3 Leadership Qualities from a Navy Seal You Need to Win at Life & Business

Being a soldier is not for the faint-hearted.

Many of us will never know or truly understand that level of stress.

Now imagine leading troops where their survival depends on your choices. Could you handle that type of pressure?

For some, that isn’t imagination. It’s their job.

Jocko Willink is the Navy Seal that Seals dream of becoming when they grow up.

He’s a decorated war veteran who led troops in the Iraq war in the Battle of Ramadi–one of the deadliest and worst regions of Iraq. He led battalions and won battles. And he survived to tell the tale.

Although retired, he still lives the life.

Jocko works out at 4:30 am daily and is now leading teams in the business world.

Through his company, Echelon Front, he and his fellow combat veterans share their battle-tested leadership strategies with business owners and company leaders worldwide.

Let’s learn three essential leadership qualities from a war hero needed to win in business and life.

Humility

Life has a peculiar way of teaching lessons to us.

Arrogance and ego can creep in, and when it does, life will happily remind us of what I believe is a universal truth:

“Be humble or get humbled.”

If you do not live your life from a place of humility, life will find a way to humble you. Life will knock you off your high horse, and you will be humbled.

According to Jocko, there is one quality that is hands down the most important for a leader to have:

Humility.

Most leaders, or those with a title, lead from a position opposite of humility.

They lead from a place of ego.

These “leaders”—those who lead from an egoistic place—think they are above their employees. They see their subordinates as actually beneath them, not just in the workplace but in life.

Anyone who lives from an egoistic perspective is all about themselves. They care about their own desires, wants, and needs. They can never be wrong, and they can’t ever look bad.

These egomaniacs only care about the people they are in charge of enough to make themselves look good. They need attention, and their egos need constant gratification to justify their own importance.

Jocko worked with many ego-centric military leaders. Each time, he saw them belittle their teams, “flex” their power or rank, lie through their teeth, etc. They’d crack under pressure and ultimately fail.

On the other hand, leaders who lead from a place of humility care about their teams first, then the mission of the brand/company. The last thing they care about is themselves.

As Jocko has often said, true leaders are actually servants.

They serve their teams, the company, or the unit they’re a part of and care about the mission and the greater good.

An egotistical leader is about themselves. A humble leader is about their team and the assignment.

An egocentric leader looks down on their team. A humble leader looks down on no one.

An egomaniac commands others to do the dirty work. A humble leader does it themselves.

A boss (ego complex) will dictate and yell at their subordinates.

The humble leader will help out and lead from the front.

Humility is essential to gaining the trust and respect of your team. It also allows a leader to stay open to hearing your team with the intent to understand and solve problems.

Ego makes leaders and people highly emotional. Emotional volatility is a terrible leadership quality.

Go with humility.

Extreme Ownership

If you haven’t read Jocko Willink’s Extreme Ownership, I highly recommend you do so. It’s one of the best books on leadership you’ll ever read.

The quality of extreme ownership means having unparalleled accountability and humility (see the humility section) to admit when you’ve made a mistake.

And this can be challenging for many.

Egotistical leaders have no problem blaming others. They will call their subordinates to their offices to scold, yell, criticize, and scream at any opportunity they can get.

These leaders can never be wrong — even if they are. And they can never apologize for anything — even when they are at fault and need to.

Egomaniac leaders accept zero responsibility because they must constantly look good to gratify their egos.

They don’t mind throwing people under the bus and making their subordinates feel awful about themselves. In fact, they enjoy putting others down when they have made mistakes. It makes them feel more powerful.

As Jocko states, extreme ownership means you are in charge of your team. If something goes wrong, you are responsible–for everything.

You may not be directly “at fault” for a particular scenario. However, you are responsible.

Many find this concept difficult to grasp fully, but to be an effective leader, you must have extreme ownership and take complete responsibility for the good and the bad. That is what a successful leader does.

If something goes wrong? You are responsible. Own it.

If you make a mistake? Admit it. Apologize for it. Own it.

In his viral Ted Talk, Jocko illustrates how difficult this was for him because his soldiers' lives were on the line.

If someone on your team asks a question and you don’t know the answer? Don’t pretend to know something you don’t. Say, “I don’t know. But let me look into it to see if I can find out.”

Admit that you don’t know! You don’t have all the answers, and your team doesn’t expect you to know absolutely everything. So, own up to the fact that you don’t know.

An egotistical leader would act as if they did know, and then their team would sense that they were lying. Eventually, they would lose the trust of the team.

A humble leader who takes extreme ownership will admit when they don’t know certain things.

They are real, not fake. As a result, the team will trust you to be genuine, honest, and open. They will respect you for taking extreme ownership.

Communication

We have all heard the saying, “Knowledge is power.”

That is actually not quite right. Applied knowledge is power, but most people don’t know it.

Egotistical leaders live by that axiom. They think knowledge is power. Because they believe this, they keep knowledge from their teams to maintain power over them and feel powerful.

It’s foolish.

Lack of communication is one of the significant reasons relationships deteriorate.

Communication is essential, whether it’s a friendship, romantic relationship, business partnership, or between a leader and their team.

I will take it further and say open and honest communication.

Studies have shown how good communication improves the work performance of employees.

Good communication gives them the information they need to accomplish the collective goal or mission of the company.

When done correctly, it will also deepen the relationship with the leader. The employees will feel more connected and part of the team.

When leaders choose to filter or limit communication, they are incredibly inconsiderate, and trust with the team begins to disintegrate.

This was normally why pirates and ship crews would mutiny against a captain. They weren’t included in any part of the decision-making process. Their wants and needs were never even considered, and because of that, there was zero communication. That is when a mutiny would take place.

Today, mutiny may not be throwing your leader off the ship, but it happens in other ways. Invisible ways.

The lack of open, honest communication within the team plants a seed of distrust. When the team senses something is off, they distance themselves from the leader. Resentment will set in and affect their work.

If the communication isn’t there, everything that makes a strong, healthy group will begin to unravel, and you will lose your team.

As a leader, you must give what you want.
If you want respect, you must give it to your team.
If you desire loyalty, you must give it to your team first.

If you also desire open and honest communication from your team, you have to be the engine of that and give it first. Right away, too.

If not, you risk losing all credibility as a leader. Rallying your troops and getting anything done will take more work.

So, communicate concisely, effectively, and often.

The BMM Takeaway

As you can see, being an effective leader depends on an individual's actions in life and the workplace.

It’s important to note that anyone can be a leader, even if you have no “title.”

You do not need a title to be a leader. A leader leads regardless of what position they hold.

And if you are a leader with a title, you must remember the points above and lead with them in mind.

If your team isn’t doing well or underperforming, that’s not their fault. It’s a reflection of you, and it’s your responsibility to handle it.

Communicate efficiently and effectively.

Lead with extreme ownership.

Stay humble or get humbled.

This is how to be an effective leader and lead from the front.