Ink & Bytes
Ink & Bytes
Episode Four - The Dichotomies Of Leadership
Leadership is not something we can all pick up right away, of course there will be people who are born natural leaders. Though most of the time these skills have to be learned. And there is no better way to learn them then in the fires of combat.
In this episode, I unravel two compelling leadership insights from the book "The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win" that captured my attention. These lessons not only fascinated me but also left me eager to share the transformative power of this leadership style with you. Whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey, this episode promises to ignite your curiosity and inspire a fresh perspective on effective leadership. Tune in and discover how the fires of combat can forge exceptional leaders!
Hello everybody and welcome back to the Ink Invites podcast. It's great to have you here. Last episode was our very first longer form interview episode and it was a really good milestone, not only for me but for the show, because it taught me how to do interviews. It taught me how to hold a conversation for a while and we did a really good job, I think, at navigating a variety of different hobbies that Municorn has, because he has a variety of hobbies. So if you haven't listened to that yet, I highly suggest it. Like I said, it's one of the longer form episodes, so it's more of a you're driving for a little bit or you like to listen while on your computer, and so on and so forth. It's about an hour and a half, but it's a really good conversation and after I recorded it and uploaded it, I really spent the week building this podcast up. I swapped hosts, so I'm pretty much on every single podcasting platform now and I have a new system of uploading and everything's just so much easier.
Colby:And I'm just focusing on building up world builder as this community of people and of content that hopefully people enjoy and want more of, and I want to put more time into building this because I find it fascinating and helps me learn and become a better human being and I'm putting more time into now. But if anybody really enjoys what I'm doing and they want more and maybe some special perks and roles in a Discord server if I ever set one up, which I plan on doing, a little peek under the hood you can support me on Ko-Fi. I just set up my own Ko-Fi and that is ko-ficom slash world builder, and right now there's just one role called supporter, which is just a small donation monthly but it allows me to spend more time on this podcast, on my blog and all these creative endeavors to bring more content that I think that you would enjoy. That would hopefully help you in any field you're interested in, because, just like Moonee Corn has a lot of hobbies, I also have a lot of hobbies that I want to explore and talk about and get more people on the show and just bring value to as many people as I can. So again, if you really like the show and you want more of it, check out ko-ficom slash world builder and as time goes on, there's gonna be more perks that come out and more roles that come out and maybe exclusive episodes here and there, if I can pull it off, which I think I can because, again, I really like doing this. But, with that said, I want to give a shout out to the very first supporter of this podcast, tj. I just want to say thank you so much for jumping in and showing your support on this early podcast and this early project. It really means the world to me and it really motivates me to keep going. It puts puts a little bit of a fire under me, because I need that, and I'm grateful for your support and I'm so glad you enjoy what I'm doing. So thank you again, tj, for your support.
Colby:Leadership is not something that we all can pick up easily. Of course there's gonna be some naturally born leaders that have a knack for it. It can lead a team to success with relative ease and you can just pick up and go. But a lot of us, me included, have to learn about leadership through books, through research, through practice and application to real-world situations. And there is no better way to see leadership firsthand and learn a good leadership and see and experience bad leadership, which will then help in learning how to be a good leader, than the crucibles of armed combat, and that is exactly how the individual we're gonna be talking about today learned how to be a fantastic leader and learned how to share it with others, to grow and build new leaders, not only in the military sector, but in the civilian sector. Jocko served as a seal platoon commander during the battle over Maudi in Iraq and seen the horrors of war and got to see good and bad leadership and see the outcomes that they can lead to. And outside of that, once he was done with service, started his own company called echelon front, which actually helps companies in the civilian sector become better and stronger teams and build better products and have, just overall, a stronger unification of their efforts. And even outside of that, jaco has his own brand of health and supplements that are fantastic at keeping you in the right mindset, keeping you in shape, if you pair it with correct exercise and food. So, all around, jaco is a really great individual to look at for what we're going to be talking about today and, once again, he has a lot of books on leadership and we're only going to be covering two of the lessons in one of these books that I find fascinating, and the book in particular is the dichotomy of leadership. But outside of that there's also extreme ownership and leadership strategy and tactics and probably a few more than I'm missing.
