Then I sensed some distress, and then panic, among the platoon.
From the conversations among the SEALs in the platoon, it was clear something was missing:
“I don’t have it.”
“I thought you brought it?”
“Where did you put it last time?”
“That wasn’t my job.”
“No one told me to get it.”
I watched quietly for a few minutes as the the platoon panicked. Then, I walked over to the senior petty officer.
“What’s the issue?” I asked him.
“We forgot the one-inch tubular nylon,” he said dejectedly, knowing that this simple item was a mission-critical piece of equipment.
Once again I was disappointed, embarrassed, and angry. It was clear that, as the leader, I had been too hands-off.
“Roger,” I told him. “Well, you better figure something out. Quick. Start with the boat chief. They might have some somewhere.”
The senior petty officer asked various people if they had any extra one-inch tubular nylon. Eventually, the boat crew guys came up with enough half-inch tubular nylon that we could tie together and use to execute the mission. It was not pretty, not ideal, and not as safe as we would have liked it, but we made it work. Worse, we were now running even further behind schedule—all of which was nobody’s fault but our own.
We continued with the rehearsal, completed the mock mission, and then headed back to the pier. There, we off-loaded our gear and made our way back across the base to our platoon planning space.
Back in our platoon space, I had the platoon debrief the training operation. They mentioned the missing gear and some other things that we needed to do better. But the criticism was light compared to what it should have been. I didn’t say anything. As the debrief wound down, I asked, “Does anyone have anything else?” No one did. I sat for a moment to be sure. No one addressed our subpar performance. This was not good. I had to take Extreme Ownership.
I called the platoon leadership into my office. They could tell I was not happy. When the last man came in, I shut the door.
“I want to do every one of your jobs—all of them,” I told them bluntly. “I know how to do them. And I know how to do them right. I know how to make sure no one is ever late. I know how to make sure we never forget anything for a mission, ever. I know exactly how to do that. And I want to do that. I want to run this platoon. I want to run every facet of this platoon to the exacting and unwavering standards that I know cannot be questioned. But I also know that isn’t the right way to run a platoon. I know that will stifle your growth as SEALs and as leaders. So. I am going to give you one more chance. One more chance to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. No one will ever be late again. No one will ever forget gear again. Everyone will be early. You will inspect all gear. You will conduct every mission, every operation, every training event, as if it is the most important thing in your life. If we drop the ball one more time, you are done. I am taking over. That will be it. Do you understand?”
The senior SEAL petty officer, a friend of mine and a solid SEAL, knew exactly where I was coming from. He knew I was right and that I meant what I said.
“We got it, sir,” he replied. “This won’t happen again. I will make sure of it. We all will.”
And that was that. The platoon never did let me down again. A few weeks later, we deployed to Iraq and conducted combat mission after mission, aggressively pursuing the enemy throughout the country. The threat I had made of micromanagement after the maritime operation had been enough to change their attitudes, their actions, and their ownership. They never slacked off again; instead, I was the one who had to slack off a little once we got to Iraq. I had to let them take charge. I had to let them take ownership. I had to let them lead. I had to balance the dichotomy between taking too much ownership and not taking enough.
Principle
Micromanagement and hands-off leadership styles are obviously opposites.
The micromanager tries to control every thought and action of each individual on the team. Micromanagement fails because no one person can control multiple people executing a vast number of actions in a dynamic environment, where changes in the situation occur rapidly and with unpredictability. It also inhibits the growth of subordinates: when people become accustomed to being told what to do, they begin to await direction. Initiative fades and eventually dies. Creativity and bold thought and action soon die as well. The team becomes a bunch of simple and thoughtless automatons, following orders without understanding, moving forward only when told to do so. A team like that will never achieve greatness.
The hands-off leader with a laissez-faire attitude is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Such a leader fails to provide specific direction—in some cases almost no clear direction whatsoever. Instead of a lack of thought like a team that is micromanaged, a team with a hands-off leader thinks too much. Its members have grand ideas and plans, they come up with new tactics and procedures—they even start to develop their own broad strategies beyond the boundaries of their responsibilities and competence. Such grandiose ideas and thoughts become a major problem when they are not aligned with the greater vision and goals of the company. So the troops, instead of pushing the team toward its strategic goals, move in random directions. They not only fail to provide each other with simple support but often work on projects or efforts that directly conflict with what other members of the team are doing.
