't control what they do.

Did you just say dictate? You can't dictate to them what they do. And I think inside that is why I'm laughing at this. But in all seriousness, the intention behind that, I understand that. And I had this sense of like, you're like pulling someone from the boot camp scenario and starting to like ease them into the real Marine Corps. And listen, boot camp and OCS, those are authoritarian experiences. Nobody's like, hey, hey, Jocko, what would you? Nobody's doing.

Nobody's asking what you want to do. And it's almost like they're pulling them into just like a step away from that. my take on this is as you lead and train your people and lead and train yourself, just behave, act, teach, and train the way you're supposed to without the sense of they're not capable of understanding or they're not capable of embracing the right type of leadership. You don't need to moderate moving away from authoritarianism. You should say, don't be an authoritarian leader.

Here's the reasons why. Not, hey, do what you want, however you want to do it, it's not good leadership. But if all you have is boot camp and do you want Marines to, to be a response to your work? Yeah, I do. I want my reins to do what I tell them to do. I understand why you're saying that. But how you make that happen isn't like telling them what to do.

So the gap that's inside there for me is the connection between where they might have come from. And I'm just assuming you pull this from boot camp, which is not the real world. It's not how you want to lead people and somehow trying to meet, like moderate them into the real Marine Corps. They've done. I'm guessing, obviously. I think Jim Webb, James Webb's son. He writes articles and he sent me an article that they've made some like significant changes in Marine Corps infantry training and They sounded outstanding and what it sounded like was it has shifted towards like what I when I ran training

What we did which was like really decentralized like it was gonna be mayhem. It was gonna be chaos and they're now hitting these Marines with those type of scenarios So that they're even more prepared. So that's a a great thing to hear and And, you know, again, it's just, it's interesting how we're going to drift, right? It's when you're in an environment where you can get away with things, you'll drift towards getting away with them. Yeah. And it's important. This is almost like a really good reminder. Like you said, it's like not like somebody wrote this with bad intentions.

But this is what we're drawn to. And the authoritarian mind is drawn to this even more. And the orderly mind is drawn to this even more. And the highly disciplined, which, as you know, obviously, discipline is like my favorite characteristic. And if you have too much discipline, you're going to fall apart in combat because this is not a disciplined environment.

Combat is not a discipline. You need discipline in combat, but things aren't going to happen the way you want them to happen. And they're not going to happen the way you expect them to happen. and the Marine that's been obeying you because he was scared of getting written up he's not going to listen to you now because you're telling him to go across the street

where there's a freaking machine gun fire going down and he's not going. Or he can't hear you or he didn't, you know, his radio got shot. There's a million things that are going to happen. Yeah. And you're setting him up to fail too. Yep.

So the less you can do as a leader and the more you allow your team to do, the better they're going to perform. So you're not going to have all the facts. Now it says this. Form the habit of considering several points of view for every problem. That's a good call. Learn from the mistakes of others.

That's a good call. Force yourself to make a decision and then check the decision to see if it's sound. Well, that's a good call. Talk to people and practice making your conversations logical and clear. That's a good call. So those are all positive. dependability a dependable leader is one who can be relied on to carry out any mission to the best of his or her personal ability cool it says the steps are practiced honest thinking

avoid making excuses we can go stronger than avoid we can actually say do not accomplish the assigned task regardless of the obstacles cool always be prompt to perform task the best of your ability yeah check be careful about making promises and personal deals but when you have made them build a reputation on keeping them what kind of personal deals are we talking about here I'm 100% sure maybe that's like on the civilian sector they're talking about like I'll sell you this car for 900 bucks initiative the trait of initiative is key to being a successful leader initiative is simply seeing what has to be done and doing it without having to be told to do it

Yes. As a Marine NCO, you must develop initiative not only in yourself but in your subordinates as well. Yes, your Marines will develop trust and respect when you take prompt action in meeting new situations. You develop initiative in subordinates. To develop initiative and subordinates, you should assign tasks according to the subordinates ability and experience. But once a task is assigned, don't tell subordinates how to do it unless they ask for suggestions. By allowing subordinates to do the job, it not only develops initiative but frees you to do other task yes we nailed one dude we nailed one good job closely related to

initiative is resourcefulness it goes on about that another side of the another side of initiative is the ability to anticipate simply stated this is the ability to foresee situations before they rise this prior knowledge gives you a chance to plan for the event and have preparations ready to deal with situations great and then just talks about it giving you an advantage to here's this here's the steps develop and maintain a state of mental and physical alertness look for tasks to do for a lot task to be done without being told to do them practice thinking and planning ahead anticipate situations for they're

great the next one is tact tact is the ability to deal with people without causing friction or giving offense more simply stated tact is the ability to say and do the right thing at the right time you must use tact not only when dealing with seniors but with subordinates as well to successfully use tact you must be courteous because courtesy given will be returned it is important that courtesy not be misunderstood as brown nosing inexperienced in inexperienced NCOs may feel wrongly that politeness in a military command is a sign of weakness all orders given will be obeyed but those given with courtesy will be obeyed willingly even in emergency situations I'm gonna

get I'm digging myself a whole of the Marine Corps and I'm chuckling too much I'm sorry Marines But quite honestly, I haven't worked with a Marine that's in this mode. I was going to save my life. I don't think you have any issues because the Marines that are listening to this are like, they're like, they're on board. Yeah. They're laughing along with us. Like, all orders will be obeyed.

Yeah. Good luck with that. Usually you will find that, usually you will find that a calm and courteous, though firm manner of speech gets the best results. Tact becomes very important when criticizing a subordinate. Lack of TAC can crush a Marine spirit and initiative. Criticism can be. Criticism must be made in a manner that points out a weakness in the subordinates action,

but still encourages the subordinate to continue to show initiative. Cool. To develop leadership trade of tact, you must do the following. Be considerate. Develop the habit of cooperatingness in spirit as well as fact. Study the actions of senior NCOs who enjoy a reputation for being able to handle Marine successfully. Check yourself for tolerance and patience. If it fault, correct your own habits.