Colby:But highly recommend this book, kind of similar to the first episode that we did. I can't read the whole book. It's way too big. The concepts are too deep to explore all of them in a short form episode. So pick up the book. You can find it pretty much on any retail Fantastic stuff. This is a great read and you'll see what I mean as we explore these two topics. So before we jump in, you may be wondering why I'm talking about this. Well, just like all the other episodes I recorded and I'm going to record, I have an immense interest in this topic and I want to bring it forward to the world and kind of act as a bridge for people so they can get into it themselves and explore the granular topics that I can't really cover today in the short form episodes. For a variety of reasons, and also I have been impacted pretty heavily by Jacko's literature and his leadership style and I'm fascinated by it and I just love learning more about it, just because I have experienced a lot of bad leadership that made me want to learn how to be a good leader. So if I'm ever put in a position, I can be efficient in that position. So without further ado, let's get into it.
Colby:So 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 phased 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.
Colby: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 micro-managed, 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 towards 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.
Colby:We all had that manager at one point in our careers who was always on an ego power trip and where everything always has to be under their control, a purview or they won't trust it, they'll protest, they'll riot or they won't show up to work. And the teams that are unfortunately stuck in positions like that are often in a bad state mentally, emotionally, physically and any other thing you want to say, and probably you're going to be aggravated and won't want to do much of anything. These teams do not seek solutions to problems. Instead, its members sit in wait to be told about a solution. Even in an emergency, a team that is being micromanaged will not mobilize and take action. Bold and aggressive actions become rare.
Colby:The team tends to stay inside their own silo, not stepping out to coordinate efforts with other departments or divisions for fear of overstepping and their boundaries. People will say this in a lot of different ways. Maybe they say everyone has to stay in their own lane. And again from this, maybe it's everyone's in their own silo, everyone's in their own box, everyone's in their own cubicle. No one's allowed to see what's going on around them or communicate. And really teams like that die. They don't move and even if an emergency comes up, say in the retail and service industry, the district manager is coming in and is going to check the store.
Colby:It's a really stressful moment for a lot of convenience stores, grocery stores and so on, and the store is not where it needs to be. Maybe there's nothing on the shelves, maybe the produce is behind, maybe there's just a lack of team members and the team leader is pointing at things and saying do this this way, make magic happen. And the team can't say anything. But yes, maybe as they're doing it, they actually have a better way of doing it, but they can't bring it up to their leader because they're going to be shot down and probably even reprimanded for it Again. Teams like this don't perform as well as they can because micromanagement, extreme micromanagement, does not work.
Colby:Now, on the flip side of that, you may have had a boss in the past who was Really hands off. They don't necessarily care about how things get done and they might be a really nice person and they probably were and the team under them might seem better Emotional, emotionally, mentally, physically and so on but there's actually a good amount of stress that can come from a situation when a leader doesn't really care that much and doesn't want to get involved and gives all of the responsibility To their subordinates. For example, it could be a lack of coercion Two different people can run off into separate directions and not go back and communicate it with their team members or their leader, and what that leads to and what it stems to is a leader who doesn't really know what's going on inside of their team, inside of their company, inside of their division, and that is something that you would want to avoid. And maybe the team members Overstep the bounds of authority in both individuals and team, carry out actions that are beyond what they have the authorization to do and, depending on the industry that you're in, that could be quite harmful. Maybe Someone again go to retail, maybe someone does something with money that they aren't allowed to do, like they don't have the training, and all of a sudden, tills and drawers are messed up and a cash shortage of a thousand dollars happen. Maybe you're in a cyber security firm and someone who is a blue teamer tries to do something in a red team and accidentally exposes an attack vector, and now the security company who's supposed to help other people actually gets hacked, and that's. That's not that good and just a overall, a failure to coordinate.
