The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win

by Jocko Willink

  We are often asked, “When is the right time to fire someone?” Some leaders are too quick to pull the trigger and fire people without giving them the right guidance and enough opportunity to gain competency. Other leaders wait to let someone go even after the individual has shown no potential at becoming competent and is negatively impacting the team. The answer is this: When a leader has done everything possible to get an individual up to speed without seeing results, the time has come to let that individual go. Don’t be too quick to fire—but don’t wait too long. Find the balance and hold the line.

  Application to Business

  “The Tower Two super just doesn’t seem to know how to get things done. They are lagging behind Tower One by six days right now,” the project manager told me and the regional vice president, referring to the superintendent in charge of one of two condominium towers they were building.

  “Six days behind?” the VP asked. “Doesn’t that throw everything off track?”

  “It absolutely does,” the project manager answered. “We are having to repeat the same events instead of getting them done at once; things like concrete pours and crane movements—it costs us time and money!”

  “That isn’t good,” the VP said. “This is the only project I’m a part of that is off schedule.”

  “Well … I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got,” said the project manager. “The Tower Two super just isn’t getting it done.”

  I looked at the VP and gave him a nod. I could tell he was thinking what I was thinking. We had already put this whole team through a course on Extreme Ownership, yet this project manager was casting blame and making excuses. The VP wasn’t having any of that.

  “Whose fault is it that the Tower Two super isn’t getting it done?” the VP asked.

  Immediately, the project manager recognized what was being implied. The look on his face changed and he started shaking his head.

  “How can it be my fault?” he asked. “He’s the one running Tower Two, not me.”

  “Well, what are you getting paid for, then?” the VP asked, going strong—maybe a little too strong—at the project manager. The project manager didn’t answer. The VP backed off.

  “I mean, seriously, you are the project manager,” the VP continued. “Tower Two is part of this project. If the Tower Two super isn’t doing his job, who is supposed to fix him?”

  “I’ve been trying to fix him,” the project manager countered. “But like I said, he just doesn’t seem to get it.”

  “Okay then,” I interjected. “If he truly doesn’t get it, then why is he still in that position? If I had a platoon commander or a squad leader who was failing repeatedly, they would be out of a job.”

  “That’s easier said than done,” the project manager insisted. “This job has a lot of baggage behind it. We have had to clean up a lot of stuff from the architects and the engineers. This isn’t an easy job—and he has a lot of knowledge that any other super wouldn’t have if we brought someone new on board. That knowledge is critical to this project.”

  “Well, this clearly isn’t working,” said the VP.

  “Alright, alright,” the project manager protested. “Let me talk to him some more.”

  “While you are talking, you better prepare for action,” I said, thinking that this might require the removal of the superintendent from Tower Two.

  “I’m prepared,” the project manager said.

  “No. Beyond you being prepared. We need to be legally prepared,” the VP said.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well, let’s look at the situation,” I told him. “You say you have talked to him already. That obviously isn’t working. Now, maybe you need to be more direct with him. Tell him exactly where he is failing and what he needs to do to improve. You also need to give him warning that the next time you talk to him about this, you are putting it in writing. And then if he doesn’t fix himself, you need to actually put it in writing. The company must prepare to take action—to terminate him—if he doesn’t improve. And all indicators are that he won’t improve. So you need to prepare the situation so that he can be terminated without legal blowback.”

  “But what if he does improve?” the project manager asked, clearly fearful of my guidance.

  “If he does improve, that’s great,” I said. “Problem solved. We can move on. No factor. But if he doesn’t, then you’ll be ready.”

  “But won’t it ruin his attitude if I write him up?” the project manager asked.

  “It might. But think about where we’re at,” I countered. “You and I had this discussion early on—you put him through an escalation of counseling. You started with a friendly conversation. He didn’t change. You asked how you could help him change. He didn’t change. You told him directly what he needed to change. He didn’t change. You gave him plenty of opportunity, and so far, he has made no improvement.

  “It’s clear you’ve made an effort not to put too much pressure on him or be too negative,” I continued. “It simply hasn’t been effective. The next step in the escalation is to tell him he is going to be written up, which is a final plea for him to fix himself. But if he doesn’t, you have to move further up the escalation of counseling—you will need to write him up. And of course, there is a chance that it will help him. It might make him finally realize how serious you are and how serious the situation is. You owe it to him to make clear where his deficiencies are and to help him improve. If that happens and he gets his act together, great. But if that doesn’t happen, you need to be ready to act accordingly. Having a documented formal counseling will make termination easier. Plus, the work you have done to help him, to coach him, to mentor him, and to make clear that his performance is substandard and must improve, is ultimately to his benefit.”

  I explained that one of the things that makes it so hard to fire someone is the leader’s knowledge that they have not done everything to actually lead a poor performer. As leaders, we feel bad when we haven’t done enough: We haven’t trained. We haven’t mentored. We haven’t led. And that makes us feel guilty—and rightly so.