Apply the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do it to you. Let no Marine, superior or subordinate, exceed you in courtesy and consideration for the feelings of others. Cool. That's not a bad goal. Try and be nicer to everybody than they are to you. Echo Charles, you're pretty successful at that one. You're pretty nice guy.

Oh, I like to think so, yes, sir. I don't think I've ever seen you be mean to know somebody. Yeah. I don't know. It's been a long time, I feel like it. I don't know what else to tell you. Okay. Good, Cardius Marine over there.

next one is justice justice is fairness search your mental attitudes to determine prejudice seek to rid your mind of them learn to be absolutely impartial when imposing punishment or giving rewards search out the facts of each case study human behavior be honest with yourself recognize those subordinates worthy of commendation of reward next one is enthusiasm explain and i'm going stream jumping through some stuff explain Why the mission must be accomplished whenever you can do so. How about almost always? No one believe in your work.

Tackle all tasks with a cheerful, can-do attitude, believe in your mission no matter what it is. Look, you gotta be careful with that one. What is your mission? Why are we doing it? If it doesn't make sense, man, ask some questions. Ask some questions. Bering.

Bering is a Marine's general appearance, carriage, deportment, and conduct. By your bearing, you establish a standard your peers, superiors, and subordinates. Your appearance should show confidence, competence, alertness, and energy. Your clothing equipment should be neat and clean at all times. Your voice and action should be under control. Few things can steady the morale of troops like a leader who with full knowledge of the difficulties

of the situation. Neither looks or acts worried. When speaking to Marines, talking short, plain sentences. Never talk down Marines or allow sarcasm to enter the conversation. Vulgar speech. Frequent loss of temper. Like it says frequent loss of temper. Like occasionally, go for it.

And an irritable nature show lack of. self-confidence that subordinates easily see they react to the lack of self-confidence with resentment or even insubordination avoid criticizing the entire group of Marines for the failings of a few those who didn't want those who didn't do anything wrong will resent it your bearing should show dignity and control of both your emotions and your actions dignity shows pride and confidence in yourself and the ability of your Marines emotional control shows that you have any situation well in hand to develop and improve your bearing you should do the following

Practice control over your voice facial expressions and gestures Demonstrate calmness sincerity and understanding master your emotions so that you can control them and they do not control you Speak simply indirectly never reprimand subordinates and spell Absuravis study leaders who enjoy the record no one in here regulations Demand the highest of standards for yourself and your subordinates avoid indiscriminate course behavior profanity and vulgarity they didn't see full metal jacket maybe It is amazing. Like I went to OCS and those Marines, those Marine generals, because they never swore it.

I mean, I mean, it probably swore five times or something like that. What about the basic school? I mean, to be quite honest, like I, after OCA, I mean, even partially at OCS, like the best leaders that I worked with were professional. And they were articulate in this book professionally. If I look back and like the guys that I looked up to the most, they were professional. That said, the use of Voltaxie. The use of vulgarity was, I would say, like, commonplace. Even at the basics school?

Amongst the Marine. Are there females going through the basic school? Yeah, I was in an integrated company, like, I think one of the first one in the while. Amongst, like, the Marines was, everybody was cursing all the time. What about the instructor stuff? No. That's what I'm saying. Okay.

Yeah. And I think my point to that was it wasn't something that was policed. It was something that was, I think, demonstrated. And like I don't remember my platoon commander a guy who I respect I don't I have no recollect and it could have happened but I don't have a recollection of him cursing and I have a recollection of some and some not but like the lieutenant's like I think I curse I mean we curse all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the staff did. Correct. That's the main thing. That's right. The example that was being shown. It's like we weren't emulating that example. The staff, even in OSCS were pretty professional people in terms of not cursing and just being articulate well spoken leaders was valued. Is it hard to get? to build it like is an OCS instructor? Not OCS. No, I think TBS is a more, I don't know if Demanding is the right word and this is, you know, however many years now, but no, TBS was a much harder thing than OCS back in the day to get a job there. Yeah, the Marine drill instructors at OCS for me had like their whole vocabulary of non-swear words, swear words.

Totally. Yeah. That's a dag-am freaking, that's, I remember hearing all that and that, and that stay true but amongst your peers like it's like you didn't follow that example but yes yeah what's TBS the basic school yeah so every Marine go ahead no I said you got it we talked about earlier every Marine no matter what your job is going to be pilot infantry or everything in between goes through a six-month course as an officer which gives you a little bit of exposure to basically every potential job out there everything from supply to logistics to communication to artillery to tanks to infantry. So every Marine officer has a little sense of all the things the Marine Corps

does. So even a pilot knows what infantrymen are doing. And the Marine Corps places places a big premium on that concept. Every Marines a rifleman and the investment they make as a Marine even if you know you're destined to go be an aviator, you go through the basic school like all Marines do. It's like general education. Yeah, kind of like that. Yeah. So you get enough of exposure to do what we talked about before, which was just understand what might be going on. You're not going to be an expert in any of it, but you do get exposure to all of it, which is awesome. It paid huge dividends to me.

We used to joke about it. Like, the last time I shot a rifle before I went to Ramadi was at the basic school, which is crazy. So that's like what, 12 years, 13 years or something? Yeah, basic school 94, Romadi 06. 12 years. Yep. And you hadn't shot a rifle?

I had not squeezed the trigger on a rifle since the day I cited in my M4, I don't know, a couple months before I deployed. Dang. But I had done it. So I had just enough, like, you know, the basic fundamentals of understanding. But, you know, I had done everything from like 50 cows and 240 M60s at the time and Mark 19s and all that stuff. That is so jacked up. It's crazy, man.

Like, think about me. Totally, dude. Like, I had spent, like, literally my entire adult life just doing that. You know how many millions of rounds I'd shot? Maybe you're rethinking bringing Dave on all those missions. to be together. In my mind, I was looking at you like, hey, he's a square-away. He might be a pilot, but he's a squared-away Marine Rifleman at heart.