Colby:All of these things are something to avoid, and what this shows Are two sides of the table micromanaging and laissez-faire, not caring enough and what a leader has to do is Find the dichotomy of this, find a solid middle ground. Give the goal, give the end objective and why the team's mission is important, but allow the team to do the rest. Now. The common way of explaining this in Jocko's book and in other pieces of literature that he wrote and speeches that he gives is when a mission comes down, the needs to be executed, jocko will get everybody together and, as a unit, will make a plan, and he will just give the base. Out lie outlining like Objectives or resources. So maybe he'll give the resources. This is a target. We need to go to this location and just let them do the rest. Now, what's that? What's that do? Most importantly, it kind of gives everybody this feeling of Responsibility. They helped make the plan and everyone's gonna know what's going on. No one's gonna be confused, because if it was just Jocko making the plan and he gave it to everyone and said, alright, time to execute this, everyone would have their individual roles and they wouldn't really know if they can step out of it. And what that does is say an emergency comes up, maybe someone gets wounded, enemy reinforcements are coming. The position is more fortified than everybody thought. There will be less Movement. People won't be able to respond to it as well, because no one's gonna know what to do. They don't know if they're allowed to break out of this predefined mission that was given to them.
Colby:In Business, it might look a little different. Maybe there is a new social media strategy that's coming out and and someone from the marketing team basically just gives a outline to follow a copy and paste procedure over and over and over again and you and other people are just kind of forced to do it Blendly and maybe the content is not working at all. Maybe it's actually hurting the brand and hurting the company, but you can't respond to it because you're not allowed to leave this copy and paste plan and procedure that you were given. All of a sudden, every single platform loses traction, you're not getting in front of people, you don't make sales, you don't make forward movement and eventually you die and you go bankrupt. Extreme example, but that's really the gist of it. Micromanagement doesn't work and laissez-faire management doesn't work. And, just like the title of the book, it's up to the leader to find a dichotomy of both. Lesson number two Resolute but not overbearing. I Just want to mention before I jump back into the book. We're about to see a perspective shift for this second lesson. We're gonna go from Jocko Willens perspective to Leif Babbins, because in the dichotomy leadership we often see that it expresses events differently, and Leif is a good friend of Draco and also served together.
Colby:An embedded civilian journalist with a US Army unit we were working alongside took some photos of Task Unit Bruiser Seals in action. The photos were shared with their higher headquarters staff and eventually shared with Jaco and his senior enlisted advisor. In the photos, the Task Unit Bruiser patch could clearly be seen on the shoulders of several of our SEALs. The senior enlisted advisor blew up about it and prepared to drop the hammer on us. He was just trying to do his job and enforce Jaco's order. I had expected to feel the wrath of Jaco and since I had orchestrated the violation, I planned to fully own the brunt of the punishment. But a day passed and then, another day, jaco didn't mention it. I was surprised. Jaco knew we had violated his order Willful disobedience but in this case Jaco didn't hold the line and enforce the standard he had set. He let it go.
Colby:This section is referencing is the strict uniform policy that was enforced on the platoon. Everyone had had clean and standardized uniforms, and lafes, alongside of some other team members, put together a custom unit patch and secretly put it on their uniforms when they would go out to missions. And, as you just heard, it got discovered. But instead of getting absolutely obliterated and having the textbooks thrown at them, jaco didn't mention it and let it go. He didn't hold the line. He was resolute, but not overbearing the mere action of not throwing the textbook at his team for simply wanting to wear a patch that symbolized their task unit built unity and allowed for better performance and gave Jaco what he terms leadership capital.
Colby:What's that? Well, simply put, leadership capital is the ability you have as a leader to not I don't want to say enforce, but impose certain things on your subordinates. If you have a lot of it, you're able to tell people what to do without much pushback. If you don't have that much of it, people really aren't going to listen to you. A leader that holds the line on something insignificant and silly as the books example is a patch on a uniform there will be less leadership capital for them to utilize when things of strategic importance come up or an emergency arises. Instead, they'll have a team that pushes back, is generally aggravated or is just won't listen, and there will be little to no team unity. Now, in a business example, we've seen a lot of this occur when COVID happened.
