All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
And welcome to Veterans Radio.
I am Jim Fossone with veteransradio.net.
We are recording today from the Legal Help for Veterans Studio in Northville, Michigan.
Legal Help for Veterans is a Veterans Disability Law Firm.
You can reach us at 800-693-4800.
We want to welcome to Veterans Radio today, Jockel Willink.
Jockel, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Thanks for having me, Jim.
Well, we're glad to have you on to talk about a new project that you have going.
And many of our listeners on Veterans Radio may know you from either the books that you've
written such as Extreme Ownership, How US Navy Seals Lead and Win back in 2015 or your
current podcast or YouTube channel.
But why don't you give those who may not know who you are a little background of your
military experience?
Yeah, I enlisted into the Navy right out of high school and went through basic seal training
right away.
I ended up spending my career in the SEAL teams.
I moved up from the enlisted side after about eight years and got commissioned as an officer.
So I spent my last 12 years as a SEAL officer.
I retired from the SEAL teams and then I started working with companies teaching them leadership.
And that led to me writing a bunch of books, having a podcast and sitting on interviews
like this one.
Well, that compresses a 20 year career into about two minutes.
You had the opportunity to serve really all over the world, didn't you?
Yeah, and I mean, I did a bunch of deployments as a SEAL, but I did two deployments to Iraq.
The first one was in 03, 04, where I was primarily in and around Baghdad as a SEAL platoon commander.
And then I came back from that deployment.
My next deployment was in 2006, where I deployed as a task unit commander in charge of two
SEAL platoons.
I was in charge of task unit bruiser.
And then for that deployment, we were in the Battle of Ramadi in the summer of 2006.
Definitely ran across some very tough fighting in a very violent neighborhood, very violent
city at the time and had the opportunity and the honor to work alongside some incredible
soldier, sailors, airmen and Marines from the 11AD, the first brigade, first armored
division in the Battle of Ramadi.
Somebody can often look at somebody like you who's now got 30 years of experience behind
them and say, man, this dude is so successful.
I can't be anything like him.
But let's go back to about 1990 when you're getting out of high school.
What pushed you to the Navy and did you ever foresee this kind of career?
Well, I wanted to be some kind of a commando my whole life.
Ever since I can remember wanting to do anything, ever since I realized that there was that
human beings had careers, I wanted to be a commando.
I wanted to carry a machine gun.
So I graduated high school in 1989 and I joined the Navy on the delayed entry program.
Didn't get in until 1990.
And then, like I said, my whole focus was just to try and get in the SEAL teams and try
to be a good SEAL.
That's what I wanted to do.
I did my time and no, I never expected to be doing this as a career.
I never expected to get retired from the Navy and have a whole another career takeoff.
But also the Navy and the SEAL teams taught me that when there's opportunities, then you
take advantage of the opportunities.
When you see an area you can move into, then you execute.
And that's just what I've done is when I see areas that I can help out, then I go and
execute.
Not a lot of guys move from the enlisted ranks over to the officer ranks.
Tell us a little bit about what was going on in your mind during that period and what
challenges that brought forth.
Well in my second SEAL platoon, and I write about it in my new book, Leadership, Strategy
and Tactics, we had a mutiny in my SEAL platoon.
We had a bad officer.
We didn't like our officer.
And we actually had a mutiny where we went before the commanding officer and told him
we didn't trust our platoon commander and we wanted to get rid of him.
And I go through the details in the books.
Eventually he was removed.
But the guy that came and took his place was a kind of legendary SEAL that had an incredible
amount of experience.
And he was a prior enlisted guy.
He was a Mustang.
And he made life for the 16 guys in our SEAL platoon.
He made life awesome.
And about halfway through that deployment, I said to myself, if I ever get the chance
where I can make life awesome for 16 guys in a SEAL platoon, I'm going to try and do
it.
And that's how I ended up going down the path of becoming an officer.
I was very lucky.
