80 Top Quotes From Extreme Ownership
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin presents a profound and unconventional approach to leadership, drawing from their experiences as Navy SEAL officers during combat in Iraq. The book challenges traditional leadership paradigms by promoting a philosophy of extreme ownership, where leaders take full responsibility for the success and failures of their teams. Willink and Babin share gripping battlefield anecdotes and translate them into invaluable lessons applicable to any leadership context. The essence of extreme ownership lies in empowering individuals to adopt a proactive and accountable mindset, fostering a culture of discipline, ownership, and decisiveness.
The authors emphasize the importance of clear communication, mutual trust, and decentralized decision-making to create high-performing teams capable of executing under pressure. "Extreme Ownership" is not just a book about military leadership; it is a timeless manifesto that translates battlefield-tested principles into the civilian realm. Whether you are leading a team in the boardroom, on the sports field, or in any other endeavor, this book challenges you to confront your weaknesses, embrace responsibility, and rise to the occasion, enabling you to lead and win in any challenging situation. (Extreme Ownership Summary).
Extreme Ownership Quotes
"It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.”
"Discipline equals freedom.” (Meaning)
"The most fundamental and important truths at the heart of Extreme Ownership: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.”
"Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.”
"Implementing Extreme Ownership requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility. Admitting mistakes, taking ownership, and developing a plan to overcome challenges are integral to any successful team.”
"Relax. Look around. Make a call.”
"When the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win—you pass the test. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail. Though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions.”
"Leaders should never be satisfied. They must always strive to improve, and they must build that mind-set into the team. They must face the facts through a realistic, brutally honest assessment of themselves and their team’s performance."
"Identifying weaknesses, good leaders seek to strengthen them and come up with a plan to overcome challenges."
"When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable—if there are no consequences—that poor performance becomes the new standard.”
"Our freedom to operate and maneuver had increased substantially through disciplined procedures. Discipline equals freedom.”
"You can’t make people listen to you. You can’t make them execute. That might be a temporary solution for a simple task. But to implement real change, to drive people to accomplish something truly complex or difficult or dangerous—you can’t make people do those things. You have to lead them.”
"Prioritize your problems and take care of them one at a time, the highest priority first. Don’t try to do everything at once or you won’t be successful.” I explained how a leader who tries to take on too many problems simultaneously will likely fail at them all.”
"There can be no leadership where there is no team.”
"A good leader does not get bogged down in the minutia of a tactical problem at the expense of strategic success.”
"Leaders must always operate with the understanding that they are part of something greater than themselves and their own personal interests.”
"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.”
"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.”
"..leadership requires belief in the mission and unyielding perseverance to achieve victory, particularly when doubters question whether victory is even possible.”
"A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove.”
"Instead of letting the situation dictate our decisions, we must dictate the situation.”
"The true test for a good brief,” Jocko continued, “is not whether the senior officers are impressed. It’s whether or not the troops that are going to execute the operation actually understand it. Everything else is bullshit.”
"Generally, when a leader struggles, the root cause behind the problem is that the leader has leaned too far in one direction and steered off course.”
"Leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities, between one extreme and another.”
"Waiting for the 100 percent right and certain solution leads to delay, indecision, and an inability to execute.”
"We learned that leadership requires belief in the mission and unyielding perseverance to achieve victory, particularly when doubters question whether victory is even possible.”
"Although discipline demands control and asceticism, it actually results in freedom. When you have the discipline to get up early, you are rewarded with more free time.”
"There are no bad units, only bad officers.”3 This captures the essence of what Extreme Ownership is all about.”
"We can’t ever think we are too good to fail or that our enemies are not capable, deadly, and eager to exploit our weaknesses. We must never get complacent. This is where controlling the ego is most important.”
"There were no more questions. The most important question had been answered: Why? Once I analyzed the mission and understood for myself that critical piece of information, I could then believe in the mission. If I didn’t believe in it, there was no way I could possibly convince the SEALs in my task unit to believe in it.”
"The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. For all the definitions, descriptions, and characterizations of leaders, there are only two that matter: effective and ineffective. Effective leaders lead successful teams that accomplish their mission and win. Ineffective leaders do not.”
"Don’t ask your leader what you should do, tell them what you are going to do.”
"People do not follow robots.”
"Ego clouds and disrupts everything: the planning process, the ability to take good advice, and the ability to accept constructive criticism. It can even stifle someone’s sense of self-preservation. Often, the most difficult ego to deal with is your own.”
