Leadership Lessons from a Former Navy SEAL | Hacker News Reader

Leadership Lessons from a Former Navy SEAL

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50 pointsivorium36 comments

What is it with business media fawning over SEALs? It has nonstop SEAL articles.

The articles all suffer from the same problem: they tell you the results, implying that reading about them will get you the results, at least partly.

If that were the case, SEALs would just read these articles. They don't because reading the articles doesn't get you results. Training does. It's like expecting to get strong by reading about lifting weights.

People who want the results would do better by training. You don't have to train like a SEAL to get helpful results in business, but you need to do more than just read.

The US is gearing up for another war (North Korea).

Step one is convincing the citizens it's worthwhile.

They need to up the image of their military, especially their elite who are seen as "the persona" of the military.

I've always thought that there should be more hand-on bootcamp-style training available to civilians in areas like business. Funnily enough from what I've read it sounds like YC is somewhat like that for the first few months.

Reading this bit:

During a competitive boat race in Navy SEALs BUDS training, six teams competed for victory. After the first five races, there was a clear split: Team A placed first after every single race, and Team F had finished dead last. Jocko and the other instructors wanted to try something: what would happen if they took the group leader from Team A and put him in Team F's boat?

Guess what? Team F won the next race. And the next. And the next. See, it wasn't because the crew weren't good enough. It's because the new leader in Team F's boat wouldn't tolerate anything but the best. He set a new performance standard through his action and lifted the achievements of those around him.

I was reminded of the Athenians in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War. The Sicilians were being badly beaten by the Athenians, and in desperation they appealed to Sparta for help. Sparta didn't send thousands of troops but one general, Gylippus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gylippus). That pretty much did for Athens in Sicily.

>Reading this bit: ...

Sure, that of Gylippus is a very good historical example, but it simply doesn't fit.

I mean, Gylippus came from another society (Sparta) evidently better at educating their generals and soldiers.

Here we have someone that is giving advice on how to become good leaders, and he gives as an example the good leader of Team A and the bad leader of team F.

The only issue being that BOTH the team leaders were instructed by the same people and with the same methods, so if these methods were so good, there shouldn't be such a bad leader in team F.

That's one message to take from it. What I was trying to do though was give another historical example where good leadership made all the difference to a team (army) outcome.

Jocko's podcast is pretty good. The recent one with Harley Flanagan was a bit of an eye opener. http://jockopodcast2.com/2017/05/10/74-hard-times-violence-d...

I find them boring, too much about himself and how much Navy SEALS are that or this.

I really like his channel. Some episodes are boring and the books are kind of long when he reads in the beginning but overall I like them. Love the Q/A episodes though. My favorite episode for anyone who wants to just check it out is 69 - The Real Top Gun.

One piece is probably relevant in war but not as much in tech companies:

> Good leaders don't make excuses, they find a way to win

In war, if you lose a battle people on your team die. In tech, if you lose you hopefully learned a valuable lesson you can take into the next battle. All you lost was money (and runway probably).

Granted, the industry's obsession with "failure is good" may be taken a little bit too far sometimes. You have to win at least part of the time or you go out of business.

In war, often if you win a battle people on your team die.

and yet both war and tech leadership is the same: driving a group of humans to work together towards a common goal.

You can get these lessons in the regular Navy, I'm assuming, since you can get these lessons in the regular Army. You get a free pair of boots, too.

Really, any branch of the military in any country in the world. They all teach the same.

Sure, totally. This was my sort of sarcastic attempt at recruiting. People seem enamored by the things taught by individuals with these credentials, and I always like to plug the military as a school for these leadership concepts, because that's really what the military does. I suggest to anybody in their 20s or early 30s that is keenly interested in learning this kind of thing (and applying it) to look at a short enlistment in the military. No need to drop everything you're doing, either: The reserves let you live your "normal" everyday life while serving. I successfully ran a handful of businesses over the course of my enlistment, and definitely have the Army to thank for filling in the blanks where it was needed.

Ha - Sorry if I sounded confrontational... I was actually agreeing with you.

As it happens, another great place to learn these skills is by volunteering with youth military cadet forces (in the UK, the Army, Air or Sea cadets.) I'm not sure how prevalent these are in the US? (I guess this is an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Cadet_Alliance)

I agree with the comments from @ryanx435 and @bitexploder.

Leadership is definitely something that draws parallels across all professions. The toughest realms for leadership are definitely amongst those where life is at risk or the stakes are high. Military is just one such example. However, you may also consider several other scenarios which demand exemplary leadership: like hostage negotiations, standoffs, medical relief, natural disaster & calamity management, space missions etc.

A lot of material on such subjects provide insight into how good leaders managed the best outcome for their teams, while facing immense odds. How such stuff applies to your field of work, or your thoughts on leadership is entirely upto you.