Colby:Maybe a team lead is very strict with a camera policy. Your camera has to be on every single meeting or you will not be allowed into the meeting or you'll be kicked and you have to be wearing A professional clothing cameras on, dress, professional. What that does is maybe it adds stress, maybe people are likely to get annoyed and they'll come into the meeting aggravated and there'll be less communication. And maybe someone doesn't have the camera on because it's broken. Is the team leader going to hold the line and not allow them to be in the meeting because they don't have a camera on and they won't be able to contribute their valuable words to the discussion. What does that lead to? Leads, a less productivity, less movement and a less effective team. So once again, we see this idea of finding an economy between being resolute but not overbearing.
Colby:When should you use your leadership capital to step in as a leader and put orders into place, and when should you just let your team go and do what they're going to do? It's the role of a leader and a good leader to be able to balance these two things. You want to have a lot of leadership capital, you don't want to have none. Because I like this lesson so much and I resonated with it so profoundly, I'm going to give one more example that many people are going to find more approachable.
Colby:We all like to listen to music. It makes the time go by, so on and so forth. It's just helpful. The picture you are a stalker and you have an earbud in and you have one out, so obviously you can still hear and respond to things around you and you still have your uniform and you work hard. You do everything you're supposed to do, but the manager is very opposed to any type of electronic device or music when you're on the sales floor or when you're doing your job. Maybe they go so far as to put your phone in a box every time you clock in. You cannot have it when you're working. You only have it on your break and when you're done.
Colby:Now what's that going to cause? People are going to be mad, they won't work as good, they're probably going to perform poorly and again, less unity, more aggravation, and that manager is going to have less leadership capital. So for when something happens, maybe the district manager is coming. They're not going to have as much sway with the team than they would if they said you can listen to music, but just don't let it be a distraction. In that case, that leader is probably going to have more leadership capital and the team is going to want to make the store look nice for when this head honcho comes in. See what I mean. Finding the middle ground is important in every leadership situation, not only in this book but in many of the other lessons that Jaco teaches.
Colby:Before we close out and round out this discussion, I just really briefly want to mention the concept of extreme ownership because I love it so much and obviously I can only plant the seed because it's the title of an entire book. This entire concept is expanded on in extreme ownership, which is their first book. Highly recommend that too. We'll probably talk about it in another episode, just about this one thing, but I want to plant the seed. So what is extreme ownership? Very simply, it is taking extreme ownership of the team.
Colby:So maybe you do everything right. For example, you found the dichotomy between micromanagement and laissez-faire. You're right in the middle, you have a perfect balance, but the mission still fails. Instead of saying the stars weren't aligned or the cards were stacked against us, you'll instead say what could I have done better? Who could I have supported more? How can I improve so this doesn't happen again? Because I failed as a leader? And it hurts really bad to swallow that pill because maybe you thought you did everything right, maybe it was a damn good plan, maybe the team did everything it needed to do and they had it right, but still the universe works in mysterious ways and it fell apart and it's hard to swallow that pill and it's a really good way to keep the ego in check and it's just a really powerful leadership concept if you're able to internalize it and incorporate it into your own ethos. So again, I just wanted to plant that seed.
Colby:If you're interested in extreme ownership, read the book. If you're interested in these two lessons, there's many more in the economies of leadership Highly recommend it, and it's a valuable tool in your tool belt if you're a leader at any level at any industry. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Ink and Bytes and I really hope you found something valuable in these leadership lessons and these are only two, so I hope you found something that you can take and think on to help you in your own career. And again, if you really love what I'm doing and you want to support my work, make sure to head out to ko-fi-worldbuilder and you'll be able to see my page, and any support is much appreciated. It allows me to put more time into this and bring you more content and more impactful and valuable work. So thank you for listening and I'll see you all in the next episode.