Meanwhile, you're like, I shot the pistol every year for however many years, but I didn't touch a rifle. Which way does the magazine go? Yeah, totally, man. Oh, that's crazy. It was a steep learning curve for me to get back. Did you? How long was like a workup?

How did you get ready? How many rounds did you shoot before you went on deployment? Dude, remember, man. So I got to my Anglico unit basically October of 2005, and I spent the first, I don't know, month basically doing the tactical air you know TACP all that was I was just going to be in Japan for year and then around Christmas time like hey we need volunteer you know I got volunteer for that I volunteered for that job like hey we need volunteers to go to Iraq I'm like well go to Iraq you know know the whole story behind yeah but it wasn't till that was in January that was in December so over

Christmas it was like hey honey you know that was when I kind of broke the news like this one newly at that time we had just gotten married that's right hey sorry so we go on Christmas to come back in January she was thinking like maybe a trip to Japan totally oh she's like this be the blast go to see the Kota Khan that's right yeah judo players where are you at we we go Christmas vacation the holidays whatever and in January like hey all the Iraq Marines are going to Camp Lejeune so I got to Camp Lejeune January I don't know I'll call it like the 10th or whatever it was and I deployed February 20th so I had five weeks five weeks not a lot not a lot A little.

It was like BZO'd and then I did a couple of courses. But, you know, keep in mind too, like I use my rifle obviously. Yeah, yeah. But my primary weapon there was the radio. And, you know, clearly I was I was much more inclined to do that. But dude, I wasn't shooting rounds of that rifle at all, hardly ever. Did you do immediate action drills? Like with your team?

Yeah. Like, I, you know. I did very little of that. Now, I had a couple of pretty squared away staff and COs. Dude, you must have been so stoked rolling out with us. You must have been like, hell, yeah. Yeah. Like, these guys have got.

I was mostly, I was more, and I, you know, I looked back and talk to life about it. I was mostly stoked that you were cool with me coming with you. Like that, even to this, I look back, like, the fact that they had enough confidence in me and my guys so we could be with you guys was pretty awesome for me. Now, your guys, these are like infantry marines that get assigned to Anglico. How's that work? Well, it's a, my guys were almost 100% artillery. Really? Yeah.

Just most Anglico is artillery. They're not all. That's because they serve as forward observers at some point or something. Exactly right. They had experience with calling an air, I'm sorry, calling for fire, artillery call for fire, and forward observers, things like that. It's not some rule that it has to be artillery. But the thing that was crazy, though, is my.

team my so I had a 13 man team my five of us that I stayed because we ended up doing missions as a small unit leader I had three teams I was one of those three teams every one of my guys was artillery and had never deployed so it was kind of crazy that's wild I'm glad you didn't know this back back to that I didn't either damn you guys were pros though like we did all right man yeah we did it right that's freaking legit It was pretty cool to be with you guys. Yeah. I mean, that's wild.

Because I was like thinking like randomly you and I would be just like out in a building somewhere in Ramadi. And you're like telling him like, hey, what do you got? You're like telling me what's going on. I'm just thinking you're a rifle man. That's freaking awesome. Next thing. Endurance.

Endurance like courage has two distinct parts. Endurance means being able to function effectively when tired or in pain mental endurance is the ability to think straight when fatigue distressed or in pain Demonstrated endurance brings respect from subordinates lack of endurance fails not only a set a proper example for subordinates to follow But can also be mistaken for a lack of courage You can increase both mental and physical endurance by doing the following Avoiding excesses that lower both physical and mental stamina keeping physically fit by exercise and proper diet. Check.

Learning to stand discomfort by undertaking hard physical tasks. Check. Forcing yourself to study when you are tired and your mind is sluggish. Check. Finishing every job regardless of obstacles. So there you go. Good to go.

We support. Next one is unselfishness. The unselfish leader is one who gives credit where credit is due. Unselfishness means not taking advantage of a situation for personal gain at the expense of others. No subordinate can respect an NCO who takes credit for jobs well done and blames other when performance is poor Check an unselfish Marine NCO will ensure subordinates needs come before personal needs check

To develop your trade of unselfishness you should do the following see that subordinates have the best That can be obtained for them under the circumstances try to understand the problems Military or personal of subordinates David Belavilla He told that story about his like Battalion Sergeant Major, and they're like out in the street, and his battalion Sergeant Major has an old M-16 with iron sights on it, and everyone else has got like the high-speed stuff.

And he, like, that's what David Belavia remembered, is that his command sergeant major, who was killed in combat, what he remembered about him is like, he wouldn't take the good weapon, you know? That's that, like, I remember thinking about that after he was on the podcast And I was like, that's what he remembered. Of all the things you remember, he remembered a bunch of other things,

but like think of how much that stands out. Like this guy, he wouldn't take the good weapons from the troops, even though he's the senior enlisted man in a freaking battalion. Might even have been a regimental sergeant meter. But just awesome. Put the comfort, pleasures, and recreation of your subordinates before your own in the field, your Marines eat before you do. Give credit to subordinates for jobs well done.

Check. Loyalty. Loyalty is the quality of faithfulness to your country, Marine Corps, seniors, and subordinates. Demonstrated loyalty wins respects and confidence. Loyalty means supporting the views and methods of the unit employees, but doesn't mean becoming a yes man. Thank you. So there you go. We get a little bit of, you know, some Vietnam dude.

You got a desert storm guy there, right? Yeah, the storm guy threw some in there. To develop loyalty, you should do the following. Be quick to defend subordinates from abuse. Well, thank you. Never give the slightest hint of disagreement with orders from seniors when giving instruction to subordinates. Now, I made a little note here. Because there was a, I don't know if you remember this.

The very first trait that got covered was integrity. And it says, be accurate, truthful in all statements. Don't tell your superiors only what you think they want to hear. Tell it as it is. but tactfully. Practice absolute honesty at all times, not only with yourself but with others, never shade the truth. So now, just FYI, we're saying never give the slightest hint of disagreement with orders from seniors when giving instructions to subordinates. So it's like we understand the caveat that we're throwing on there. Here's the problem. This is not a good plan. It's not.

