The Dichotomy of Leadership Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win

Jocko Willink, Leif Babin — 2018

THE INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER From the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of Extreme Ownership comes a new and revolutionary approach to help leaders recognize and attain the leadership balance crucial to victory. With their first book, Extreme Ownership (published in October 2015), Jocko Willink and Leif Babin set a new standard for leadership, challenging readers to become better leaders, better followers, and better people, in both their professional and personal lives. Now, in THE DICHOTOMY OF LEADERSHIP, Jocko and Leif dive even deeper into the unchartered and complex waters of a concept first introduced in Extreme Ownership: finding balance between the opposing forces that pull every leader in different directions. Here, Willink and Babin get granular into the nuances that every successful leader must navigate. Mastering the Dichotomy of Leadership requires understanding when to lead and when to follow; when to aggressively maneuver and when to pause and let things develop; when to detach and let the team run and when to dive into the details and micromanage. In addition, every leader must: · Take Extreme Ownership of everything that impacts their mission, yet utilize Decentralize Command by giving ownership to their team. · Care deeply about their people and their individual success and livelihoods, yet look out for the good of the overall team and above all accomplish the strategic mission. · Exhibit the most important quality in a leader—humility, but also be willing to speak up and push back against questionable decisions that could hurt the team and the mission. With examples from the authors’ combat and training experiences in the SEAL teams, and then a demonstration of how each lesson applies to the business world, Willink and Babin clearly explain THE DICHOTOMY OF LEADERSHIP—skills that are mission-critical for any leader and any team to achieve their ultimate goal: VICTORY.

Reviews

Timeo Williams@timeowilliams

Jun 5, 2024

It's certainly a question to be asked: In which domain in every industry/field in this world would you expect to find the best leaders. The military is certainly a good place to start. Tasked with leading men into and out of the hands of death, itself, requires very good leadership skills. The ability to be detached from camaraderie and analyze the situation, but at the same time, stressing the importance of the mission and the why is also essential. Hence, the dichotomy. Jocko and Leif express their viewpoints on several leadership topics and the various nuances around it and tailor each principle with a business example from their experience with Echelon Front.

Jb@jbr1992

Mar 1, 2024

A fluffy supplement to the first book. There are some things I really enjoy from these books that he elaborated on such as managing up (in the military if you don’t manage up your idiot manager can literally kill you. The STAKES). If you enjoy these stories, you’ll enjoy the book. Unsure if much was learned though, things like not being default aggressive about hiring when you could run out of cash seem obviously, however.

Nadine @intlnadine

Feb 18, 2022

Same formula and sometimes stories as the other books - leadership is hard and a balancing act. Need to be able to hold two thoughts simultaneously and go for what will serve the greater good / most people / strategic goal.