  “If you have done all you can as a leader,” I said, “if you have given him direct feedback on his deficiencies, coached and mentored him, and given him ample opportunity to correct himself, then getting rid of a subpar performer isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the only thing to do. Anything less is letting down the team. Does that make sense?”

  “It does make sense, but it doesn’t solve the other problem at all,” the project manager said.

  “What problem is that?” the VP interjected.

  “The problem of replacing him. This is a complex job. And like I said, there are all kinds of issues,” answered the project manager. “If I have to fire him, who else could I bring in that could get a grip on this job?”

  “Who said you would have to bring someone in?” I asked. “Why not just bring someone up?”

  “Bring someone up?” the project manager asked.

  “Absolutely,” I replied. “You’ve got a whole job site’s—really two job sites’—worth of people out there. Are there no capable leaders among them? Do you not think there is anyone who could step into the role of superintendent and lead?”

  “Maybe,” he replied without much enthusiasm.

  With that, the project manager walked back into his trailer, and the VP and I made the rounds, talking to the troops and leaders on the job site. Overall, they had great crews of experienced workers making steady progress on both towers. In fact, many of the crews were actually bouncing back and forth between towers, doing work on both.

  “The two teams are basically equivalent,” the VP said to me.

  “Yeah, they are. Isn’t it amazing how one tower is doing so well and the other isn’t?” I said with a hint of sarcasm in my voice. We both knew exactly what was happening here.

  “‘No bad teams, only bad leaders,’” the VP said, quoting the chapter from Extreme Ownership that explained ho
w when a team is failing it is the leader’s fault. “The Tower Two super isn’t working out. And the project manager won’t do anything about it.”

  “Indeed,” I replied. “That is some bad leadership, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is…,” the VP replied, fading off at the end as he realized what I was really saying. He gave me an inquisitive yet knowing look. I simply nodded.

  “This is on me, isn’t it,” the VP said.

  “You are the leader,” I replied.

  He stood for a moment looking across the construction site. Then he looked at me and said, “I get it.”

  “You get what?” I replied.

  “I get it. I get that everything you just said to the project manager you might as well have been saying to me,” the VP observed. “If the Tower Two super isn’t working out, and the project manager isn’t doing anything about it, that is actually my fault … and I need to fix it.”

  “That is Extreme Ownership,” I acknowledged.

  The VP was quiet for a few moments. Then he said, “Okay. I get that too. But here is the problem: The Tower Two super, he’s a good guy. He’s worked other jobs for us before and done just fine. And the project manager—he can get it done. Look at Tower One. I want to take care of these guys.”

  “Sure. The project manager can get it done, but he is not,” I noted. “And are you really taking care of these guys by letting the project fall behind? Letting them fail? This is one of the dichotomies of leadership: balancing between when to keep people, to coach them and mentor them until they get up to speed, and when to make the call that they are hurting the team and get rid of them. Of course, when you coach and mentor and try to help them, you are going to develop a relationship with them—you are going to build trust. But as a leader, if you are investing too much time into one person, that means others are being ignored. Also, if a member of the team isn’t able to perform effectively, it is likely impacting the mission as a whole. I think that is where you are with this situation. You are letting the project manager deal with the super, but he isn’t doing it well and the whole job is suffering. You need to get in there and get it fixed.”

  “I do,” the VP agreed. “I’ll make it happen.”

  He asked for some time alone with the project manager. I went and talked to some of the contractors on the job and learned more about how the leadership interacted with them as contractors. An hour or so later, the VP texted me and told me he was in his trailer and wanted to debrief the conversation with the project manager, so I headed to his trailer.

  “That was easier than I thought,” he said.

  “That’s good. What did you tell him?” I asked.

  “First, I told him that I liked him and thought he was very capable,” the VP said. “But then I told him he was failing—and that if he was failing, I was failing. Then I explained that if I was failing, I needed to take ownership of the situation and fix it.”

  “How did he like that?” I asked, expecting that the project manager would get defensive and ask him to back off a little and let him do his job.

  “Surprisingly, he didn’t mind,” answered the VP.

  “Really?” I asked, surprised.

  “I think he needs some help with the hard decisions,” the VP said. “And I think he knows that. So I told him to give an extremely firm written counseling to the super of Tower Two. And at the same time, I told him to find someone who could step up and take over Tower Two. That was his biggest concern: he didn’t think anyone in Tower Two was ready to step up. But I told him to look at some of the guys from Tower One. They have the same information. And they have the benefit of having followed a good leader on Tower One for the last six months. They know what they are supposed to do and they have already seen it done right. He liked that idea—and immediately offered a couple of names that could potentially pull it off. I think this is going to work out pretty well.”

  “That’s great, at least the talk went great,” I said. “Now comes the hard part: execution. The project manager has to have some tough conversations with the superintendent. Those conversations are hard. And if the conversations don’t work, he may have to terminate the superintendent. It’s tough to go from trying to coach and help someone to firing them. But, as a leader, it is unfortunately a dichotomy you have to deal with,” I told him.

