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

I listened patiently.
“The plant managers, the distribution and sales teams don’t fully
support the plan,” he continued. “So how am I supposed to execute it?
I’m not out there in the field with them. I can’t make them listen to me.”
The VP’s statements gradually became less emphatic. He soon realized
what he was saying: he was making excuses.
I explained that the direct responsibility of a leader included getting
people to listen, support, and execute plans. To drive the point home, I
told him, “You can’t make people listen to you. You can’t make them
execute. That might be a temporary solution for a simple task. But to
implement real change, to drive people to accomplish something truly
complex or difficult or dangerous—you can’t make people do those
things. You have to lead them.”
“I did lead them,” the VP protested. “They just didn’t execute.”
But he hadn’t led them, at least not effectively. The measure of this
was clear: he had been unsuccessful in implementing his plan.
“When I was in charge of a SEAL platoon or a SEAL task unit
conducting combat operations, do you think every operation I led was a
success?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Absolutely not,” I agreed. “Sure, I led many operations that went
well and accomplished the mission. But not always. I have been in
charge of operations that went horribly wrong for a number of reasons:
bad intelligence, bad decisions by subordinate leadership, mistakes by
shooters, coordinating units not following the plan. The list goes on.
Combat is a dangerous, complex, dynamic situation, where all kinds of
things can go sideways in a hurry, with life and death consequences.
There is no way to control every decision, every person, every