First of all, because the team will see through it. Because you're telling them to do something that doesn't make sense. You know it doesn't make sense. And if you know it doesn't make sense they're all gonna know it doesn't make sense okay maybe they all know but you got a platoon of 40 guys 12 of them know nine of them no nine of them are looking at you like you're a jackass and we don't believe you so how do we make this happen it goes back to earlier when we're when we're talking and we develop a relationship with our boss so that we can say hey boss can you explain to me why we're doing this and if you have a good relationship with them and something doesn't make sense either they can explain it to you so it does

make sense or you can explain the ramifications that are going to occur and why This is a bad idea. And if you still get the shut up and do what I told you, you go down to the troops. You don't lie to them. You go down to the troops and say, hey, fellas, look, I push back against the boss. Here's what we're doing. Here's why we're doing it. We're going to do the best of our ability.

And here's how we're going to mitigate whatever problems might occur. That's what you do. I'm even thinking, you know, hackworth's going on those patrols. Like there's even that whole, the whole spectrum that's inside there of like, all right, Jocko is the worst boss than world. He's going to order my guys to do something to get him killed. I can fall on my sword, which is like the classic, it's like the, what's the word? It's like the most romantic, like, oh, Dave's got to fall on his sword.

I keep reminding people, you know what happens when you fall on your sword? You fall on your sword. You die. You die. That's not good. And then Dave gets replaced with Echoes like, whatever you say, boss. And in that case, like, all right, we're going to go on that patrol. These are dumb.

So when I'm going to go outside the wire, I'm going to set up this, I'm coming back, hey, we've got no contact today. So even you've been talking on even the spectrum inside there, but the thing of it is that you, I think the key takeaway from that, because the truth of the matter is most of the time, you're not getting these orders going to get your people killed. No. That's such a rare, like, an extreme example. Most of the time, it's just like dumb. Okay. Nobody's going to die. It's not going to ruin the company, but it's dumb.

Inside there, if I come back and go, hey, Jock, hey, guys, this is the best idea ever. Boss is awesome and we're going to go do this. I'm going to lose so much leadership cabinet and leader. credibility, but I can say, hey, listen, I know this can be frustrating sometimes. I know sometimes it makes sense. Here's what we're going to do. Here's why. Let me explain it. And if it's not going to get anybody killed or putting any risk, they'll still do it. But the reason they're doing it is not undying obedience to your leadership. It's actually that you are being honest with them. You have integrity. Got integrity, exactly. And so even that that definition is how they're even understanding

that there's a balance even inside that concept. I remember getting told. There's two, two, two, two good examples of this. One of them is from Band of Brothers. When they send the recon across the river, someone gets killed. They come back. The next night, the colonel's like, hey, send another recon tonight. He's like, hey, I don't think that's a good idea. He's like, shut up and do it. He says, okay. And they go sit in the basement of the thing and drink wine. Yep. I heard this story when I was a new guy that, you know, in Vietnam, these guys got told, hey, you're going to go out and do a patrol in this area or set up an ambush in this area. And they're like, hey, it's a bad area. It's not going to be anything. And they're like,

no, shut up and do it. And he goes, okay, cool. Yep. Whatever the platoon commander said cool got it they went patrolled you know 200 yards outside the gate Sat in the bushes for five hours patrol back in hey no no contact didn't say anything Yeah, I just said that associated with Hackworth but that I'm misplacing that it's a story it's that story that you told of like I don't know why I connected to Hackworth but it was that those patrols of like Boss says to do this I'm gonna go do this but I'm actually not really doing it Yeah, that's that's exactly what it was it came from from the story you told right and that is like look that is now we're now we're now we're starting to develop some issues, right?

Yep, now we got some issues. Um, we got some issues because now we're, we're giving false information up the chain of command. So now we're in just as bad of a spot as good doing down. So that is not the right answer. Totally. Um, the right answer is to develop that relationship. But what you're talking about, you use the term in extremist people going to get killed.

So if we talk an end extremist people going to get killed, I'm not going to get my guys killed if it doesn't make sense. Yeah. So, but that like you said, this is not like, oh, another day in the military got ordered to do something that's going to get a button. That doesn't, I got to ask this the other day. Just a guy pulled me aside after an event. And he's like, you know, what are you doing?

You get ordered to do something that is, you know, immoral. And I was like, oh, don't do it. He goes, oh, you just don't do it. I was like, no, you can't do things that are immoral, unethical, or illegal. You can't do them. As a matter of fact, I said, it's your duty not to do them. A general order of the century says, you must obey all lawful orders. If there's things that are unlawful, you don't do them.

In fact, you have to not do them. And he was kind of looking at me surprised. He goes, well, how often did that happen? I go, it never happened. Exactly. Never, actually zero times in 20 years. And that's really the point, center to the point I was trying to make is we create this, like, we create some story that I'm being told by this awful evil boss trying to get all my people killed. And how do I handle that?

I'm like, that never happened to me. Has it happened in history? Yeah, I guess it does. And then inside that, but from your perspective or from the point you're making from a leadership standpoint, if I've done all these other things right and I've got to. a good relationship with my boss, Jocko. What are the chances to get, hey, Dave, I got this unethical thing I want you to go. It's not going to happen.

I got a plan. I want you to go, actually, a bunch of people are going to get wounded to kill, go ahead and execute it. Totally. So those scenarios don't. And I have no reason why. Right.

And they don't just sit by themselves. That doesn't just happen. So we want to avoid the idea that like, what do you do in this case? Well, that never happened to me. But that didn't happen. I never once had a relationship with my boss by which he said, hey, come here.

Half your people are going to die. It serves no purpose. But I want you to go to go. I'm like, we're not doing that. Hey, Dave, you know what? This is going to cost the company a bunch of money. It's going to give us a bad reputation. And we're probably going to get some people to quit.

