Humble Leaders Lead Better Teams with Retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink

0:00There's no one that's a, that's an uber mensch in the SEAL teams. And so I think that knowing that there's always someone better than you and you're constantly trying to do your best. And if you're not trying to do your best, you're going to have problems. So I think that's pretty normal. I don't think it's pretty normal.

0:22If you've ever seen or heard Jocko Willink, you will know one thing about him. He is big and he is imposing. And if you know anything about me, I am neither big nor imposing. Which is exactly why I invited him onto the podcast. It's because I like to learn from people who are nothing like me. Jocko is also a number one New York Times bestselling author. He served 20 years in the military as a Navy SEAL, where he was the commander of Task Unit Bruiser, the most decorated special operations unit in the Iraq War. And so we sat down together to talk about leadership. And here is what I learned. What's made him such an effective and successful leader is actually his remarkable humility.

1:05This is a bit of optimism.

1:10You've made a career sharing some of the lessons you've learned in the teams out to the outside world and helping people better lead. I'm curious what you've learned since you left the Navy that you wish the SEALs had that you've only learned in the outside world. I'm curious if anything tracks back. Yeah, I literally completely institutionalized. I enlisted in the Navy at 18 years old and went straight in. So when I got out, I had no concept of what the outside world was like. When people ask me that question, it really is the fact that when I got out and I started working with civilian companies, the fact that every facet of leadership inside the SEAL teams translated directly to a sales organization or a construction site or wherever, that was the biggest lesson that I learned was, oh, human beings are human beings.

2:04And leading human beings, regardless of the outcome that you're looking for, regardless of the mission that you're on, the human beings are going to be human beings. And that was the, I guess, the biggest epiphany for me. But I haven't experienced anything where I've said, oh, wow, that's radically different from leading people in the SEAL teams. and I'll give you one quick example is when you're in the SEAL teams, people think, oh, well, if someone doesn't meet the standard or someone's not performing well, you just get rid of them. And when I was in the SEAL teams, I knew that that wasn't true.

2:34Guess what you have to do? If someone's not performing, you've got to do paperwork on them. You've got to write them up. You've got to counsel them. You've got to set them before a board. And even then they might get recycled. And so it's actually very difficult to fire people. Well, when I was in the Navy, I thought in the civilian sector if someone's not doing what you tell them to do oh you just fire them and as soon as I got out I realized oh no you've got to do paperwork you've got to go to HR and so it also depends on the company it does but for the most part and it does it depends you know if somebody makes a grievous error in the SEAL teams of course you can get rid of that person immediately and I've done that before but for the most part they're a lot more similar right than they are unsimilar.

3:17Again, if I had some, you know, huge lesson that, oh, well, in the civilian sector, you've got to treat people this way. Yeah. No. Or in the civilian sector, they make better progress when they do X. No. Yeah. It's crazy how much it all truly lines up. I've learned a little bit hanging out with folks in uniform that I've been able to translate and bring to the civilian world as well, your knowledge is obviously vastly deeper. You entered an entirely new culture where you had to learn business. How old were you when you left the Navy? Just turned 39. Okay. So hitting 40, right? Hitting baby middle age, you know, coming out at 40, you're now, I'm going to learn business, right?

4:03There were people with 20 years head start, right? And so you're learning on the fly and you're still learning. I'm curious who your worthy rivals are who are you looking at in the space that you're at and you're like they're so good and i need to learn that you know i i always love high performers and how they view the others in their arena to push them to be better who the pacing force is for you when you talk about you know looking at other people and seeing them either as competitors or worthy rivals right honestly i don't i don't i don't know if i just uh it doesn't it doesn't even make sense it doesn't it's hard for me to relate to that well then how do you know where you're falling short well part of the reason is because i think when i see someone that's doing something really well yeah i don't think oh how can i take their job no of course i think that's cool what they're doing are there any gaps that i could fill you know it's a it's a story that i was i was on my last deployment and this army group came in and they had really good capabilities and one of my platoon commanders said, you know, Hey, these guys, they've got these capabilities.

