Extreme Ownership — Book Review

I don’t tend to read a lot of war or military tactics books, but I heard an interview with one of the authors of this book and I was intrigued. Extreme Ownership is a book on the how to’s of leadership learned by Navy SEALs during the war in Iraq with application of those principles to business and normal life. I’m always weary of adopting unquestioningly leadership advice geared toward success in business or any other sphere where the goal is simply to win at all costs. I think Jesus changed the rules of the game (see Leadership is Service), or rather reestablished the rules that God had always intended for what it means to be a leader. That caveat aside, we are foolish to not accept wisdom when we hear it. We need to examine it in light of Scripture without a doubt, but truth and wisdom can come from anyone’s mouth and wise people do well to listen.

This is what they mean by Extreme Ownership.  

"On any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win."

The authors go on to say that the leader ultimately has to take responsibility for the failures of the people under their leadership. The leader can’t blame those under him or her, but rather has to figure out how to empower, equip, better communicate, or do whatever else is necessary to help the person they are leading succeed.  

At first I thought this was not only extreme but excessive, however the story of Moses shows God holding a leader to a responsibility for his people that many of us find daunting. Beyond that in the New Testament James says, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness" (Jam 3:1). Those in authority are held responsible for the way they use that authority and to quote Spiderman, "with great power comes great responsibility". If you exercise any kind of leadership, it is better to get comfortable with the idea of this level of responsibility than pretending that it isn’t inherent to the role. Perhaps more people who shouldn’t be in leadership would stay out of leadership if it was expressed as the responsibility you bear for those under you and not just a position of visibility and power. What I really appreciated about this book was the amount of humility they insisted was necessary to be a good leader. There was an entire chapter with the title of Check the Ego. They said that for a leader to exercise extreme ownership he or she must take responsibility for every failure of the team and give away credit to the team for every success. The team and the mission take precedence of the leader and his ego. This resonates with so much of Scripture but particularly when Jesus says, "For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:45). This was right after Jesus talked about the new way of leadership that his followers were to exhibit, not lording it over others but service.  

The principles of Extreme Ownership were practical and illustrated from examples in combat and examples in business. Each chapter started with a story pulled from their experience in Iraq. These were normally high stakes, action-packed stories, that even if not your thing, makes for compelling reading. If you’re a leader, Extreme Ownership is worth the read.