Yeah. I want you going to execute this. Right. And you're like, cool, got it. Stuff doesn't happen. But that's also why truth. That's the leading trait here was integrity up and down the chain of command. So we like that.

Yes. Practice doing every task, the best your ability wholeheartedly support your commander's decisions. How do you best support your commander's decisions by guiding your commanding? your commander and pushing back against your commander when something doesn't make sense. And getting on board with the little things that aren't going to matter that much. Totally. You tell me to do something?

I'm going to do it, man. I'm going to do it. I'm going to get it done. I'm going to kick ass at it. If you tell me to do something that's totally stupid, I'm not going to let you make that mistake. That's how I'm going to wholeheartedly support you by being smart than having a good relationship with my boss. Never discuss the personal problems of subordinates with others.

Cool. Stand for your country, the Marine Corps, your unit, your fellow Marines when they are unjustly accused. Check. Never criticize seniors in the, the presence of subordinates check with a caveat. You know, like you said, if you're doing something, if you're being told to do something that doesn't make sense,

but it's not worth quote falling on your sword over. It's like, hey, listen, here's why we're doing this. I know it's not maybe the best way to get it done, but in order to develop a better relationship with the boss and gain more caught with him, we're gonna go ahead and execute this. We're gonna wear our freaking dress uniform tonight. And everyone's like, you gotta be kidding me.

Yup, I wish I was kidding you, but I'm not. Yeah. We're going to, and you know what, we're all going to look so sharp that the boss is going to know that we're the platoon that can get things done. That's such a great example. Because those are the, it's like, boss wants the paperwork done 12 hours ahead of the due date. You know, like, oh, come on. Like, guys, listen. That's the, those are the scenarios where your uniform you don't want to wear getting paperwork done.

Those are the far more realistic scenarios you had to come down and go, hey, guys, I know it's a little bit frustrating. But as opposed to boss is sending us on the suicide mission with no benefit. That's not, that's not the scenario that's more. It's the one you used to describe like guys I know you don't want to do this I know sometimes This comes out it can be kind of frustrating, but we're gonna do this and here's why and if you got a good relationship to your people Most of the time we're gonna go Okay fine no worries Dave we got your back and they're gonna just get it done. It's not that big of a deal I just remembered at stoner's funeral in Hawaii

There was some guy that was there I want to say was in Hawaii who's stationed on the ship with stoner and and Stoner was in charge of like, I don't even know he's in charge of, like some department on the ship. And they pulled into port and Stoner like gave the Liberty Brief. He's like, hey, you guys, you know, like Liberty, go, go, don't get in trouble.

And they were all like, damn, we don't have any duties or whatever. And as they got, this guy, he said, they were leaving the ship and they looked like wherever on the ship and Stoner was there like doing the duty that they all had to do. Like they had to clean something to do something. And he was up there just like doing it by himself. And I was like, check. And the dude was so freaking like pumped, you know?

That's taking care of your people. Totally. Never criticize. Oh yeah, never criticize your seniors and presidents and subordinates, you know, check. Do not discuss command problems outside the unit. Check. Be loyal to your seniors and subordinates.

Check. Support the lawful policies of senior officers whether you personally agree with them or not. Loyalty is a two-way street. What I would ask you to do, is not to support the lawful policies of senior officers, whether you personally agree. What I would ask you to do is understand them.

I would ask you to understand why your boss wants you to wear a uniform on a Tuesday night. I would want you to understand why your boss wants you to turn the weapons at a certain time before good bomb. You know, like understand and give them the benefit of the doubt. That's a little bonus too, because you could be supercritical about everything and nothing makes it. If you want to be hypercritical, literally nothing. makes sense in the military it's all freaking it's all just dumb so if you want to go level 12 hypercritical and it's the same thing in any company you go to we I could go to some company right now and start talking to the subordinate teams start talking to the

frontline personnel and we could get a list of stupid things that that company's doing and we could never stop writing them down so instead of looking for what's stupid try and understand why these things are happening and this is the last one judgment judgment is the ability to logically weigh facts and possible solutions on which to base sound decisions and includes common sense when faced with a new problem or information you don't understand seek advice before you attempt a solution it isn't degrading to ask questions note to self in leadership strategy and tactics one of the things that a leader's supposed to do is ask questions it is embarrassing to arrive at

a poor solution because of the lack of judgment to seek help to develop the trade of judgment you should do the following practice making estimates of the situation that's something you can do as a leader get your get your team members someone that you're trying to coach and mentor be like hey echo what do you think we should do right here what do you think's going on and talk have them talk you through it and you're going to get better you're going to come up with a better solution anyways but if i have echo try and come up with a solution estimate the solution or estimate the situation come up with the solution come up with the plan I'm detached and I all of a sudden I get to see a different perspective that I didn't see before so there's a little a little bonus

there's a bonus to that anticipate situations which require decisions to be prepared when the need arises cool avoid making rash decisions I like how they use the word avoid I would go strong like don't make rash decisions and I wouldn't use you know you want to say never but you need to go stronger than avoid Like as often as possible avoid making rash decisions, right? Maybe even a little stronger than that. We'd have to break out the thesaurus and get busy to figure out where we're going.

And the last one here approach problems with a common sense attitude, which may sound common sense, but sometimes it's not. Some more leadership. What do you got? Echo Charles. You kind of rewind into that maybe a few lines ago. When, you know, let them come up with a plan or whatever just to give them the opportunity to exercise their capability.

Are you going in there with knowing you're not going to use their plan and they know that? Or are you like? Maybe you come up with a good plan. If you come up with a plan that's like viable. Yeah. Sounds good to me. Right. Yeah.

If you come up with an idiot plan, we're not going to use it. But what are the chances of you coming up with an idiot plan? If I said to you right now, you have no military experience. If I was like, hey, ECHO, we've got to attack this building. Yeah. You'd probably come up with a plan that was almost usable. Right? You'd be like, well, we should put some guys over here.