"The U.S. Navy SEAL Teams were at the forefront of this leadership transformation, emerging from the triumphs and tragedies of war with a crystallized understanding of what it takes to succeed in the most challenging environments that combat presents.”
"A leader must lead but also be ready to follow. Sometimes, another member of the team—perhaps a subordinate or direct report—might be in a better position to develop a plan, make a decision, or lead through a specific situation.”
"If you don’t understand or believe in the decisions coming down from your leadership, it is up to you to ask questions until you understand how and why those decisions are being made. Not knowing the why prohibits you from believing in the mission. When you are in a leadership position, that is a recipe for failure, and it is unacceptable. As a leader, you must believe.”
"Leadership is simple, but not easy.”
"Once people stop making excuses, stop blaming others, and take ownership of everything in their lives, they are compelled to take action to solve their problems. They are better leaders, better followers, more dependable and actively contributing team members, and more skilled in aggressively driving toward mission accomplishment. But they’re also humble—able to keep their egos from damaging relationships and adversely impacting the mission and the team.”
"Relax, look around, make a call.”
"Leadership isn’t one person leading a team. It is a group of leaders working together, up and down the chain of command, to lead.”
"If the plan is simple enough, everyone understands it, which means each person can rapidly adjust and modify what he or she is doing. If the plan is too complex, the team can’t make rapid adjustments to it, because there is no baseline understanding of it.”
"His realistic assessment, acknowledgment of failure, and ownership of the problem were key to developing a plan to improve performance and ultimately win. Most important of all, he believed winning was possible.”
"Our egos don’t like to take blame.”
"All animals, including humans, need to see the connection between action and consequence in order to learn or react appropriately.”
"I had to take ownership of everything that went wrong. Despite the tremendous blow to my reputation and to my ego, it was the right thing to do—the only thing to do.”
"If an individual on the team is not performing at the level required for the team to succeed, the leader must train and mentor that underperformer. But if the underperformer continually fails to meet standards, then a leader who exercises Extreme Ownership must be loyal to the team and the mission above any individual. If underperformers cannot improve, the leader must make the tough call to terminate them and hire others who can get the job done. It is all on the leader.”
"Leadership is the single greatest factor in any team’s performance. Whether a team succeeds or fails is all up to the leader. The leader’s attitude sets the tone for the entire team. The leader drives performance—or doesn’t. And this applies not just to the most senior leader of an overall team, but to the junior leaders of teams within the team.”
"We wrote this so that the leadership lessons can continue to impact teams beyond the battlefield in all leadership situations—any company, team, or organization in which a group of people strives to achieve a goal and accomplish a mission.”
"The focus must always be on how to best accomplish the mission.”
"Remember: the enemy gets a vote.”
"When it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate. When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable—if”
"The goal of all leaders should be to work themselves out of a job. This means leaders must be heavily engaged in training and mentoring their junior leaders to prepare them to step up and assume greater responsibilities. When mentored and coached properly, the junior leader can eventually replace the senior leader, allowing the senior leader to move on to the next level of leadership.”
"It is critical for leaders to act decisively amid uncertainty; to make the best decisions they can based on only the immediate information available.”
"Plans and orders must be communicated in a manner that is simple, clear, and concise. Everyone”
"For leaders, the humility to admit and own mistakes and develop a plan to overcome them is essential to success. The best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas. They are simply focused on the mission and how best to accomplish it.”
"Regardless of how you think an operation is going to unfold,” I answered, “the enemy gets their say as well—and they are going to do something to disrupt it. When something goes wrong—and it eventually does—complex plans add to confusion, which can compound into disaster. Almost no mission ever goes according to plan. There are simply too many variables to deal with.”
"Staying ahead of the curve prevents a leader from being overwhelmed when pressure is applied and enables greater decisiveness.”
"I can remember many times when my boat crew struggled. It was easy to make excuses for our team’s performance and why it wasn’t what it should have been. But I learned that good leaders don’t make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get it done and win.”
"The most impressive thing about this improvement in performance was that it did not come from a major process change or an advance in technology. Instead, it came through a leadership principle that has been around for ages: Simple.”
"His realistic assessment, acknowledgment of failure, and ownership of the problem were key to developing a plan to improve performance and ultimately win.”
"Repetitive exceptional performance became a habit.”
"In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission. Even when others doubt and question the amount of risk, asking, “Is it worth it?” the leader must believe in the greater cause. If a leader does not believe, he or she will not take the risks required to overcome the inevitable challenges necessary to win. And they will not be able to convince”
"The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. For all the definitions, descriptions, and characterizations of leaders, there are only two that matter: effective and ineffective. Effective leaders lead successful teams that accomplish their mission and win. Ineffective leaders do not.”