In order to correctly balance these two leadership styles, a leader must find the middle ground and pay attention to the team, ensuring that the leader doesn’t push too far in one direction or the other. There are some clear warning signs that indicate when a leader has leaned too far in the direction of one of these leadership styles. Here are the commons symptoms that result from micromanagement:
1. The team shows a lack of initiative. Members will not take action unless directed.
2. The team does not seek solutions to problems; instead, its members sit and wait to be told about a solution.
3. Even in an emergency, a team that is being micromanaged will not mobilize and take action.
4. Bold and aggressive action becomes rare.
5. Creativity grinds to a halt.
6. The team tends to stay inside their own silo; not stepping out to coordinate efforts with other departments or divisions for fear of overstepping their bounds.
7. An overall sense of passivity and failure to react.
Once a leader sees these behaviors in the team, corrective action must be taken. The leader must pull back from giving detailed direction; instead of explaining what the mission is and how to accomplish it, the leader should explain the broad goal of the mission, the end state that is desired, and why the mission is important and then allow the team to plan how to execute the mission. The leader should continue to monitor what is happening and check the progress of the team but refrain from giving specific guidance on the execution, unless the plan that is being formulated by the team will have extremely negative results. Finally, if there is an opportunity when time and risk levels permit, a leader can step away from the team completely and allow it to plan and execute a mission on its own. In Task Unit Bruiser, this was done regularly during our pre-deployment training cycle. Senior leadership, including Leif, the Delta Platoon commander, Seth Stone, and the senior enlisted personnel, would step back and allow junior leaders to step up, plan, and execute training missions. We saw the junior leaders quickly transform from passively waiting to be told what to do into proactive leaders who assessed problems and implemented solutions.
Here are common symptoms that indicate when a leader is too hands-off with his team:
1. Lack of vision in what the team is trying to do and how to do it.
2. Lack of coordination between individuals on the team and efforts that often compete or interfere with each other.
3. Initiative oversteps the bounds of authority, and both individuals and teams carry out actions t
hat are beyond what they have the authorization to do.
4. Failure to coordinate. While a micromanaged team might not coordinate with other teams because it doesn’t want to overstep its bounds, a team without good guidance may also fail to coordinate not out of fear but out of ignorance. In its efforts to solve problems and accomplish the mission, the team forgets that other teams might also be maneuvering and end up interfering with their efforts.
5. The team is focused on the wrong priority mission or pursuit of solutions that are not in keeping with the strategic direction of the team or the commander’s intent.
6. There are too many people trying to lead. Since everyone is trying to lead, there won’t be enough people to execute. Instead of progress, the leader will see discussion; instead of action, the leader will see prolonged debate; instead of unified movement, the leader will see fractured elements pursuing individual efforts.
When these behaviors are observed by a leader, there are some basic actions to take to get the team back on course. First and foremost, clear guidance must be given. The mission, the goal, and the end state must be explained in a simple, clear, and concise manner. The team must also understand the boundaries that are in place and what actions to take should it bump up against those boundaries. If multiple, simultaneous, overlapping efforts are being pursued, the leader must decide on and clearly implement the chosen course of action. The team must also be educated on efforts being executed by other teams so that deconfliction can occur. Finally, if a team is paralyzed by too many people trying to lead—the classic case of “too many coaches, not enough players”—then the leader must assign and clearly delineate the chain of command, roles, and responsibilities of the team leaders and give them proper authority.
I saw this manifest itself in SEAL task units, including Task Unit Bruiser, when a mission tasking would be given to the platoons without a clearly assigned lead. A SEAL task unit consists of two platoons, each with its own leadership: a platoon commander, a platoon chief, an assistant platoon commander, and a leading petty officer. If a mission was given to the platoons without assigning a platoon as the lead, they would both begin to come up with their own separate and distinct plans and courses of action. The longer the platoons were left without guidance as to which one had the lead on the operation, the further they would head down the paths of their own plans, wasting time and effort. This is easily solved by delineating one platoon as the lead element on the operation and the other as the supporting element. With that clear direction, efforts were coordinated and the team could work together toward a unified plan.
But once again, the key is balance, maintaining an equilibrium where the troops have the guidance to execute but at the same time the freedom to make decisions and lead.
Application to Business
The finished product had been sold. The problem was, the finished product wasn’t finished yet. Sure, there were some functional beta models that had been manufactured one at a time by hand, but no final version had been solidified. Furthermore, no standard manufacturing process had been established for a large production run.
What made this even harder was the industry. The product was to be utilized in cars, which added some significant difficulties. First, the software to integrate it had to be interoperable with several different manufacturers and their car models. Second, the product had to fit into pre-designed spaces that allowed no significant change in shape or volume of the equipment. Finally, given the safety regulations in vehicle production, there was very little leeway with regard to material that could be used in manufacturing.