The intent however is that the reader/listener is inspired enough to rise against odds and find the inner will to resolve the task at hand (in their own field, whatever it may be), while also ensuring that the team involved has improved trust, inspiration and motivation as an outcome.

Here are some videos I find inspiring. I'm from India. These are by the Indian military and special forces, on similar lines to those of the article above. They give great insight into the challenges, thought process and leadership by example.

1. TEDx - Capt. Raghu Raman - How the armed forces do it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ-IBRGfJyY

2. Attributes of leadership - by Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw This was a talk addressing students. This talk discusses some fundamental attributes of leadership. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSvLFPFXjc8

3. An account of the Kargil War - by Col. Lalit Rai This video is slightly long. However it is a great account of leadership at its finest, and how exceptional results can be achieved by leading from the front. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1rIkwAoZGg

Here we go. Yet another "the workplace is like a combat zone and we should all be SEAL's" fawning article. No it isn't. And no we shouldn't. I most definitely can't do the job of a SEAL. And SEAL's most definitely can't do my job (developing software that run airlines). And the 5 "leadership skills" the article waffle on about? That is leadership 101. The same kind of obvious common sense stuff you learn from any management consultant wanna-be. On top of that, I actually had a manager years ago who was an ex-special operations whatever guy. He was the most incompetent manager I have ever had. And he had some stiff competition.

>When your life is on the line, you have to know why you're fighting

Pretty ironic, considering they're talking about the Iraq War (an invasion founded on lies & deceit)

if you'd ever actually listened to Jocko's podcast you'd know that often the reason soldiers fight is for their brother next to them.

The reasons that they enlist/join up in the first place, however, are unique to each individual. After joining up it is often out of the individual soldiers control about if they are sent to war or not.

Jocko has a wonderful podcast where he reads exerts from various historical military auto/biographies. He really focuses on the extreme realities and hardships of war, and how good leadership is often the key ingredient that can keep a unit operating and keep their soldiers alive.

it is most definitely worth a listen or three

The real leaders in a war of aggression are those who don't show up or fight on the other side. "Leadership" and "excellence" and all that wank is really just that, wank. It's a compensation price for those who got broken as kid and never mustered any resolve worth a crap later on.

> He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

-- Albert Einstein

Prove me wrong. Me, directly, instead of hiding behind each other. In other words: lead, follow, or get out of the fucking way.

Eistein apparently wrote that in 1931 - but in 1939 when faced with the appalling prospect of a nuclear armed Nazi Germany he co-authored a letter to FDR with Leo Szilard recommending that the US research atomic weapons.

I'm not disagreeing with your sentiment, war is literally hell and the people I know who feel this more strongly are combat veterans, but outright pacifism in the face of a relentless aggressor like the Nazis would have achieved nothing but utter disaster and a "sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age".

Edit: From my own perspective I think our potentially fatal weakness as a species is how easy we are to lead. With a powerful enough leader people will do anything - good or bad.

> he co-authored a letter to FDR with Leo Szilard recommending that the US research atomic weapons.

That should clue you in about how this has nothing to do with "pacifism". It would be more pacifistic to not express disgust than to express it, and it would be more pacifistic for me to not comment. Yet here we are.

To oppose death and its apprentices, you do NOT have to march in rank and file, and you DON'T need "heroism on command". You have to organize, but there is nothing there that cannot spring from strength and cooperation. It doesn't have to be weakness and obedience under the guise of "leadership" and "team spirit".

but leadership doesn't demand obedience, it earns it. A good leader sets an example that others want to follow, they don't shout orders at people with no justification for following them. In fact, one of the traits mentioned in the article is that an effective leader tells their people why they are doing what they are doing, which is much more humanistic than the """leadership""" expressed in most large organisations (which is really just superficial authority, rather than leadership).

> You have to organize, but there is nothing there that cannot spring from strength and cooperation

Even spontaneous militias (and civilian groups) have leaders.

> A good leader sets an example that others want to follow

So does any random decent person, no leadership or subordination required.

> one of the traits mentioned in the article is that an effective leader tells their people why they are doing what they are doing,

Except they don't. They are repeating the rationalizations and their weak-ass half-truths that were hammered into their head. I doubt this guy told his men that they're there to control oil and whatnot.

> Even spontaneous militias (and civilian groups) have leaders.

Except the second they're unfit, they have nothing to say anymore. Because it arises naturally. Compare to the military where disobeying orders doesn't result in "Oh well, I should have made you want to do this, it's my fault you don't want to do it. Don't worry, we're cool."

I think your hostility towards the military is getting in the way of discussing these ideas as they would apply outside the military. Just because the failure mode of a military leader isn't the same as a civilian leader, doesn't mean that advice for actually-beneficial leadership in the military doesn't apply to civilian life.