Maybe I gave you a five-minute class. Then you could, if I gave you a five-minute class, you could probably come up with a plan that we would execute. And I'd be like, cool, sounds close enough. Okay. So it's like the primary purpose for you doing that is to give them exercise, his butt completely open for that to be the jam. And as you know, this is like how I roll anyways.

I mean, this is like what I do all the time with everything. That's kind of why I was asking. Yeah. I'm like, are you like in your mind saying, but in case he does, we'll go with it kind of a thing or because there's a difference between that and then really leaning on someone for the plan. Like, you know, if it's clear that Dave knows more than you or me or whatever about something, you're like, hey, we better go to Dave for this plan.

And, you know, that's like leaning on him for it. But sometimes it's like unnecessary. But the primary reason, you want to give them an exercise. So down the road or whatever, they're going to be really good. But that's the primary purpose. You see what I'm saying? I don't even know if it's the primary purpose. Because if Dave's working for me and he's a platoon commander, he's a project manager for me.

And I go, hey, Dave, how do you want to execute this? Yes, he gets education. Yes, he gets to learn. But yes, he's probably going to come up with a decent. plan and if as long as he comes up with a decent plan we're probably going to execute that thing maybe we've got to make a couple adjustments but that's kind of what we're doing so it's a it's not even like hey if you're trying to change train someone right if i'm working with someone i'm gonna try and let them come up with the plan it's going to make me better because when

dave comes up with the plan i look i have a plan in my head right i've got something even if i look at a target for three seconds or i look at a project for three seconds i go ham i know what i do As soon as I asked Dave, I get a whole totally different perspective. Yeah. And so and and by the way, Dave only sees what Dave sees. So now when I say throw something out there, he's like, oh, and it's like building my leadership capital because I'm listening to him, but I also have good ideas myself. It's just a win, win, win, win across the board.

I understand. So fundamentals of marine leadership. Dave Burke, there you go. You handed me this man. We got some good we got some bad we got some ugly we only covered a little bit I don't I don't know if we're gonna dig back into this thing But the important thing is to always dig see what you can find What do you got anything else? No, I think we said it I mean inside there like I said In every case I was thinking myself I understand what you're saying but so that's all good to go

I actually I'm actually interested in see if there's like a new like an updated version you know the the 2017 version of this that has, you know, 17 years or 16 years of combat experience inside there. For me, it's kind of cool, though, the 14 leadership traits, those, you know, we called it JJ Did Type Book. That's the acronym, justice, judgment, decisiveness, initiative, you know, all those letters that go on, you know, that you talked about. That has stood this test of time. And as you read what they meant, I'm like, that's right, that's right, that's right.

It also, I think, gets to the, you know, explaining this stuff is harder than it seems. And we talk about leadership all the time. We teach some of the most rudimentary leadership behaviors in the world. Cover and move. Communication. And yet we know how hard it is to do them. And so inside this, you get this sense of even for these folks, understanding it and explaining it and being able to do it are very different things. The stuff is hard.

explaining it is hard. Learning it and understanding it is so much harder than it is to just say it. And it was, it's actually cool to hear as you're talking through that my leadership radar, my leadership here like wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

And to be able to pull out even some of the nuance inside there, even like you said, don't say avoid being a tyrannical leader. Don't be a tyrannical leader. And this was had some fun with that but this was cool to see that

I had the sense of this as someone struggling to articulate a concept they understood but didn't know how to teach it and didn't have the the experience reservoir to go okay this concept now I can put meaning around this concept based on my experience

I would say that a little yes to that but also I would say that where I would say that where I thought you were going with that is look you can read the word decisiveness and you can understand what that means and I can understand what that means but someone else apparently this guy thinks that decisiveness means you need to understand all the

facts so even these things that we understand a certain way their interpretation of what decisiveness means is different and quite frankly in some of these cases not correct. Right. So they were able to take correct concepts and teach them in a way that are incorrect. I don't think it had anything to do with not being able to express it or articulate it. I think they actually didn't understand the thing.

What that actually means. I mean, when you're talking about some of those decentralized command that were running, I'm kind of like flipping through to see some of those examples where I like wrote like, no. Like what we just said, never give the slightest hint of disagreement with orders when giving instructions to support it. So we're not telling the truth to our troops. Loyalty, I would focus on, hey, if you're loyal to your boss, you don't let them tell you to do something.

That doesn't make any sense. That's not being loyal. Totally. It's the opposite. Yeah. Yeah. The last thing I want for loyalty from Dave Burke is I'm like, hey, Dave, charge that machine gun nest with your squad, elevated position. Go the last thing I want for you to do you yes sir in charge. I want you to be loyal to you to your troops and loyal to me by saying hey boss this is dumb

We need to lay down cover fire and we'll maneuver around the outside so There's some there's some swings and some misses which is very interesting I was thinking this I started thinking about this of like is was this thing like the Navy achievement medal of some like some like lieutenant colonel or major that was like you know We wrote the Marine Corps core fundamental, like, and he just kind of, that was his project. He got after it, you know? Yeah. I wish, the same with all the ones.

I wish you could have just been in the room because there's shades. There's little peaks of, oh, that guy nailed it. Whoever that guy was, like, you went through that one, you're like, nailed it. Yep. You almost have the sense, like, that's someone who understands it and got his fragments of this thing in this pub. Yeah. Whereas the other guy who doesn't understand, it got his fragments in.