There was a program called the Seaman to Admiral program, which was started by Admiral Borda.
And he was the chief of naval operations.
And he started this program where they took enlisted guys and just made them into officers.
So I went from being an E5 at SEAL team one, went to 13 weeks of OCS.
And then I was an 01 at SEAL team two.
And I didn't go to college till a few years later.
So it was a great program.
I was very lucky to get picked up for it.
They only picked up 50 guys, 50 sailors from the entire Navy.
So I was very lucky that I got picked up for it.
And once I got commissioned, I was on that officer path and had a great time as an officer
as well, doing a system platoon commander, a platoon commander, a tasking commander,
and then running the training for the West Coast SEAL teams for my last few years.
And you retired as a lieutenant commander out of the Navy, as you mentioned, I think,
in October of 2020, and moved into the business world.
A lot of guys have a tough time with the transition.
They don't know what to go do.
Usually there's two or three different stops and starts before figuring out.
Tell us a little bit about how you put yourself into a position that the business track was
right for you, which ultimately led to this career as an author.
You know, it was one of those moments, again, where I was, you know, keeping my eyes open,
staying humble and listening to what people were saying and looking for opportunities
to exploit.
So I, and exploit is a strong word we use in the military.
It's probably not the right word to use in the civilian sector, but I know this is a
military podcast.
So people know what I mean when I say exploit.
You know, when you gather intelligence from the enemy, you exploit that intelligence.
You take advantage of it.
So same thing here.
I was about to retire and I had a, I knew a guy that was the CEO of, of a big company
and he asked me to come and talk to his executives about leadership.
I went and did that.
And when I got done, he came up and asked me to do it for every division in this company.
So I started going around the country talking to all of these various divisions.
And at one of those divisional meetings, there was the CEO of the parent company.
And when I got done speaking about leadership, he came up and said, I want you to come and
talk to all the CEOs of all the companies I own, and he owned about 45 or 50 companies
at the time.
I went and talked to all those CEOs, a bunch of them asked me to talk to their companies.
And that was kind of the beginning of what I'm doing now.
Eventually needed a lot, needed help.
And I talked to my guy that I worked with, my teammate, Leif Babin, who was one of the
platoon commanders that worked for me in the battle of Ramadi.
I asked me if he wanted to come and come and help out.
And he certainly did.
So that's what we started doing.
And as we, as we worked with all these different companies, they would ask us if we had these
principles written down anywhere.
If we had a handout form, something we could give them.
So we eventually said, we've got to write these tenets down for everyone to be able
to look at.
That turned into the book.
The book got picked up and published and ended up doing pretty well.
And that's kind of how, you know, kind of how we ended up here.
You know, often you have a battle plan.
And as they say, the first punch in the nose, the plan goes out the door and you start over,
start reacting.
And that sounds like a little bit of what here is.
You may have started thinking, well, I can talk to a few guys, but those opportunities
created themselves and you kept rolling with it.
Yeah.
And I've always been, you know, aggressive when I see an opportunity.
If I see a weakness in the enemy, I'm going to go, I'm going to go try and make something
happen.
I'm going to pursue.
And that's kind of what I did.
I'd see an opportunity and want to want to exploit that opportunity, want to take advantage
of that opportunity.
So that's what I, that's what I do.
That's what I continue to do.
So we're talking to Jaco Willink who with Leaf Babin formed Eschelon Front, a management
consulting firm, and has been out talking about leadership for a decade now and has
written a couple of very successful books and has one out now called leadership strategy
and tactics.
Tell us, and this is a field manual.
Tell us what the concept was behind this, Jaco.
So you know, as I have my podcast, which is about leadership and I have my company where
I talk about leadership and I get asked the same questions about leadership over and over
again.
And what I realized is that people might understand the principles that I'm talking about, but
they have a hard time translating those principles into tactics that they can use on the ground.
And so I'd end up answering the same questions over and over and explaining the tactics and
strategies that I used to overcome leadership challenges.
