Extreme Ownership Book Quotes

The book derives its title from the underlying principle—the mind-set—that provides the foundation for all the rest: Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win. He has since authored a best-selling children’s book, Way of the Warrior Kid, and his latest, Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual, which details his unique mental and physical “operating system.

Apart from forestalling rebellion, there was a more subtle reason to withhold education. Bible-reading Christians had a basic conflict between their religious beliefs and their brutal ownership of other human beings. To resolve this hypocrisy, they concluded that Africans were some sort of slow-witted offspring of Homo sapiens and, therefore, not quite human. To support this fiction, slave owners put out lamps at night, snatched books from questioning hands, separated blacks from their tribal groups, and created around them a cultural vacuum. This extremely effective practice of first denying education than saying the victim cannot learns continues to compound all the other problems facing us today.

There was one big problem with the book Extreme Ownership: the title. While it drove home the most important leadership foundation in the book, it was also slightly misleading. Extreme Ownership is the foundation of good leadership. But leadership seldom requires extreme ideas or attitudes. In fact, quite the opposite is true: leadership requires balance. We addressed that concept in chapter 12 of Extreme Ownership, “Discipline Equals Freedom—The Dichotomy of Leadership.” But as we assessed legions of leaders in companies, teams, and organizations as they implemented the principles we taught in the book, many struggled to find that balance. This struggle represents the biggest challenge we observed as we trained and advised hundreds of companies and thousands of leaders over the past few years with our leadership consulting company, Echelon Front.

Among the legions of leadership books in publication, we found most focus on individual practices and personal character traits. We also observed that many corporate leadership training programs and management consulting firms do the same. But without a team—a group of individuals working to accomplish a mission—there can be no leadership. The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails.

Every leader and every team at some point or time will fail and must confront that failure. That too is a big part of this book. We are by no means infallible leaders; no one is, no matter how experienced. Nor do we have all the answers; no leader does. We’ve made huge mistakes. Often our mistakes provided the greatest lessons, humbled us, and enabled us to grow and become better.