  Over the next few weeks, I was not on the job site, but I received regular updates from the VP. He and the project manager executed the plan. The project manager wrote up the Tower Two superintendent. The VP and project manager worked together to identify and speak with the best possible candidate from Tower One to step up and become the superintendent of Tower Two. After three weeks and three written counseling sessions, the super from Tower Two made no improvement. So they let him go. The project manager elevated a new superintendent into the position and pressed on with this new leadership in place. Because of the relationship between the Tower One super and the new Tower Two super, the Tower One super went out of his way to get the new Tower Two super up to speed—even giving him manpower and resources to get them caught up, in an excellent example of Cover and Move. And although Tower One did finish ahead of Tower Two, Tower Two team’s performance radically improved once the proper balance was found between continuing to coach the underperforming superintendent and deciding it was time to remove and replace him with good leadership.

  PART II

  BALANCING THE MISSION

  A combined force of SEALs from Task Unit Bruiser’s Charlie and Delta platoons lay down cover fire from the rooftop for their fellow SEALs, Iraqi soldiers, and U.S. Army Soldiers of Task Force Red Currahee (1st Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne) in the streets below. The urban landscape of closely packed buildings and cramped city streets in Ramadi was inherently difficult terrain in which to fight. Extensive and challenging training in urban environments prior to deployment was crucial to Task Unit Bruiser’s success, and lessons learned from Ramadi were passed on to future SEAL task units and platoons during training.

  (Photo courtesy of Todd Pitman)

  CHAPTER 5

  Train Hard, but Train Smart

  Leif Babin

  HOSTILE TERRITORY: 2009

  “Big Walt is down,” came the call over the intersquad radio net. Every SEAL in the platoon monitored this via the headset and radio they carried. Explosions burst all around with ear-shattering booms and incoming rounds impacted from multiple directions. In the whirlwind of an epic gun battle, the bitter news of the loss was devastating to the other SEALs in the platoon. They were in a hell of a bad spot, pinned down by enemy fire in the middle of a hostile city. One of the Humvees from their convoy had been hit and was inoperable, stranded helplessly on the street. And now their beloved platoon chief, “Big Walt”—the key leader on whom they depended to make the tough calls and rally the troops in the thick of the fight—was gone. Who would they turn to now?

  In the chain of command, the leading petty officer (or LPO) was next in line. He knew it was his place to step up and lead. But from the look on his face, he was clearly bewildered and overwhelmed. To the rest of the SEAL platoon, who needed a leader for encouragement and direction to get disaggregated elements back on the same page, the LPO projected little confidence. The other SEAL shooters took cover from a wicked barrage of incoming rounds and returned fire as best they could. They waited for the LPO’s direction. What was the next move? Consolidate forces? Attack? Retreat? The direction never came.

  “WHERE IS EVERYONE?!” the LPO screamed into the radio as rounds smacked the wall inches from his face. There was no answer. How could they answer? They were scattered among a series of buildings that stretched nearly the full city block, and all of them were heavily engrossed in their immediate tasks—returning fire, dealing with casualties, and trying to figure out their own dire situation. To most of the other SEALs in the platoon, the radio query in their headset was mere background noise. Besides, trying to describe their exact location over the ra
dio in this nondescript urban environment was difficult. Answers via radio such as “I’m over here by the wall,” “I’m in the backyard of a house,” or “I’m in the street halfway down the block” would provide no clarity on exact locations or action steps to take next. It would just crowd the radio net and prevent critical commands from being passed.

  Only a handful of SEALs were located in the immediate room with the LPO. He didn’t know where the rest were. Enemy fire was pouring in from all directions. A few SEAL shooters did what they could, returning fire from the windows and doorway. Pinned down, none of them could see the other scattered elements of the platoon taking cover in additional buildings, separated by concrete walls and the buildings between them. In reality they were all only a few yards apart, but without this knowledge it might as well have been miles.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Explosions rocked the street just outside the building. Machine gun fire echoed from the walls. The LPO was rattled. His troops were hunkered down, waiting for someone—anyone—to step up and make a call.

  “What are we doing?” shouted one SEAL operator. Another yelled, “WE NEED TO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!”

  It was total mayhem and growing worse by the second as enemy fighters converged from the surrounding city blocks and closed in on the SEALs’ position. But while the enemy maneuvered to envelop the SEALs, nobody in the SEAL platoon moved. Nobody gave a command. No one took ownership to solve the problem and make things happen. Instead, they all waited while the LPO ran around frantically and tried in vain to get a head count of the SEALs in his immediate vicinity.

  Meanwhile, another SEAL was hit. Then another.

  MAN DOWN.

  They had already lost Big Walt. And without his leadership, they were paralyzed, unable to extract themselves from this horrific situation. With every passing moment, their casualties grew. The LPO didn’t make a call. And neither did anyone else.