when someone is not leading you, then you lead them. You pick up the slack for their weakness. My leader doesn’t want to come up with a plan? That’s … - Jocko Willink

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when someone is not leading you, then you lead them. You pick up the slack for their weakness. My leader doesn’t want to come up with a plan? That’s okay. I will. My leader doesn’t want to give a brief? That’s fine. I will. My leader doesn’t want to mentor the younger troops? That’s okay. I will do it. My leader doesn’t want to take the blame when something goes wrong? That’s fine with me. I’m going to take the blame. And you have to think about that one. That one can be tricky because you think to yourself, “If I take the blame, I’m going to look bad. I’m going to look bad in front of the team and in front of the more senior boss — my weak boss’s boss.” But think about it from a leader’s perspective. Let’s say the mission was a failure, and the boss comes in to find out what happened. Listen to the way this situation plays out: I’m the guy that was in charge of the mission and I say, “Sorry, boss, we failed. But it wasn’t my fault. It was his fault,” and I point the finger at someone else. Now imagine that the guy I pointed the finger at says, “Yes. It was my fault. Here’s what happened. Here are the mistakes I made. And here is what I am going to do to fix the situation next time.” Who does the senior boss respect more? The guy who blamed someone or the guy who took responsibility — the guy that took ownership? Of course, it is the guy that takes ownership of

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Also Known As

Also Known As: Jocko
Alternative Names: John Gretton "Jocko" Willink John Gretton Willink
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Additional quotes by Jocko Willink

The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: 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.

This applies to when people are playing office politics or forming their cliques or working their personal agendas. Of course – sometimes you have to play those games too. But when dealing with people like this, let your first course of action and the fundamental core of how you handle things be very clear and direct: Outwork and outperform every last one of them. While you’re over there watching me and talking about me – I’m working. When you’re gossiping – I’m working. When you’re talking smack – I’m working. When you’re chattering – I’m working. While you continually focus on what everyone else is doing – I’ll focus on what I can do right. And when you finally look around at where you are and where I am – you will realize that you have nothing to talk smack about.

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