Jaakko there's an army cliche that I'm sure you've heard of or you've heard
that goes everyone's leadership style is different I've heard it used many times
as a cover-up for a failed mission or with someone who just isn't getting it
done what's your opinion on this for all the advice that you give there seems to
be a continuous method to your madness and some basic principles for being a
good leader does everyone have a different leadership style or is there
an optimal optimal method with personality that's just amazing how well
this jujitsu comparison - this is this is this is just an incredible
translation and if you know the way broad broadly you see them all things
because what this question is is exactly the same as the question above and and
the fact of the matter is if you know jujitsu Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
you know the fundamental principles of it you can do these tweaks him if you
don't know the fundamental principles of it you're just gonna get destroyed yeah
now okay if you're a catch wrestler that those have the same sort of fundamental
things going on you know what I mean if you know samba so if you know judo so
I'm saying if you understand I don't know what to call him but if you
understand like the fundamental principles of submission grappling of
any kind if you know what those are then you can make some tweaks to them you can
make some some adjustments to them to bait based on your style and your body
type and your personality and your strengths and weaknesses yes it is the
same thing with leadership so people are gonna have different styles they're
gonna have different styles of leadership some people are super
charismatic right and that person could take advantage their charisma some
people like connect with other people really easily some people don't you're
gonna have just different little nuances to your personality and your brain that
are going to that you're gonna make little adaptations in your leadership
style that's okay where it gets not okay is if you leave the fundamental
principles that's where you have a pro there was a there's an example that I
thought of when I read this question there was a guy that was coming through
my training when I was running the the advanced training for the seals and he
was making an actually Leif's told story you remember left he's told the story I
think it's in the book too I don't remember but it's it's podcast
book we've talked about in a bunch we talk about it when we took go talk to
clients Lafe tells the story about how he was
trying to give commands over the radio and no one's doing anything because it's
ineffective to give commands in a radio you know when there's a lot of
machine-gun firing all the stuff going on so I said hey life used verbal
commands and he kind of like looked at me like I was crazy and I said him and
just give it a try he did it it worked a couple years later I'm running training
and there's a guy that's given a bunch of commands on the radio and I go to I
go hey man use verbal commands anything he said what do you mean and I'm like
yellow and everyone so they know what it is you want them to do mmm
they can't hear you on the radio there's a lot of stuff going on and he goes I
don't lead that way that's what he said to me I don't lead that way and you know
they just got destroyed because you know his I don't know if he thought like hey
look I'm not gonna yeah I wasn't tell him to yell at his people mmm I was
telling him like yelled of verbal commands and he wouldn't do it and they
just got annihilated all the time and he ended up not doing well as a leader
because he was breaking the fundamental principles of combat leadership like
simple clear concise commands that everyone understands it if they don't
understand it was faulted it's yours and if you're talking on the radio given
these complex orders people aren't gonna understand what to do but if you give
them the the the standard operating procedure maneuver command peel right
that's gonna get passed but everyone's gonna do it so he strayed away from the
fundamental principles it's like it's like saying well you know with me if I
give you if I use a pressure point on your neck then I'll win it's like no
actually that's not gonna be effective you know you did the pressure point
thing is a fantasy mm-hmm oh no it's real oh okay it is real you
know what and there's a there's certain parts of your body that hurt a little
bit more when you press into them I understand that that doesn't change you
from getting choked it doesn't change you from getting double leg takedown you
try and hit some other pressure point while they're doing a double leg
takedown on you you're not gonna make it no it's not gonna happen so you you you
have and I've told this story too about the guy that wasn't very loud and I told
him like hey you gotta get louder and eventually he got the guys that were
loud in his platoon to start giving the verbal commands because he wasn't loud
enough to do it and that was an effective way still using the same
principle just using a little bit of a different technique that's fine so yes
different leaders are gonna lead differently but the principles are gonna
remain the same that the principles of ownership cover moves simple prioritize
and execute decentralized command and balancing the dichotomies and then
there's plenty of them in leadership the good leaders out there they will follow
those principles and they'll make little tweaks to them based on their