5:10They might take our job. And I said, well, do you think they might be better than you? And he goes, well, they might be better at that job. And I said, let them have the job and we'll find you something else to do. I guess I'm, I'm curious, like, how do you know where you need to do work on yourself? And maybe it's not worthy rival, you know, take the question a completely different direction. How do you know what areas of your own work, personality, leadership capability need a little tweak or a little, yeah, no, that's, that's a real easy to answer. Okay. Like everywhere, you know, I mean, I, and I think that's another thing is I don't, when I wake up in the morning and look around the world, I'm not thinking, Oh, I'm here.

5:52Oh, there's someone that's better than me at that. I think everyone's doing stuff that's better than me. I mean, look, I wish I was a better writer. I wish I was a better speaker. I wish I was better at social media. I wish I was better at, you know, like everything that I look at, I wish I could do a better job at. And, you know, everything from doing jujitsu, I train jujitsu all the time and I get beat all the time and I want to get better at it. Running joke in my family is with my wife, you know, for the past 20 years, she said to me, what's your new year's resolution this year? And I say, Oh, I want to get better at jujitsu and surf more.

6:27And I've been saying that for 20 years and it's still true. I want to get better at jujitsu. I don't want to surf more, but that's kind of the way I feel about everything. I don't feel, I don't feel like I'm really that good at anything. I feel like I constantly have to try and get better. I think that the attitude of, Hey, I'm not that good at anything, which is the way I grew up has stayed with me. I'm not that good at anything. And so I got to wake up every day and work hard to be able to do what I do. There's a humility in the military that is looked well upon, which doesn't really do very well in business.

7:02I know a lot of guys who are freaking amazing, like phenomenal warriors, phenomenal leaders, phenomenal human beings, and they enter the private sector. I've seen it happen so many times. And I make some introductions for them. And I call the folks. I'm like, so what'd you think? Badass, right? Phenomenal, right? And they're like, I don't know. it seems like he's a little lost. I don't know. I'm like, lost? He's one of the most focused guys I know. And it's not because they're lost. It's because they're so like, you know, it's not me, it's my team. And, you know, I can't really take credit for anything in the business world.

7:31Like, what? And it's sort of that, that slight modulation that they have to amp up the ego a little bit just for the business world. And I think this is a really important thing that you're touching on, which is you don't think you're great at everything. You don't think you're great at anything. And it's that belief that actually makes you such a high performer. And I think when people lose sight of that, that they think they're great at something, that ego, you know, I mean, you come in, I mean, like I said, you're a force of nature. And I think what people miss is that how you actually view your day to day is actually more human.

8:08If they copy the picture of Jocko, it won't work. It's this that I find beautiful about you, which is where does that come from? Like, was your dad hard on you like growing up or like, were you like a skinny kid? Like, where did it come from? You said it's been since I was a little kid and it's never gone away. Nothing was ever easy for me. You know, I wasn't the best athlete. I wasn't the strongest. I wasn't the fastest. I wasn't the smartest. I got in the SEAL teams. I wasn't the strongest. I wasn't the fastest. I wasn't the smartest. What you have to do to overcome that is you've got to work hard.

8:37So you get humbled all the time. And by the way, if you're good at one thing in the SEAL teams, there's someone that's better at that thing than you. And by the way, no one cares. If you're a really good swimmer, people like, oh yeah, but you can't do many pull-ups. Or if you're a good runner, they'll say, oh yeah, but you're not good with a rucksack on. Or if you're good with a rucksack on, they'll say, yeah, but you're a bad shot. So there's no mercy. There's no mercy. There's no one that's a, that's an Uber mensch in the SEAL teams. And so I think that always knowing that there's always someone better than you and you're constantly trying to do your best.

9:09And if you're not trying to do your best, you're going to have problems. So I think that's pretty normal. I don't think it's pretty normal. I think, yes, fact, there's always someone better than you at everything. In fact, yes. If that's what we mean by normal, then as a data point, yes. But as a perception point, so often the opposite happens in business, which is like, you're great at that. You're the best at that. In fact, we're going to make you the hero at that. And somebody, they sort of start straightening up their shirt. And I've made the mistake myself. I've accidentally heroized folks who are really good at what they do, and they start to inhale their own fumes.