And eventually I just took all the leadership strategies and tactics that I knew that I
actually use, that I've used in the past that I continue to use now and that I teach
other people to use.
I put them all into one book so people could open up the book.
They could find the leadership problem that they're encountering and they could find the
solution to that problem.
And that's what this book is.
And as you say, you can open up and find the problem that you have.
This is not a read it necessarily from page one to the end.
It's really finding what your issue is and going to that part of the field manual and
getting some direction, isn't it?
Yeah.
And I mean, it's definitely, I would say, good to read it from cover to cover so that
you have all the concepts in your mind.
But like a field manual, you know, a field manual in the military, it teaches you what
to do in a simple, straightforward, step-by-step manner.
So if you want to know how to shoot a gun, you can look up the field manual.
If you want to know how to clean a gun, you can look at the field manual.
If you want to know how to use a compass, you can look in the field manual.
But there's no field manual for how to lead.
And so that's what I put this together for so people can actually look it up, find the
problem, find the solution.
And let's clear this up.
Leadership isn't just about the CEO, is it?
No, absolutely not.
In fact, leadership on a team should be present at every single level.
Right down to that front-line trooper, the front-line field, the front-line manufacturer,
the front-line salesperson, they all have to understand leadership.
And they all are actually leaders.
Because even if you're the junior man in a SEAL platoon, you're still trying to influence
your peers.
You're still trying to influence up-the-chain of command.
You're trying to communicate to them to tell them what you're seeing from your perspective
and how you think things should be done.
So leadership is present.
As long as you're interacting with other human beings, you need to know how to lead.
And once again, that's what this book shows you.
I want to get your comments on a few things that you write about.
And one of them is the imposter syndrome.
Talk a little bit about that and why you felt it was necessary to write on it.
Well, the imposter syndrome is something that a lot of people come up against.
And it's basically, hey, I'm moving into a leadership position and I don't quite feel
like I'm ready to be in it.
And a lot of people have a hard time with it.
They think it's very detrimental.
I actually don't think that the imposter syndrome is a horrible thing because I had it, my whole
career, taking over a SEAL platoon, taking over a SEAL task unit.
You feel like you're not quite ready to do the job.
And so what do you do?
What did I do?
I trained harder.
I prepared more.
I studied more.
I scrutinized my own plans to make sure they were good.
So, I worked harder.
And when I worked harder, guess what?
I got a better result.
So I don't think it's okay to have, I don't think it's a bad thing to have a little bit
of imposter syndrome.
I think it'll keep you mentally engaged and in the game.
What I'm more scared of is someone that thinks that they know everything and they deserve
to be in this leadership position.
And I think that's the person that scares me because they're not humble.
They're not going to listen to anybody else.
They think they know everything and that's going to be a problem.
And you write on this issue of sort of how do you develop humility in the form of leadership
and where is that line between confidence and arrogance?
Give us your thoughts on that.
There's all kinds of lines between positives and negatives and even positives and positives
in the military and in any leadership situation.
That's what the second book that I wrote with Leif is called the dichotomy of leadership
and there's always going to be a balance that you have to achieve.
So we all know that a leader has to talk to their people.
Can a leader talk too much?
Absolutely.
And then if they talk too much, no one knows it's important.
Can a leader talk too little?
Yeah, now no one knows what's going on.
So there's actually where do they want to be?
They want to be balanced.
They want to be somewhere in the middle.
Same thing with what you just talked about.
Being humble but having confidence.
Sure, you have to be humble, but you don't want to be so humble that it seems like you're
not confident in making decisions.
The other end of spectrum, you don't want to be so overconfident that you don't think
you need to prepare, you don't think you need to listen to anyone.
Where do you want to be?
You want to be balanced somewhere right in the middle.
So yeah, you have to stay balanced as a leader in just about everything that you do.
And this calibrating your actions goes on constantly in life and I think some people
think, well, I'm going to achieve it and then I'm there, right?
