One of my favorite books I finished this year was Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s book, “Extreme Ownership”.
A book on how U.S. Navy SEALs lead and win, overall, I’ve come to learn how important leadership is, and how leadership is not only found on the battlefield but also in everyday life.
As Craig Groeschel mentions on his Leadership Podcast, a leader is not someone who is the head of an organization, manages a team, or owns a majority stake in a company.
A leader is anyone who has influence.
And everyone has influence.
But not every leader lives under extreme ownership.
For me, before knowing extreme ownership, I found myself wanting to blame others when issues arise. To point at other’s faults. To not take responsibility.
What I learned, though, is that extreme ownership challenges us to not blame others, have humility, and take greater ownership to change.
The truth is, blaming is easy.
Blame is a low-quality way of dealing with a problem.
It’s like slapping a band-aid on a wound when there’s an infection in the bone. You address the problem, but you don’t deal with the actual issue.
It takes humility to deal with the root problem of an issue.
I recognize that the most effective leaders humbly acknowledge failure and take ownership of the problem at hand.
By living out extreme ownership, these leaders remove blame, take responsibility, and create a plan to fix the root problem.
Through it, they end up learning from their mistakes, improve their teamwork or processes, and become 1% better than they were before.
After reading through this concept, I personally want to take a higher level of ownership in every aspect of my life.
I know that, though it will be harder to do, by imitating extreme ownership, I will be able to stop playing the blame game, learn from my failures faster, and set myself up for success to impact and bring value to wherever I have some stake and ownership already.
Questions to ponder: 🤔
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Have you been living out extreme ownership?
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Are you playing the blame game in any area of your life?
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What is one way you can live out extreme ownership where you’ve played the blame game?