9:43and like a year later, I'm like, what the hell have I created here? Right? I just was giving you a couple of compliments so you'd boost your confidence there and it goes out of check. And this idea of being okay, knowing, not pretending, deep knowing, there's always somebody better at everything I do. And so the only option I have is to keep at it. Yeah. Yeah. And it really allows you to keep an open mind too because if you're in a leadership position and you go into a room you're trying to come up with a plan for something and if in your mind you deeply know in your own mind that you're the smartest person with the best perspective and your plan's gonna be the best plan it's gonna be bad your mind is closed you're not gonna listen to what anyone else says you're gonna impose your plan on them they're gonna execute the plan only because they have no other choice because you're the boss and it's not gonna go as well as it should and when they run into an obstacle, they're going to stutter step because they know that they're just doing what you told them to do.

10:43They don't have any ownership of it. So it's problematic. But if you truly think, well, when I go in this room with my 10 subordinate leaders, I know that they're going to have better ideas than me. I deeply know that their ideas are going to be better. Or at least they'll have a point of view that I don't have. And then my mind is open. And when someone makes a point and I go, oh yeah, that makes sense. Why don't we go in that direction? At the risk of belaboring the point, I think this is really, really important for for junior leaders and senior leaders, right? So for a junior leader, I think junior leaders feel like they have to prove that they're worthy of the title, worthy of the risk, you know, like you pick the right person, you know, and like, and that shows up in a little bit of a little too much, a little too much.

11:21I used to tell the young junior officers, you have nothing to prove, but you have everything to prove. Yeah. You have nothing to prove. So you don't, when you're in charge of a platoon, you don't need to prove to the platoon that you're in charge, right you don't need to say well hey we're doing it my way or hey this is my plan you don't need to do that in fact it's offensive your credibility doesn't come from that no right what you have to prove to them is that you'll listen to them when a decision has to get made you'll take all the pertinent points in and you'll make a good decision and you'll be able to back them up and you'll you care about the team that's what you have to prove to them but you don't have to prove that you're in charge so that's the guy that you're talking about that walks into the room and is like all right i better prove to everyone that this is my idea or prove to my or prove to those above me that they hired the right guy.

12:04Exactly. You know, exactly. I love that. And I think as you, so I think for a junior leader, what you're, you're learning the fundamentals of leadership, which is you've got to take care of your team, rely on your team. I think as you become more senior, this attitude that you're talking about, it does something slightly different, which is now, and you said it, which is it teaches you open-mindedness. Even if you're good at caring and good at offering that top cover, now what you're learning, and it's, in other words, once you've learned it once, it's not learned. It's a practice, not a lesson.

12:31It's counterintuitive. to have an open mind. And it's counterintuitive to say on a daily basis, I'm not the best. In fact, there's someone everywhere who's better than me. That's the way it is. Again, like I think the humility is often missed when we teach people like SEAL training because people are high performing. It's larger than life. Even the movies help. I think people miss that there's a very human, and you know this even better than I do. I've cried with more people in uniform than I ever did with anybody in a suit. I've hugged more people in uniform than I ever did with anybody in a suit.

13:07There's a humanity, and I guess because the stakes are life and death, but there's a deep, deep humanity and love and caring. And those words, you know, the Marines call them the intangibles. That's the only way to put it, which is love. Like SEALs are high-performing not because they're gorillas. That's just a component to get through selection. The SEALs are high-performing because they love each other even deeper than you can imagine. And I would see it happen when I had the opportunity to visit Coronado and I'd see guys who, I don't even think they knew each other. They would hug like brothers.