That isn't the way it works, is it?
No, as a leader, you always have to have the feedback loop open.
You've got to see what other people are thinking.
You've got to watch what their actions are.
And then yes, you have to modulate your own leadership techniques, your own leadership
strategies to make sure that they're hitting your team in the right manner and producing
the right effect that you're looking for.
You had this experience in the SEAL team where you had a really bad leader and you went and
said, hey, this guy's a horrible officer.
Then you had somebody great come in who inspired you to maybe, hey, maybe I can move on and
be an officer and a leader in that regard.
In those experiences, can you talk a little bit about how it taught you to treat everyone
no matter where they are in the chain of command equally with respect?
Yeah, the guy that we had as a platoon commander that we had a mutiny against, he was a pretty
arrogant guy and he treated everyone.
I wouldn't say he was openly disrespectful, but clearly when you had an idea, he didn't
really want to hear it.
Clearly when there was work to be done that was menial labor, he wasn't going to have
anything to do with it.
So even though he wasn't openly hostile towards those of us junior enlisted people in the
platoon, he certainly didn't cultivate any high level of respect from the way that he
treated us.
Now when he got fired and the new guy took over, who wasn't a new guy, he was actually
more experienced than any of us, but boy did he treat us with just humility and respect
and what that did was made us respect him so much.
We did not want to let him down.
We would do anything for that guy and that's the way a seal platoon or any team is supposed
to be.
I mean, you could imagine when I had the bad platoon commander, I was in a seal platoon
and not one single person in our seal platoon wanted to follow our leader.
That's a travesty and all it took was a shift to a guy that was humble and all of a sudden
the same group of guys, we loved him, we admired him and we did everything we could to make
him look good, to make our team win and that was the difference between a platoon that's
performing marginally and a platoon that's really performing at peak performance.
Your experiences also taught you that there are certain ways to and maybe it's best methods
to administer.
Praise is easy to give.
Criticism is much harder.
What experiences do you write about in leadership strategy and tactics, the field manual that
you want to pass along?
Yeah, there's certainly giving criticism is an important part of being a leader because
if you're not telling people what mistakes they're making, then how are they supposed
to improve those mistakes?
So it's something critical that you absolutely have to do as a leader.
But if you do it in a negative manner, the person A, they will be angry, they'll put
up defenses and they won't want to listen to you.
So you just deciding, okay, well, I got to tell Jim that he needs to engage, he needs
to give more detailed plans now.
So if I say, hey Jim, you know what, your plan was horrible, you need to give more details,
you don't know what you're doing.
You're going to get defensive, you're not going to want to hear that.
And it's going to negatively impact the relationship between the two of us.
So how do I give criticism to you in a positive way that you'll take the criticism and it'll
actually adapt it into your game?
One of the techniques I talk about in the book is actually taking ownership of the problems.
So if I say to you, hey Jim, you know, I was looking at your plan and I don't think I gave
you a good idea of how detailed some of these plans should be.
Can we go through some of that and talk about some of the details so we can see where maybe
it'd be a good idea to have more?
And all of a sudden I took ownership.
I was saying it was my fault that I didn't tell you how much detail I wanted.
So now you're more open to have a conversation, more open to change because I took ownership
of the problem instead of attacking you with the problem.
So that's a good technique to use, take ownership even when you're applying criticism.
And you write in the book about the importance of communication, which is what this criticism
and how you deliver it is really all about.
If I'm not communicating with you what my expectations are and you fall short, how
you're supposed to know you fell short.
But I think this whole idea that you write on and the importance of communication is
something everybody can listen to and learn something from.
Talk to us a little bit about why communication is so important in your view as it relates
to leadership.
Well, if you think about what leadership is, leadership actually is communication.
It is communicating up and down the chain of command to make sure everybody understands
what the mission is, what the goal is, what the end state that you're looking for, what
the parameters of the work that needs to get done.
That's what leadership is.
