Chapter 1

• Take extreme ownership. Take the blame.
• All responsibility for success or failure rests with the leader.
• The leader must own everything in his or her world.
• The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win.
• Do not take credit for your team’s successes - that honor belongs to the team, not you.
• Refusing to take responsibility will lead to poor performance and failure.

Chapter 2

• There are no bad teams, only bad leaders.
• Leadership is the single greatest factor in any team’s performance.
• Ensure that the team works together towards a focused goal, and enforce high standards of performance, working continuously to improve.
• When it comes to the standards as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.
• If there are not consequences to bad performance, that bad performance becomes the new standard.
• Always strive to improve. Never be satisfied.

Chapter 3

• If you don’t believe, why would anyone else? And if they do not believe, they will not commit. And then you will fail.
• You must truly believe in your mission in order to inspire others to follow and accomplish the mission.
• You must align your thoughts and visions with the mission.
• Understand why you are doing it. Everyone on your team must understand it. And you have to understand it, so that you can explain it to them.

Chapter 4

• Check your ego. Ego clouds and disrupts everything.
• Often, the most difficult ego to deal with is your own.
• Ego drives us - it makes us want to be the best. But when it clouds judgement and prevents us from seeing the world as it is, ego is destructive.
• Be humble.

Chapter 5

• Cover and move = Teamwork
• Work together, because if you don’t it will hurt your overall performance.
• The focus must always be on how to best accomplish the mission.
• Help each other, work together, and support each other to win.

Chapter 6

• Plans and orders must be communicated in a manner that is simple, clear, and concise.
• Keep it simple.
• Everyone must know and understand their roles as well as what to do if anything happens.
• Make it so simple that you can act upon it without thinking.

Chapter 7

• Sometimes complex problems compound and hit you all at once.

  Then you have to remain calm and make the best decisions possible.

• That is done with prioritize and execute.

  Determine the task with the highest priority and execute.

• Stay 1-2 steps ahead of the problems.

• Evaluate highest priority -> communicate it clearly (to your team) -> execute -> repeat.

  If priorities shift, communicate it.

  Keep a broad overview. Don’t tunnel vision.

Chapter 8

• It is generally not possible to manage more than 6-10 people at a time for one person, especially not if things go sideways.

• Teams must be broken down into manageable sizes.

• Junior leaders must be empowered to make decisions on their own.

  • But not 100% on their own. The decisions have to be made within a specific framework or with some limitations.

• Everyone has to understand the why behind a mission. They must also trust in one another.

• Some leaders try to manage everything by themselves.

  This results in chaos.

• Leaders must have the right amount of involvement so that they always know what is going on.

Chapter 9

• Develop a standardized planning process.
• Explore different courses of action to take in order to accomplish the mission.
• Let everyone have a say.
• Develop a detailed plan.
• Brief everyone, simply, clearly, and concisely. Everyone must understand the plan.
• The plan must mitigate identified risk whenever possible.
• After completion, analyse what went right and what didn’t. Do not repeat mistakes.

Chapter 10

• Leading down the chain.

  • Make sure that everyone knows how their role contributes to the big picture success.
    • So that everyone can connect the dots of what they do every day, and how that contributes tothe overall success.
  • Help them understand the what and the why.
  • This helps the team make better decisions and prioritise.

• Leading up the chain.

  • If your boss isn’t making a decision in a timely manner or isn’t providing necessary support for you and your team, don’t blame the boss.

    Blame yourself. Examine what you can do better to convey critical information.

  • Push situational awareness up the chain.

  • One of the most important jobs of any leader is to support their boss.

  • If there is something you don’t understand: ASK!

  • Even if you disagree on the plan, execute it as if it were your own.

  • Don’t ask your leader what you should do, tell them what you are going to do.

  • There is no them vs. us in a company. Everyone wants everyone to succeed and win.

Chapter 11

• Leaders must act decisively amid uncertainty; to make the best decision they can with the information that they have.
• There is never a 100% right decision. The picture is never complete. Leaders must be comfortable with this and make decisions promptly still, while being ready to adapt if the situation changes.
• Be proactive rather than reactive.

Chapter 12

• Discipline is paramount to ultimate success and victory for any leader and any team.
• Discipline - strict order, regimen, and control - might appear to be the opposite of total freedom - the power to act, speak, or think without any restrictions. But, in fact, discipline is the pathway to freedom.
• A true leader is not intimidated when others step up and take charge.
• Be confident, but never cocky.