13:43And I think that's often missed. Yeah, there's a lot of things that get missed and there's a lot of stereotypical viewpoints that people have. And this is one of the, you talked about - It's from the movies. Some of the things that I learned when I got out. Well, one of the things that I learned that I got, when I got out was that just like I had this impression of the civilian sector that, you know, oh, if you got someone that's not doing what they're supposed to be doing, you can just fire them. Well, they all had the impression that in the military, when the commander gives the order, everyone just gets in line and follows the order.

14:12And that couldn't be further from the truth. And so you get this idea that there's this tyrannical authoritarian leadership is the best form of leadership or that's the form of leadership that they use in the military. and that's terrible. Now it doesn't exist in the military. Yes, it does exist. Of course. Does it exist in the civilian sector? Oh, it definitely exists in the civilian sector. Now there's a great book that I covered on my podcast. It's called the psychology of military incompetence. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's a fantastic book. You know, the guy that wrote it was a, in world war two, he was wounded and then he became a psychologist, but you know, he points out that the military attracts people who see that authoritarianism from the outside and they think, oh, that's exactly what I want to be a part of.

14:57And that mentality works. I hate to say it, but actually works well in garrison environments, meaning where there's no combat going on. If we're on the parade field, if you've got your platoon and I'm going to come and inspect your rooms and you're an authoritarian dictator, guess what the rooms look great yeah and everyone's in a perfect uniform and everyone's cleanly shaved and i think you're doing a great job because you're a tyrannical leader and you barked orders and you yelled and screamed and you went and did the white glove on them before i showed up to inspect so i think man simon's such a great leader that mindset though that closed mindset which is i don't give me any input clean the way i told you to clean it works in a non-combat environment but when you get in a combat environment and all of a sudden you've got variables.

15:42And this is why combat leaders, good combat leaders, hopefully they have very open minds. They have to, they have to have an open mind. They have to be very creative. They have to actually be the other end of the spectrum from the authoritarian dictator. And so what happens is in peacetime, things start to lean towards these authoritarian dictators being put in senior positions. They get promoted because why, what happens to the creative, open-minded leader well he was out with the boys he got in trouble for this they were on an exercise and he did this radical thing that was outside the rule set and he got in trouble and he got written up so now he's not getting promoted yeah it's that's the guy you want in combat david schumer's character in band of brothers it's a hundred percent he was great in garrison he's great in garrison put him in in the chaos and just fell apart he fell apart and you know what did his team think of him yeah they didn't respect him they didn't like him they didn't want to follow him yeah and you know what happened to that guy in real life it was i looked him up it wasn't good he lived a lonely life didn't he he attempted suicide he failed yeah he was blind and what was really interesting about that is that he to his death yeah blamed his whole life on easy company yeah all the failings in his life was because of easy company and it just made me think you romanticize your experience in the military and the things that were good, you just hold on to them.

17:08That was the best of times. But when someone has a bad experience or something bad happens, they hang on to that. And that becomes what that guy carried to the grave with. So yeah, but that's a great example. And then the other side, you had Dick Winters, who was the heroic leader in Band of Brothers, who listened to his troops, who never yelled and screamed. You asked about my experience and how I ended up like this, where that humility came from. But I was in a SEAL platoon and we had a tyrannical leader and the tyrannical leader, he didn't have a lot of experience. He'd come from a different part of the Navy and then joined the SEAL teams at a relatively senior grade.

17:45And in order to make up for his inexperience, he kind of over-indexed and, you know, imposed plans on people and didn't listen to anyone. It was my way or the highway. And it was just terrible. And we had a mutiny against this guy. And so we all, the enlisted guys in the platoon went before the commanding officer. We went before his boss and we told the commanding officer, Hey, this guy doesn't listen to us. He's arrogant. He's got a big ego. He's imposing his plans on us. We don't want to work for him, which is a mutiny. And just so you know, the, the punishment for mutiny in the military is death actually.