Leadership is communication.
So if we're not communicating, we're not leading.
And by the way, it's important, like I just said, not just that I tell you, if you're
working for me, Jim, it's not just important that I tell you what to do.
It's also important that our communication is open enough that you can turn to me and
say, hey, Jocko, I understand what you want me to do.
Here's the problem with your plan.
And I'm open enough to say, okay, I didn't realize that it looked like that from your
perspective on the front lines.
Let's make some changes.
What do you recommend?
So yes, communication is important, but it certainly is not meant to be one way communication
ever.
It's meant to be communication up and down the chain of command and with our peers so
that we know as much as we possibly can before we make decisions and plans to move forward.
That communication, I think I want to highlight what you just said, which is it's not only
up and down the chain, but it's with your coworkers, right?
You're delivering this message to businesses and employers and employees.
And this better communication at the coworker level would make a big difference for any
organization.
Yeah, no doubt about it.
I mean, I would always tell if my subordinate leadership ever came to me with a problem
that they needed me to solve, or I would just tell them, you guys go figure it out.
I'm not solving.
You guys come to me with a unified plan.
I should never have to solve the problem of my subordinates.
They should be able to figure out a problem, come to me and present the solution, and I
can approve it.
That's what we want.
Yeah, and I think so often we've, employees get frozen into, well, I'm just going to bring
you the problem.
I'm afraid to bring you the solution, aren't they?
Yeah, and I'm not sure why, because obviously I'm leading a team.
I don't want to sit there and have to figure out all the solutions to myself.
And by the way, since you're on the front lines, you're closer to that problem than
I am.
You can probably have a better opportunity to figure out what the solution should be.
So yes, when you present your boss with a problem, bring him a solution too.
And for the bosses, this is sort of one of those things you say, wait a minute, a Navy
Seal is talking to me about yelling at subordinates.
So during your 20 year Navy career, you got yelled at a lot, and you probably yelled at
guys a lot.
So tell us what you've learned about yelling at subordinates.
Well actually, I think probably got yelled at some, but I hardly ever yelled at anyone,
and it's almost never appropriate to yell at your subordinates.
If I'm going to have to yell at my subordinates, I'm actually sitting there looking at myself.
I must have already made about 47 other mistakes if I couldn't communicate properly to my subordinate
where they got the message where now I felt like what I needed to do was yell at them.
So yelling is not a good form of communication.
It doesn't set up trust.
It doesn't build the relationship.
Instead, it actually breaks them both down.
And like I said, the amount of times that I yelled, and then this is not including,
look, if we're in a gunfight and I have to yell because there's a volume issue and people
need to hear me, that's completely different.
But if we're in a situation where I can be heard and I feel like I need to yell, well,
I'm already pretty sure that I made a mistake.
And generally, most of the time, people are yelling because they're frustrated, they lost
their temper.
And what does that show people?
It shows people that you're not control of your own emotions.
And if you as a leader can't control your own emotions, how are you supposed to make
decisions for the team?
So yes, yelling, not good, not good leadership.
Similarly, let's talk about ultimatums, those are things which you don't make in the military,
but are made way too much in the business world and you've got some views on ultimatums.
Yeah, I mean, they get made, they're a leadership tool that can be used sometimes up and down
the chain of command, but you really have to think about them before you use them.
I mean, an ultimatum is, hey, it's this, you either do what I'm telling you to do right
now or that's where I'm going to fire you.
I'm going to get rid of you.
And if you're going to say that, then you better make, you better make very sure that
you provided them with all the guidance that they needed, that they have the support that
they needed because an ultimatum is just heavy handed and there's no way out of it.
And another chapter in the book is called Don't Dig In, which means you don't want to
state your claim and say, hey, look, we're going to do it my way and no other way because
you could be wrong.
And now you end up having to eat your own words.
And it's better to not dig in around your ideas.
It's better to actually have an open mind about ideas.
And it's the same thing with ultimatums.