And when you put them, so I'm like, yep, nope. you know, it's what you were talking about, being on paper versus being on target, right? And this has happened to us at Eschlam Front where we get a leader, we go and work with the leadership team, and they take a principle. And we check in with them, you know, three weeks later, we'll go back there. And you can see this one person, they're on paper, but man, they're not hitting the mark. And, you know, for them, extreme ownership meant I'm going to dictate everything that's happening. here or decentralized command meant I can go to the Bahamas for the next two weeks on vacation because I'm going to let my team so they take it and interpret it the wrong way yeah so this stuff

there's there's probably just like just like shooting like there's a chance you know I take Dave and get you dialed in at 300 yards on your rifle you're going to do pretty good if I take a group of 100 people and do that I'm going to have some people that cannot that aren't going to be hitting paper yep and so that's what we have to watch out for and that's you know, what's interesting about working at Eshlawn Front, like, because we do this all the time, like we, we know, and we also have the ability to go, oh, yep, this person's going to be a little bit off target. Hey, two clicks to the right, one click down. We're going to get you dialed in bull's eye on this stuff. And even that can be hard. There's some people there, they're, they're, they're,

they're praying spray. Some people have the vision of, you know, finally, Jocco is going to come to my company, get everyone in line. It's like everyone, yeah. It's like, no, it's not quite going to go like that. So when I read all these things, keeping an open mind about what you're reading, what you're interpreting, about what you're understanding, thinking that, you know, even when someone presents me, tomorrow afternoon, I'm working with a company and someone says, hey, Jocko, I don't think cover and move works. I don't think to myself, hey, shut up. You don't know what you're talking about. I know. I go, talk to me about why not? What is the situation? So keeping an open mind, And not thinking that you know everything is is extremely important and even Dictating right that's one I think one thing that sat a little bit wrong about this This book for both of us is there is a lot of dictating the way things are with with with no outs with no deviations and that's always problematic It's always problematic to paint yourself into a corner. It's always problematic to carve things into stone Yeah.

There should be some things carved in stone, very few. The things that you carve in stone, they should be very, very few. And even when you carve them into stone, you should be able to move that rock around a little bit. Yeah. I think that's an awesome metaphor. And then the other word that certainly triggered a response to me

is the concept of control. This is about controlling. And we both that word were like, wow. But even conceptually, like if you are, if you and your mind think this is a tool or technique to control people, your interpretation is going to be wrong. Because even the outcome that you're trying to achieve, or even what leadership really is, you've got, and you talk about different perspectives, if the perspective is, this is a tool to

control other people, you've got this wrong. And that was the other word that really hit me like, man, that's, that is not what we're trying to achieve here. If you're like thrown out, hey, if you got to be authoritarian, you know, there's time to play. Hey, and you know what? Is there? Yeah, sure.

There's a time in a place. There's a time that there's an emergency going on. People don't know what's happening. and you got to get up and be like, hey, everyone be quiet, we're moving over to this thing. That happens. But it shouldn't be happening a lot.

So there you go. Leadership, lessons learned. Thank you. Marine Corps. You know Marine Corps. You're my people. So I know you're with me now.

We just had to dispel some stuff in this one. Appreciate it. What else? What else we got to? We're getting smarter. We are. We're keeping an open mind. We are.

We're trying to. trying to yes so we're on the path we're avoid keeping in a closed mine I'll definitely a good thing doing our best to avoid that oh yes so you know we're on this improvement path growth and we need supplementation sometimes the Jocka supplements we're gonna talk about first so additional protein in the form of a dessert short description yeah it's called milk you did it it's its own thing it is also energy drinks but they're not regular energy drinks,

they're good energy drinks, boom, called go. That's going to help us on our mental and physical path as well. Yeah. Creatine, speaking of physical, bringing it back, studied proven for improved performance results, gains, all that. Oh, yeah. That's true. Actually, you know, I only had a small stint of creatine. Oh, really?

Yeah. It was, I guess, not so coincidentally, the strongest I've ever been, though, in the weight room. Yeah. There you go. Scientifically proven and bro scientifically proven. Yeah, I just never was that into supplements. Yeah.

And then, yeah, maybe I should have been, I don't know. But I got some creatine now, though. Got called up now. So we're back in the game, yeah. Also, what else? We got joint health, keep your joints. Pretty much everything for every supplement for pretty much any part of our path. We got you.

We got you. Not to mention some new stuff coming out. I'm not going to talk about that. I'm not going to pop the hype bubble on the new thing. There's some new keep the hype bubble Some new hype bubble There you go Joccofuel.com

Get it at Wawa Vitamin Shop Meyer Murphys HEB Military Commissaries It's in there Hannaford's in there

So a bunch of different places Circle K down in Florida Joccofuel.com If you need to order it Order it Get stronger Get smarter Get healthier

Get better Yeah, those Mok RTDs are like Yeah And you don't really understand like How good they are until you really have them Because they're only good on paper It's funny you guys were using the expression on paper Because you know on paper usually means like

It makes sense if you Oh yeah yeah Do the equation But in real life Yeah real life or in the field or whatever It's different or whatever So that's what I mean by this one but So on paper you're like

Okay yeah cool RTD you don't got to mix it up or whatever but that element of it is a big deal when you really have them. It's where I'm just sucking them down. Yeah, it's a little too easy. Yeah. Like you're like drinking like four of them. Yeah. In a day.

120. Sometimes it's fine. Yeah. There you go. I was going to say 120 grams of, you know. Oh, yeah, that protein. Yeah, 30 grams each. Yeah.

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Would you guys ever do bell bottoms? Like I throw back to the 70s. jeans I don't think so did you wear bell bottoms no I'm a man whatever rather I actually know when I wore bell bottoms in the Navy

in the Navy when I went to boot camp you had to wear these things called dungeries they don't wear them anymore and they were they were bell bottoms they were but oh it was so lame it was the lamest uniform ever okay so you weren't down with the bell bottom we called

them dunger jams because they called them dungeries in the navy We call them Dunger Jams and Buds. And you were so happy to get out of those things. But you remember Higgs, Jeff Higgs? So he got dropped from training. And they took away his Bud's uniform. And he put him back in his dunger jams. And he was, he wouldn't, they dropped him and he was not leaving.

And he would just show up to PT. Like the class would come out, he'd go with him. And the instructors were like, dude, you can't be out here. And he would just like ignore him. And then they would like escort him out of there. And then they'd be like dude, like you can't be here like you'd wait and he had his dunger jams on is what you're saying? Just like dude, I'm staying with the class whatever fools and they they dropped them and and then finally like he just stuck with it. He just was not quitting and then finally they're like all right dude this guy's a badass. We need to keep him. Yeah, you know.