18:20Well, you know, this was peacetime and, and the commanding officer was a really a great guy. And he said, listen, this sounds like a mutiny. We don't have mutinies in the Navy. I'm not going to have a mutiny at my SEAL team. Go figure it out. And luckily he was a good commanding officer. And so he kind of pulled the thread and started asking more questions of the training cadre to find out what the guy was like. And he fired him three days later. And so we were celebrating, you know, oh great. You know, look what we did. We won. Right. And then we found out who was going to take his place. The new platoon commander was this legendary SEAL who everybody knew he'd come up through the ranks from the junior position almost to the top of the enlisted ranks and then became an officer and then started going up the ranks of the officer.

19:05He had combat experience. He was at every different SEAL team. He just was a legendary SEAL. I didn't know him, but we all knew his name. I wrote about him in this book, Leadership, strategy and tactics and I called him DC so I'll call him DC so DC we find out that this legendary guy is going to take over and one day we're supposed to meet him he's coming after lunch and we've got our little platoon hut out there and we're sitting in the platoon hut and I'm kind of the guy on watch looking for this guy to show up and there's guys coming out of the locker rooms oh that's not him another guy comes out it's not him and then finally this guy comes out and I go maybe this is him he starts walking towards our platoon hut and as he starts getting closer I look at him I go this can't be the guy because this guy's looks like he's about 150 pounds can't be him but he keeps coming towards us and I'm like oh wait this guy's like short like how old is this guy 5 '8 what is this guy doing he can't be a legendary seal keeps coming towards us and as he gets closer he's got like he's old you know he's an old guy he had to have been at least like 37 right so I'm thinking there's no way that this old skinny short guy is this legendary seal and sure enough he walks in our platoon space and it was him and we very quickly figured out why this guy was a legendary seal because he walked in he said hey sorry to hear about what happened with your last commander i'm not worried about it i'm just looking forward to working with you guys right then not i'm the new commander not this is my platoon not there's a new sheriff in town it was i'm looking forward to working with you guys and that set the tone guy was the most humble leader yeah and so i got to see this as a young guy i was probably 22 or something it was my second platoon what made it very clear to me was because i got to see this stark contrast between a guy that was arrogant and egotistical and how much we disliked him and that we literally had a mutiny because we didn't want to follow him.

21:07And when this other guy took over that was humble, that listened to us, that treated us with respect, we would follow that guy anywhere. And that's the guy that I've tried to emulate throughout my career. Follow-up question. How did you learn when to turn on command and control in the chaos? Because I think a lot of people are listening to this. They're hearing the lessons about humility, asking questions, but there are times when that guy, he had earned the trust so that when he could flip the switch in the chaos and it was barking orders and there wasn't, I'd like to hear your opinions. When did you see that happen?

21:47Like, because it's, we've sort of been dancing around it, which is people choose to be either this lovely, beautiful, kind, humble leader. They choose that path or they choose the path of command and control. But the answer is you do need both. you can't be come out of control all the time but there are episodes where this guy this legendary seal did turn it on when did he turn it on and when did he turn it off yeah so when people would ask me that very question right how do you know when to do that and here's the way that i did it this is what i saw him do first of all what you're talking about is there's a leadership vacuum there's a moment in time whether it's in a meeting whether it's on the battlefield whether it's making a decision where there's a leadership vacuum no one is stepping up and taking charge obviously quiet and it's obviously quiet yeah now when that happens here's what i do if there's a leadership vacuum oh no one's making a decision i'm gonna pause i actually want everyone in the room to know and feel that there's a leadership vacuum i want everyone in the room to go because if i jump in too early there's a couple people maybe you were about to you know simon had an idea.

22:55He was about to say something and I just cut him off. And now he's going to be begrudgingly executing what I told him to do. And he's going to think he didn't get a chance to step up. So I'm going to pause long enough. And in combat, it might be three seconds. In a business meeting, it might be 30 seconds. It might be a minute. If it's a long email exchange, it might be three days, right? I mean, I'm on the CC line and people are going back and forth and all of a sudden, you know, I'm going to chime in. So when that leadership vacuum occurs, I'm going to give it at least enough time that everybody feels it.