personality and that's fine but a tweak doesn't require an excuse and also
effective or ineffective like if you make a change if you do something a
certain way and it's not effective then whatever you change this isn't working
it's not working so use the fundamental principles make little app two
adaptations it's okay but if a leader is ineffective and they're failing guess
what their little adaptations like hey I could make up a new move right for
jujitsu and I and I call it the the the whiz-bang sure and I say hey I made up
this cool move it's called the whiz-bang and let me show it to you and so I show
it to you you're like well I don't know if that'll work or not and I like no
it'll definitely work the cool thing about jujitsu is when I try it we find
out if it works now something doesn't work immediately right but let's say I
keep drilling it on you and drilling it on you and I can never get you in the
Wiz Bank okay and then I go in a tournament and I try the whiz-bang and I
get smashed and defeated and then I I go through the consolation bracket I try
the whiz-bang and it gets smashed and defeated then I go in the next
tournament I tried the whiz-bang and get smashed and defeated then I get in the
consolation bracket I try the whiz-bang and get smashed and
defeated and I do this for six months and the whiz-bang never works effective
or ineffective its ineffective its ineffective if you're in a leadership
position or someone's in a leadership position and they're failing and they're
failing to execute the mission over and over and over again they're little tweak
their little leadership thing that they think is good to go it's not mm-hmm it's
not good to go and it probably in fact I'll tell you it violates one of the
fundamental principles of combat leadership hmm if you can identify which
one of those things it's violating you can get them to clean it up and fix it
so there you go whiz-bang don't try it don't yeah a
whiz-bang I don't know though I mean these jujitsu moves you know how like
guys will like busts out moves man I don't know it's a it's this endless
thing we ask you to know new moves come out yeah and then you won't hit a move a
hundred percent of the time and you definitely won't hit it when you first
start doing it it's gonna be hard how many arm locks do you think you put
on someone before you made someone tap mm-hmm in the beginning you probably did
fifty arm locks before you got someone to tap yeah probably more yeah yeah
maybe even more mm-hmm so that doesn't mean with after the
first fourteen I know it's ineffective I'm not gonna do it yeah the that the
big differences the big differences an arm lock is a proven known entity
coverin move is a proven known entity simple is a proven known entity
prioritize and execute is a proven known entity yeah extreme ownership is a
proven known and decentralized command is a proven it's like in our markets I
could choke that's why when some people say to me oh well my boss doesn't like
extreme ownership you know I I know what's happening like it's there the
boss's ego is offended because there's some other some somebody telling them a
different way to lead no it's like what do you believe in I don't believe in
extreme ownership oh I blame and I believe in placing the blame on other
people that's how I lead that's complete really completely ridiculous everybody
knows that's ridiculous it's completely ridiculous cover and move I don't
believe in karma move oh so you just like your other
team members to go and take care of themselves and you take care of yourself
how does that work don't work it doesn't work
keep the oh I don't like to keep things simple no I like to make things so
complicated that people don't understand what I'm talking about
does that make any sense whatsoever no it doesn't yeah prioritize and execute
no don't do that what I what I'm gonna do is spread myself so thin that I don't
have the assets or resources to actually accomplish anything that's what I'm
gonna do because that makes sense because I don't believe in extreme
ownership or those fundamental laws of combat leadership that's where you're at
decentralized command I don't believe in that so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna
make every single decision myself from the headquarters position when you guys
want to make a decision out there on the battlefield or out there in the on the
manufacturing floor I want you to run every single definitive decision up
through me because that's gonna be effective so if you violate one of these
principles you're gonna have problems as a leader if you tweak these principles
that's fine if you look at decentralized command and you're like you know what I
know that the normal kind of span of control is five people I can handle more
than that I can handle nine and you step it up that's that's tweak that's okay
right that's fine if you probably when you prioritize and execute hey oh the
way I prioritize and execute and this is the truth the way I prioritize and
execute isn't I look at my number one problem and I only focus on that one I
assign somebody to my number one problem and I say hey bill go handle that room
over there it's a problem and then I look at Mike and say hey Mike get the
rest of this hallway cleared so I'm actually handling two things but I give
build a priority priority so that's a tweak I'm using assets that's fine
so sometimes yes you've got to make these little adjustments everyone's got
a different leadership style but you don't violate the principles of
leadership