Extreme Ownership summary

When Willink’s military commanders told him that his elite, impeccably trained SEAL team would be fighting side-by-side with the newly minted Iraqi army, his first reaction was “hell no.” He felt the Iraqis were poorly trained, horrendously equipped and occasionally disloyal to their American allies.

Nevertheless, he kept quiet and didn’t share his negative feelings with his troops. How come?

While carrying out a mission in the dangerous city of Ramadi, Iraq, the SEAL unit of one of the authors, Leif Babin, found itself deep in enemy territory with no backup. To get out, they had no option but to risk walking through the city in broad daylight.

The chances of an enemy attack were sky-high, but the team made it back to base unscathed. That being said, after the mission, Babin discovered that he had made an error; there was another SEAL team close by that could have offered cover for his unit. However, he had been so focused on the problems of his own team that he had never thought to ask for help.

It’s midnight in Ramadi. The SEAL team has just left a building by moving onto what they thought was the roof of the building next door. However, this seeming roof turned out to be a mere tarp, and one SEAL has fallen through the covering and landed 20 feet below, injured and exposed. The unit itself is extremely vulnerable, deep in enemy territory without backup, with a wounded comrade and an enemy bomb at the building’s exit.

What should the leader do?

Just minutes before the launch of a SEAL operation to rescue an Iraqi hostage who was being held by Al-Qaeda, Babin’s intelligence officer told him that the hostage was not only surrounded by explosives but also guarded by bunkered machine guns.

In an instant, the operation’s risk level skyrocketed. Nonetheless, Babin moved forward as planned, because he had already accounted for this extra danger, even before he knew it existed.

When Babin and Willink were in Iraq as SEAL unit commanders, Babin would frequently burst into Willink’s office, demanding to know why their commanding officer was bombarding him with emails asking what Babin felt were stupid questions. Why was he being pestered in this way? Didn’t the commanding officer know how many important things he had on his plate?

To this question, Willink simply replied, “No, because you’re not taking responsibility for telling him.” This helped Babin eventually realize that the higher-ups weren’t psychic; they were only asking about his operations because he hadn’t given them sufficiently detailed updates.