The Dichotomy of Leadership summary

Babin experienced his first friendly fire incident in Ramadi in 2006. US Army tanks were unknowingly firing at his unit’s position, so Babin acted fast – under heavy fire, he reprogramed his radio to Army wavelengths and was able to stop the incident.

Without the leadership of Willink, this incident might have resulted in fatalities. Months earlier Willink had ordered Babin and the rest of the task unit to learn how to reprogram their SEAL radios to Army wavelengths. Not understanding the importance of the task, however, none of the platoon did so.

Back in 2003, Willink found himself leading a platoon in a mission in occupied Baghdad. The enemy at this point wasn’t the well-organized insurgents of 2006 – they were little more than armed criminals.

The ease of fighting against these enemies had led his men toward arrogance, and most had even stopped wearing their bulletproof back plates so that they could move faster.

Sometimes, for the good of your team, you have to submit to your boss’s will, even if you find it unjust. Babin once made this clear to Jim, a client who was struggling with his boss. Jim had made his boss jealous by impressing his boss’ boss, and Jim’s boss had taken this out on him by giving him a low performance rating.

This affected Jim’s whole team and meant they would all get smaller bonuses, as these were tied to performance ratings.

Ramadi was one of the most dangerous cities in the world in 2006. So, when Babin got wind of a special ops team that was requesting his platoon’s assistance in a high-risk mission there, he needed to know all of the planning details.

It turned out that the special ops team hadn’t planned for any contingencies or worst-case scenarios.  The mission was to approach a target in broad daylight in a convoy, driving straight down one of the most dangerous roads in the city.

In 2006, Babin and his platoon arrived in Ramadi, and were immediately tasked with their first capture/kill mission. It would take place the night after they arrived.

Time was of the essence. Babin spent the whole day planning the details of the mission, creating PowerPoint presentations, and several other long documents. As the clock ticked away, he realized he wouldn’t finish all the necessary plans by the time of the mission, so he asked Willink to delay it.