Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

ground. If you have questions about why a specific plan or required
paperwork is coming down the pipe, don’t just throw up your hands in
frustration. Ask those questions up the chain to clarify, so that you can
understand it. Provide them with constructive feedback so they can
appreciate the impact those plans or requirements have on your
operations. That is what Extreme Ownership is all about.”
“I guess I never really thought about it like that,” said the field
manager.
“That’s ‘leading up the chain of command,’” I explained.
The field manager came around to this realization. He accepted that
he needed to do better in pushing situational awareness, information, and
communication up the chain.
“If you think they don’t fully understand the challenges you are
facing here, invite your senior executives out to the field to see your
team in action,” I said.
Over the following weeks and months, the field manager took a
different tack with his senior leadership at corporate headquarters. He
took the initiative to understand what specific information they needed
and went overboard pushing that information to them.
He also hosted the senior executives in a field visit to their frontline
troops. It built camaraderie between the corporate leadership team and
the field manager’s operations team on the ground. The face-to-face
interaction helped the senior executives understand some of the field
manager’s challenges. And the field manager’s time with the senior
executives made him realize all the more that his leaders were smart
folks who wanted him to succeed. It went a long way toward breaking
down the barriers that had built up between his field team and corporate
headquarters. He was now ready to lead up the chain.