Jeffrey They would like they would get him away from the class and then they'd send him to you know lock him in a room somewhere and he'd like break out and And then he'd get back on. He was just freaking not quitting. Yeah. With the dunger jims. Yep. All right.

So no bell button. Okay. I understand. That may be the first time I think I've ever, like, try to answer a question for jocco. I'll look at my head. No. Usually I just sit here and listen.

But he said bell bottoms. I look at you. I'm like, I'm shaking my head no before you say no. I don't think I've ever done that before. But that one just like, I'm like, no. That's not happening. Put it this way.

I was not surprised with your answer. But sometimes you just never know. Hey, honestly, the enlisted Navy uniform dress uniform those are bell bottoms too I think they are right when those be classified I mean yeah and I know what you're talking about

and and that's not what he's like the cracker jack cracker jack uniform you know what that is like the dress blues for for a Navy enlisted guy below the rank of E6 E6 and below like you you look like a cracker jack box you know you look like a stereotypical sailor right right with the with a Dixie Cup hat they call it

oh okay yeah Is that the white, the blue and the deal? Yeah. The flared out pants. Yeah, the flare up kind of bell bottomish. Yeah, bell bottomy for sure. Yeah, no, I was thinking like more disco days. So here's the thing.

So Jockey used more in early 70s, right? So when you were growing years, I just rolled deep. Maybe because look, think about it was like four. I don't know. I'm getting after it. Nine. I don't know, 79, right? Maybe we have to inspect like old pictures and see if I ever had any rolled a

that's part of my point. Because right now, if I'm like, hey, Jocco like hair styles and all this on your best hair. Her style's hair is only to look good. So whatever, I'm here to win. What was the speech you gave? I don't know. Whatever.

Yeah. Let's bring up some old photos of that. Oh, Hey, Hey, Hey, stuff. Get some shit. Going on.

When they say suave, right? You know, when someone looks suave, you know, when someone looks suave, you see him saying, that was Jocco's look in some of those pictures. You see him saying. All I hate. The point is,

I was not surprised at this answer, but you just never know. Okay. You see what I'm saying. So no bell bottoms in the, in the, in the pipe. Hunt gear, though.

Like, let's, we talk about cool stuff. All right, origin, USA.com, jaco store.com. Yep. Jocco store.com. You want to represent.

We don't have bell bottoms there. No. No, no, no. And we're not gonna. No. Negative. Shirts, hats, hoodies for sure.

Yeah, lightweight hoodies even. Which you are representing in. Oh, yeah. Big jump press. Perfect. See, I know you're from New England and whatever, and you're like,

no, hoodie, which I understand. But there's nuance to to weather. and requirements. There you know. lightweight hoodies from jocclistore.com.

Discipline equals freedom. Represent. That's what you're right now. That's what you're right now. Subscribe. Cool designs on that one. New design every month. Boom.

Boom. Yeah. People have been pretty happy about that. Some good feedback. But yeah, check it out. Any bell bottoms coming on? No bell bottoms.

No idea. I'm going to be honest. I never was really into the bell bottoms. Look. You know how people go, they go retro and they kind of do that. That's their jam? Never was.

I never could understand it. Here's the thing, the closest thing I got was boot cut. You know, boot cut means? Goes around boots. Yeah. I guess that is. It's wide enough to go around the boot. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. One of my friends was like a rocker, like a rock and roll dude. Hell yeah. Pete. His name is Pete. English pizza. And I saw a picture of him.

Do you know English Peter? Yeah, you've been around English Peter. But, oh yeah, he did sound when he did that recording. Yes, sir. But he, he, like I saw a picture of him in like 19, probably, whatever. 86 and he was like full on rock and roll he had he had belmont a song bro like he was ready to like he looked like a rock star like straight up you know what I mean so there you go english pizza night but yeah but yeah jocco store.com check it out if you like something yeah get some subscribe to the

podcast subscribe to jaco underground subscribe to the youtube channel get your flipside canvas com get your psychological warfare get it written a bunch of books got a bunch of books Check out those books, joccopublishing.com, WarriorKid.com. Get your kids, go to Amazon and get these books. So got a bunch of books, check them out. Eschonfront Leadership Consultancy if you wanna talk about these leadership things

that we talked about today and you wanna get the correct interpretation of these things, we will come work with your company. We'll do it virtually, we'll do it live, whatever it takes to get the job done. Eschalonfront.com. Also we have extreme owners which is an online training so we don't have to send you a book a correspondence book you can

come online you can do live events with us we do lot we're on their live every week answering questions there's courses to take it's just awesome we just redid the entire website have a brand new platform it's outstanding so extreme ownership dot com anything else on that dave it's awesome I love how you said like the correct interpretation. That's where you find it. If you want the correct interpretation of leadership, there's what you want. There it is. That's where you get it.

Yep. And if you want to help service members active and retired, their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom. Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. If you want to help out or you want to donate, go to America's mighty warriors.org. And also don't forget about Micahink and Heroes and Horses.org. And if you want to connect with us on the interwebs, on Twitter, on,

Facebook, Instagram, then you can go to David R. Burke or Echo Charles or Jocko Willink. Just watch out for the algorithm because it'll grab you. And thanks to all of our military leaders at every level from E1 to 010 in leadership positions around the globe. Thank you for keeping us safe and leading from the front. And the same goes for all the police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, Dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service and all first responders Thank you for keeping us safe with your leadership here on the home front and Everyone else out there one of the traits of a leader spelled out in this Marine Corps manual was courage and it talked about physical courage and it talked about moral courage and it talked about the mental control of fear and the book gave some recommendations on how to be courageous and

But the first recommendation that it gave was place duty over your personal feelings or desires. Place duty over your own personal feelings or desires. And that's it. And I think we can bring that down to a personal daily level. Duty means do what you're supposed to do. That's how we build courage by ignoring how you feel. feel and ignoring what you desire and by doing what you are supposed to do, which means we need to get out there and get after it. And until next time, this is Dave and ECHO and Jocko. Out.