Jocko Willink

So I wasn't...

If I would have blamed one of these guys, I would have been ashamed to show my face.

You know what I mean?

But they were more like, hey, this wasn't your fault.

I'm like, yes, it was.

They've tried to re-explain to me.

definitely one of the most important attributes of a good leader is knowing that your guys your boss has your back yeah yes it is absolutely and and you got to know that they have your back and this is you know this is one of those things where it turns into or you have to watch out

Because if you work for me and your impression of me that I give you is that no matter what you do, I'll cover for you, now we get into a bad zone.

Because you have to know that if you do something that's immoral, illegal, or unethical, I'm not going to have your back.

Now, if you explain to me what happened and what went wrong and you had what we learned from the army, which is a good shot, bad result, 100%, 100%.

But if you are doing things that are illegal, immoral, or unethical, you need to know that I will not have your back.

And even something, even this isn't that extreme, but like I would tell guys, hey, you get a DUI.

It doesn't matter what I do to your back, because it's going to be in the system, and you're going to get in trouble, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Like, there's nothing I can do.

Like, I can go and be a character witness and tell the Commodore how great you are, but the Commodore's going to go, oh yeah, you had a DUI, you're getting busted down, and you were pulling from your platoon.

And it doesn't matter how much I have your back.

That's what's happening.

So yes, you're right.

But as a leader, you've got to put those parameters up to make sure that guys understand what the left and right lateral limits are.

And they can be big, but they're not infinite.