> I think your hostility towards the military is getting in the way of discussing these ideas

No, your unwillingness to address something like this does:

> Except the second they're unfit, they have nothing to say anymore. Because it arises naturally. Compare to the military where disobeying orders doesn't result in "Oh well, I should have made you want to do this, it's my fault you don't want to do it. Don't worry, we're cool."

My hostility doesn't keep me from speaking my mind, it's your excuse to not respond to it, and you're welcome to it. I'm hostile to water so I can look fire in the eye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjxcWKa4sow&t=22m40s

You can pry my connection to the innocent from my cold, dead hands, and I will not sabotage it by being too friendly to those who lick boots.

None of what you said actually makes sense. "Real leaders in a war of aggression are those who don't show up or fight on the other side", then what about people who command from the field? What about the massive ability of a General's ability to affect the outcome of a war from the planning rooms?

Even your final phrase, "lead, follow, or get out of the way" makes no sense because there are literally no other courses of action available and you make no real defense of any of the three beyond preceding that statement with a quote from Einstein which you seem to feel is sufficient simply because... Einstein said so?

> what about people who command from the field? What about the massive ability of a General's ability to affect the outcome of a war from the planning rooms?

What about it?

> Even your final phrase, "lead, follow, or get out of the way" makes no sense because there are literally no other courses of action available and you make no real defense of any of the three beyond preceding that statement with a quote from Einstein

No, I preceded that with "if you disagree, deal with me, don't hide behind others".

> a quote from Einstein which you seem to feel is sufficient simply because... Einstein said so?

Not because he said it, but because he said it well. I can and have put this in my own words. I can write you a book about it. But why not quote Einstein? I mean, this is in a thread about an article with a whole lot of gibberish such as "Leaders find a way to win by taking extreme ownership of a situation and raising the expectations of those around him. That is a hallmark of true leadership." -- and we're supposed to even give it a thought because some Navy Seal said so? Hahaha.

Sure, that quote with no context is reduced to meaningless platitude. The context is that no matter what a leader, the person responsible for making decisions and owning them owns it all and never puts blame on a subordinate for failure. If something goes wrong, the buck stops with the leader. When a team can rely on it's leadership to take responsibility for failure and to share the success broadly and generously amazing things can happen. It really is not so different in philosophy from Adam Grant and his whole take on givers and takers. Takers are basically selfish and focus on themselves. Givers give freely to others and seem much more likely to be good leaders willing to take responsibility and negative consequences onto themselves to spare their team, but also to understand a failure and improve. It also allows teams to share success and is in my book a "proven" leadership style that yields results in the real world.

Edit: Also -- it is a fair practice to be skeptical of any group that gets beatified in the media and by military PR wonks. But I have read his book and listened to his words and directly applied his general principles to my day to day life and it has helped me personally. It did not change my political views or dislike of military culture one bit.

You cannot "take" responsibility. You can face the responsibility you have, or don't. You cannot shed one iota of it, or take one additional iota. And "subordinates" or also responsible for the orders they follow. Their leader cannot absolve them.

This seems like digging at meaningless pedantry now. We are arguing over phrasing and not intent. In almost any corporate or military environment it is extremely common for leaders to blame some external circumstance for the failure of a given project or mission, instead of looking at themselves as the root cause of failure. I think it is "understood" that this is the common definition of "taking" responsibility vs. displacing it to some external entity (a subordinate). This is not about absolution for mistakes but how a leader is the ultimate responsible party for leadership decisions that put subordinates and projects into a box that can define the ultimate success or failure of goals.

You are falling into a classic fallacy of dismissing the information due to it's source. The fact is the war happened and these SEALs learned what they learned, working as one of the most effective units in the war. What you wrote could be true, while everything Jocko has to teach you can be true and useful too. I was extremely skeptical, but I read his book and there is value in what he teaches. It isn't all trite militaristic BS. Some of it is, of course, he has his world view, but that is easy enough to separate from what made them so good in a chaotic environment. I encourage anyone reading this to put aside their well earned bias against most military figures and dig a little deeper if the topic of leadership and personal responsibility are of interest.

No, I'm dismissing it based on content. And the war didn't "happen", it was all actions of people. One element of it was Colin Powell sweating as he made his bullshit WMD presentation in front of the UN. Anyone with half a brain and half a gut would have seen all that crap for what it is.

It's great he's such a great guy within the larger context of being a shitty guy, but that's like being a very good doctor on the Titanic -- you'd save more lives by telling people to not go on that ship.

> It isn't all trite militaristic BS.

Wait, so I'm supposed to judge the article based on a book? Gift it to me and I'll read it. Otherwise, nah.

If we wrote off every great thinker who also thought or did 'bad stuff', we would be quite poor technologically and philisophically.

Think further man.

Nothing that makes sense in what he says I haven't heard put better by better people, who don't apply it in such a limited way.

Oh, and then there's people dismissing something just because Einstein said it, too. That's dismissing something because of someone being too good.

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