Look, do you need to use them sometime?
Let's say I've got a subordinate that hasn't been doing a good job and I'm giving them
a last chance and I say, look, if you don't get this project done on time, then this is
going to be the end of your employment here.
Sure, that could happen, but it really should only be used in a situation that's a complete
last resort.
And I said at the outset this isn't the sort of book you necessarily have to read from
page one to page 300, but I hope you do.
And on page 300 you write, the leadership strategies and tactics in this book are to
be used not so you can be successful.
These strategies and tactics are to be used so the team can be successful.
That really sums up your message on leadership, doesn't it, Jaco?
Yeah, it does.
What a good leader does absolutely is put the team and the mission ahead of themselves.
And anybody that thinks they can make little maneuvers on behalf of themselves to make
themselves look good and they think no one's going to notice, they're actually wrong.
Everyone sees it up the chain, down the chain.
Everyone sees that you're looking out there for yourself, that you're not a team player
and they're going to notice it and it's not going to end well.
But it's also important to notice this.
And this is the best thing about it.
The best thing about this is if you put the team first and you put the mission first and
you put your ego in check and you look out for the team and the mission, in the end they
are going to win.
And when they win, you will absolutely win.
So it's not like you're going to look out for the team, look out for the mission and
you're going to end up on the bottom of the barrel.
That's not going to happen.
You look out for the team, you look out for the mission, they're going to rise to the
top and you're going to be right there with them.
It's the best way to win.
So we're talking to Jaco Willink who's the author of Leadership Strategy and Tactics.
It's a new book out that we highly encourage you to get.
It's with St. Martin's Press.
But before we go, Jaco, you've written a number of children's books as well.
I have indeed.
What's more fun to do, and you have a couple of kids of your own.
So what's more fun to do?
Write these business management strategy books or to be able to write something in the children's
genre?
I do quite honestly, they're both very fun.
They're both very rewarding.
And it's rewarding to get a letter from a leader or a person or a mid-level manager or
a frontline trooper that has made improvements in their life based on the books that I've
written that that's very rewarding.
And it's very rewarding to get a letter or a note or a message from a kid that's 10
years old or 11 years old that just did their first pull-up or just competed in their first
Jiu-Jitsu tournament or got an A on a math test or whatever it is that they've done to
move their life in the right direction.
It's rewarding to help other people.
And again, like you said, that's my principle of leadership and I'm happy to be able to
do it on a broad scale through writing these books, trying to help people move in the right
direction in their lives.
We want to thank you for taking some time to talking to Veterans Radio today, Jaco,
and wish you nothing but success in the future.
Thanks for having me on.
I appreciate it.
And thanks to everyone out there for your service.
And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today.
I am Jim Fawson.
It's been a pleasure to be your host.
I'm a Veterans Disability lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans and you can reach us at
800-693-4800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web.
You can follow Veterans Radio on Facebook and listen to its podcasts and internet radio
shows by going to veteransradio.net.
And until next time, you are dismissed.
If you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans Appeals, contact Legal Help for
Veterans at 1-800-693-4800.
They're experts in handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
Their number again, 1-800-693-4800.
Veterans Radio needs you.
If you like our shows that are informative, surprising stories and relevant information
on what's happening at the VA and the military, we'd like your support.
Individual support of $5 to $50 a month or corporate sponsorship of $1,000 to $10,000
would be welcomed.
You can go to veteransradio.net, click on the Sponsorship or Support tab, pay online and
keep Veterans Radio on the air.
You can help support Veterans Radio by going to our website veteransradio.net in either
sponsoring us with some buddy money.
That's a donation, maybe $10 a month or even $100 that will keep us on the air.
And you can also go to our website to our new Veterans Radio exchange.
We have a brand new swag store and we'd like to have our super fans help us get the word
out about Veterans Radio by wearing our gear and making a purchase that helps support and
fund this ongoing effort.
So remember, go to veteransradio.net and help us out.