L. David Marquet trained to command the USS Olympia, but then at the last moment was vectored to command USS Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered Los Angeles class attack submarine. The challenge was that he had not studied that class of submarine and the existing team was underperforming, had low morale and low retention. He decided to revolutionise his leadership by leaving a top-down “leader-follower” approach behind and develop what he calls the “leader-leader” model. Rather than issuing orders he sought to divest control, build the technical competence of the workforce, and give them clarity about the mission. This is a case study in reprioritising people, an organisational culture that emancipates their contribution, and using continuous learning for development of them as leaders not just followers.
The story of “turning the ship around” illustrates a whole toolbox of leadership mechanisms:
- Be curious (and honest) about what you don’t know.
- Ask early “What do you hope I don’t change? What do you secretly hope I will change?”
- Refuse to buy into the leader as hero model that absolves the responsibility of the leader to develop the team and the team to think, decide and be responsible.
- Hesitate to give solutions but open up conversations to draw out solutions from others (especially when the situation is not urgent).
- Delegate decision-making as much as possible, and then a pinch more of discomfort
- Fix systems that do not serve people or the mission.
- Shift mind-set from avoiding errors to pursuing excellence.
- Help every team member understand the mission, and then trust them to make good decisions aligned with commander’s intent.
- Give tangible behavioural changes that will change culture; i.e. “act your way into new ways of thinking”.
- Have short and early conversations for early feedback to ensure the right direction; thirty seconds now, can save hours of time later. “A little rudder far from the rocks is a lot better than a lot of rudder close to the rocks.”
- Don’t expect perfect first drafts and regularly ask, “show me what you’re working on.”
- Subordinates change their language and mind-set from “I request permission to”, “Do you think we should’ and “Could we …?” to “I intend to”, “We will” and “I plan to …” to be their own boss, albeit in order to achieve the set mission and checking in with their chain of command.
- If not happy with a decision, say “We’re not going to do that…We have to find another solution,” (p. 90) to get followers to lead and find another option.
- Value lack of certainty as strength and acknowledge certainty is arrogance.
- Encourage thinking out loud and invite critique of one another without fear of embarrassment and with trust.
- Don’t move information to authority, move authority to the information.
- Care deeply about people and the mission, and accept the risk of caring less about bureaucratic consequences to your career.
- Use inspections as learning and development opportunities – embrace inspectors and ask “I’m stuck on this problem, how are others dealing with it?”
- View doing well on inspections as the outcome of being excellent, not the goal.
- Recognise it is more powerful educationally to ask questions than give briefs.
- Consistently repeat stated goals, and let the team identify the method to achieve them.
- Balance holding people accountable with compassion for honest efforts.
- Avoid mistakes not by more supervision but encouraging people (and self) to pause reflect, engage their brains, vocalise action, then execute.
- Use legacy as inspiration for clarity.
- Use recognition to reinforce desired behaviours.
- Encourage a questioning attitude and respectful dissent over blind obedience.
This is not the image of sea captain as “master and commander” but given the importance of thinking sailors (and soldiers and aviators) it is a timely model for ADF and DFSS in 2024+.
There are very strong parallels between the push of Defence Force School of Signal (DFSS) to make student centred learning as the key educational methodology and David Marquet’s Leader-Leader Model. Fundamentally, both strive to unshackle our junior leaders by transitioning them from a passive mind-set in which they are not responsible (either for their own learning or decisions) to one which places the burden of responsibility upon them. For education, this results in greater retention of knowledge, confidence to execute on it and competence in the long-run. For leadership, the aim is for leaders to constantly be thinking as their superior, taking a burden of mental capacity from your boss and making the best informed decisions possible. By delegating this responsibility, it provides ownership to those who are impacted most by the decisions and generates an intrinsic motivation and sense of responsibility. This ultimately results in a highly motivated workforce, who seek to excel and strive to seize the initiative.
The book also has excellent discussion questions at the end of each chapter useful for focusing on people, culture and development – whether for personal reflection and journaling or workshopping with teams.
If interested in more from L. David Marquet see his new book Leadership is Language or online articles such as the 7 step self-assessment ”How We Learn From Our Mistakes”. View the author’s websites at https://davidmarquet.com/my-story/ and https://intentbasedleadership.com and watch “Intent based leadership | David Marquet” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzynH2BmoJM (10:17).
About the Reviewers
Darren Cronshaw is a Chaplain at Defence Force School of Signals.
Callum Smyth is Officer Commanding of Network Engineering Wing at Defence Force School of Signals.