When I showed up to run leadership training aimed at developing new leaders at this growing company, things seemed to be on track. While the company was well established with many years in the industry, it was in a growth phase and needed training for newly promoted and hired leaders. The attitude at the company was excellent, and the employees were abuzz with the opportunities ahead and the promising progress on the horizon.
There was also a great deal of confidence. Much of the company’s growth was geared toward supporting a high-demand signal for a new product that the company planned to release. When I first showed up to work with the company, it was in the final stages of the new product rollout. They had completed the bulk of the design, done preliminary testing on the software, and initiated the rollout of a manufacturing process for adaptation to the final design. Sales had already started, and they were strong. Overall, I was impressed with the situation and how things were going. I spent most of my time training the newly promoted and hired leaders. The rest of the time I spent in familiarization with the company’s leadership and the state of the business.
When the three-day leadership development program I ran for the company’s new leaders was complete, I departed with a plan to return in six weeks. At that time, I would host follow-on training for those leaders from the first course and run a new course for the next round of new hires and recently promoted leaders.
But when I returned six weeks later, the atmosphere at the company had completely changed. Gone was the enthusiasm and the confidence. Gone was the vision of opportunity and success. There was a new attitude: fear and uncertainty.
The CEO was blunt with me. “I don’t think we are going to make it,” he said, referring to the scheduled release of the new product. “Since the last time you were here, we have barely moved. Our progress has ground to a halt. The teams just aren’t getting anything done.”
“Are these the team leaders that I just trained?” I asked him, referring to the group of midlevel managers who had been through Echelon Front’s basic leadership course.
“No. Not at all,” the CEO answered. “They are the least of my problems. I’m not getting performance from my senior leaders.”
“What seems to be the issue?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “But we need to get it fixed. Can we postpone your next block of training for the midlevel managers so you can spend a few days with my senior leadership team to figure out what is wrong?”
“I think so,” I answered. “Let me confirm my schedule.”
I called Jamie, our director of operations at Echelon Front, who quickly shifted some events in my schedule and freed up the time so I could adapt to the CEO’s request and engage with the company’s senior leadership team.
“Do you want to talk to the team?” the CEO asked.
I had already put his senior leadership team through a course on Extreme Ownership and the fundamental principles of combat leadership. They seemed to have grasped it pretty well. I didn’t need to say more—I needed to get in and see what was happening and where the issue was.
“No,” I replied, “I have talked enough. I need to see the team in action. When is the next meeting where the whole group will be together?”
“Well, actually we have a meeting in a few minutes with everyone and then another one just after lunch,” the CEO replied. “And in between those two and throughout the afternoon, I meet with the leaders and their team lead.”
“Busy schedule. How many times a week do you hold those meetings?” I asked.
“We actually have them every day. There is a lot going on right now and I have to take ownership—Extreme Ownership—to keep things in check and on track.”
“Got it,” I replied slowly, as I wondered if I’d just gotten my first indication of the problem.
We walked down the hallway and into the first meeting. The entire leadership team was present. I thought the meeting would be a quick, broad update of what was happening. I was wrong. Each leader gave a full update of what was happening in his or her department. Minute details were covered that should have been outside the scope of the executive-level team. As courses of action were discussed, virtually indistinguishable options were presented and drawn-out arguments made, and finally, the CEO made decisions on how the various teams would execute. The meeting lasted nearly two full hours. If that wasn’t bad enough, as soon as the meeting
concluded, it was followed by another meeting, this time with the engineering team, which wanted guidance on what manufacturer to use for several parts of the product. That meeting, which also got bogged down in the details, lasted another forty-five minutes. Before we knew it, it was lunchtime.
I walked with the CEO back to his office. While we ate, he answered a plethora of questions that had come through e-mail and made two phone calls—not to his direct reports but to frontline engineers who explained some minute elements of the electronic components to be embedded in the new product.
After these e-mail conversations and phone calls, we went into the afternoon leadership huddle. I again hoped the meeting would be a quick confirmation of progress made and any necessary troubleshooting. Once again, I was wrong.
Like the others before it, this meeting quickly devolved into a detailed discussion of the minutiae involved in every aspect of the engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and sale of the product. The CEO drilled down on each aspect of the planning and execution and made decisions at every level. As I looked around at the others in the meeting, I expected to see frustration. But most of the faces didn’t look frustrated. They sat and stared and waited for their turn to talk and get questions answered by the CEO. There was no emotion, no frustration or sense of urgency—there was no initiative in the group.
Two more days went by with much of the same: meetings, meetings, meetings. Decisions were made, almost every single one of them by the CEO. Finally, after one meeting ended, the CEO and I walked back to his office.
The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win Page 6