"These leaders cast no blame. They made no excuses. Instead of complaining about challenges or setbacks, they developed solutions and solved problems. They leveraged assets, relationships, and resources to get the job done. Their own egos took a back seat to the mission and their troops. These leaders truly led.”
"It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate. You have to drive your CTO to exercise Extreme Ownership—to acknowledge mistakes, stop blaming others, and lead his team to success. If you allow the status quo to persist, you can’t expect to improve performance, and you can’t expect to win.”
"When it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.”
"Leaders must enforce standards. Consequences for failing need not be immediately severe, but leaders must ensure that tasks are repeated until the higher expected standard is achieved. Leaders must push the standards in a way that encourages and enables the team to utilize Extreme Ownership.”
"In the SEAL Teams, the bond of our brotherhood is our strongest weapon. If you take that away from us, we lose our most important quality as a team.”
"Everyone has an ego. Ego drives the most successful people in life—in the SEAL Teams, in the military, in the business world. They want to win, to be the best. That is good. But when ego clouds our judgment and prevents us from seeing the world as it is, then ego becomes destructive.”
"More than a decade of continuous war and tough combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan gave birth to a new generation of leaders in the ranks of America’s fighting forces.”
"Implementing Extreme Ownership requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility. Admitting mistakes, taking ownership, and developing a plan to overcome challenges are integral to any successful team. Ego can prevent a leader from conducting an honest, realistic assessment of his or her own performance and the performance of the team.”
"Even the most competent of leaders can be overwhelmed if they try to tackle multiple problems or a number of tasks simultaneously.”
"The book derives its title from the underlying principle—the mind-set—that provides the foundation for all the rest: Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.”
"Departments and groups within the team must break down silos, depend on each other and understand who depends on them. If”
"When leaders who epitomize Extreme Ownership drive their teams to achieve a higher standard of performance, they must recognize that when it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.”
"There is only one person to blame for this: me. I am the commander. I am responsible for the entire operation. As the senior man, I am responsible for every action that takes place on the battlefield. There is no one to blame but me. And I will tell you this right now: I will make sure that nothing like this ever happens to us again.”
"When everyone participating in an operation knows and understands the purpose and end state of the mission, they can theoretically act without further guidance.”
"It falls on leaders to continually keep perspective on the strategic mission and remind the team that they are part of the greater team and the strategic mission is paramount.”
"If your boss isn’t making a decision in a timely manner or providing necessary support for you and your team, don’t blame the boss. First, blame yourself.”
"Leadership doesn’t just flow down the chain of command, but up as well,” he said. “We have to own everything in our world. That’s what Extreme Ownership is all about.”
"But what I can tell you is this: when it comes to performance standards, It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.”
"When leading up the chain of command, use caution and respect. But remember, if your leader is not giving the support you need, don’t blame him or her. Instead, reexamine what you can do to better clarify, educate, influence, or convince that person to give you what you need in order to win.”
"Remove individual ego and personal agenda. It’s all about the mission. How can you best get your team to most effectively execute the plan in order to accomplish the mission?”
"Leaders should never be satisfied. They must always strive to improve, and they must build that mind-set into the team. They must face the facts through a realistic, brutally honest assessment of themselves and their team’s performance. Identifying weaknesses, good leaders seek to strengthen them and come up with a plan to overcome challenges.”
"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.”
"In the business world, and in life, there are inherent complexities. It is critical to keep plans and communication simple.”
― Quotes from the book Extreme Ownership by Leif Babin
Extreme Ownership Author
Leif Babin is a former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, leadership consultant, and co-author of the best-selling book "Extreme Ownership." His invaluable experience as a SEAL leader in combat zones laid the foundation for his exceptional insights into effective leadership. Through "Extreme Ownership," co-written with Jocko Willink, Babin introduces a revolutionary concept that urges individuals to take full responsibility for their actions and decisions, both personally and professionally. He emphasizes the critical importance of decentralized command, empowering teams to make vital decisions in rapidly changing environments. Babin's leadership philosophy encourages leaders to prioritize the success of their teams above personal interests, fostering a culture of trust, accountability, and resilience. With real-world examples from his military service, Leif Babin has profoundly impacted leaders across industries, motivating them to adopt a more disciplined, accountable, and empathetic approach to leadership.
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