23:29And once they feel it, I'm going to make a small iterative decision to move in a direction that I think is best at that moment in time. And then we're going to move in that direction. I'm going to keep an open mind and we're going to get feedback on the decision that I make just made. I'm going to make the smallest decision I can, by the way. Again, this is something that I use to cheat in the SEAL teams because I was known in the SEAL teams for being very decisive. If a decision needed to get made, I would make a decision, but I would make a little tiny decision. But no one's really thinking about that at the time.

24:02But if we, if you and I are getting shot at, or my, our platoon is getting shot at from, you know, somewhere up to the North, well, what's my decision going to be? Is it going to be attack? back. That's one decision. Is it going to be retreat? That's another decision. Those are big decisions to make. But what if I just say, Simon, go to the rooftop. Tell me what you see up to the north. Okay. I just made that decision. And everyone goes, oh, Jocko's got this. We're good. Now you go up and you tell me what you see. And maybe you see a lot of enemy. Maybe you don't see very many enemy. Maybe we can move forward, but I'm going to make the smallest decision that I can.

24:37And by the way, if someone else makes the next decision, I'm fine with it. I don't ever feel like I need to talk. And in fact, when I do have to step in and make a decision, I normally will decipher that later and try and figure out, okay, what did I do wrong where Simon didn't make a call? I like this idea of making the little decision. I mean, it does multiple things, right? It establishes that somebody's going to take accountability. It also builds trust because you're not taking unnecessary risk too soon, even if it's the right choice. It doesn't make people skittish. It's a very clever thing.

25:08And as we're talking about, I'm thinking about, But there's also, as we practice good leadership, you're simultaneously learning good followership. Because I assume that in chaos of combat, that when the leader starts actually barking orders, that the good followers, those in the care of that leader, they also know when is the right time to say, I'd like to contribute. I think I have an idea. And they know, you know what, I'm going to follow. I'm going to follow. Yep. It goes hand in hand, knowing when to ask, but also knowing when to not volunteer. It does boil down to trust as well. But this is something that's built up over time, because if you and I are in the street and we're in a gunfight and I look at you and I'm the guy in charge and I look at you and say, Simon, get in that building right there, get to the roof and put down cover fire.

25:57That's not the time where you're going to say, well, actually, you know, if you could explain to me the why behind that i'd really like to know now because you're gonna go oh we're in a gunfight jaco's got a plan and i'm gonna go execute it and you're gonna go execute it most of the time because there's a chance that when i say peek at you from behind this wall i'm hiding behind with shots firing over my head i say simon go get in that building there take the roof put down cover fire right there's a chance that you look back at me yeah and you say negative now why are you saying that to me you might have information you see something that i don't see maybe there's a ieds in the driveway there's a reason why you can't do that and when they say negative you don't say damn it you listen to me they say ah when you hear negative they know something i don't know yeah quick exchange and then either adapt or not and really what it boils down to then is now we're going to go a little bit deeper and I'm going to tell you why.

26:54Yeah. I'm going to give you the why and I'm going to let you go execute. Yeah. I'm going to say, well, I need cover fire. Help me. And you go, okay, got it. I'm going to that building and I'm going to be able to put down cover fire. So that trust that you build up and knowing when to step in and make a call again, you want to do it as seldom as possible. Cause the more you talk, the less people listen. You know, that's another thing. Like we, I would not talk on my radio. in fact when i was a platoon commander when i was a troop commander our radios were almost always silent and when i did say something on the radio when i came up on the radio and said everyone get to building 34 now like people knew that they were going to get there no matter what and that's because i wasn't saying hey can you push two guys over to this building here hey somebody give me some reports on where that hallway is getting close.

27:45No, no, no one did that. No one did that. And it was like radio silence all the time. You know, what a leader is doing is fostering relationships, fostering trust, all the words that we use in good leadership, you know, you find in families and personal relationships, it's very human. And what we're talking about is like, when we get along, that doesn't mean we have to like each other. It's preferable, but not, not a hundred percent necessary. And this is one of the things I find wonderful about military, which is the trust is so deep that, you know, I'll risk my life for somebody I don't necessarily even like, which I find fascinating.