What's on Your Bookshelf?
“What’s On Your Bookshelf” is a personal and professional growth podcast exploring the intersections of passion, potential, and purpose - featuring multi-certified coach and leadership development consultant Denise R. Russo alongside Sam Powell, Zach Elliott, Tom Schweizer, Dennis LaRue, and Michelle King.
What's on Your Bookshelf?
001 - What's On Your Bookshelf (Exclusive Series): Extreme Ownership Intro
Discover the transformative power of military leadership principles in our exclusive new series featuring Denise Russo and special co-host Zach Elliott. This debut episode introduces a fresh perspective on leadership through the lens of military experience, specifically exploring how the disciplined, accountable leadership style of elite military units translates to business success.
The conversation centers on the groundbreaking book "Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win" by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Together, Denise and Zach unpack why military leadership resonates so powerfully in corporate spaces – from the unwavering focus and accountability instilled in military personnel to their ability to build trust and take complete responsibility for outcomes.
We explore the book's three-part framework that begins with mastering self-leadership ("winning the war within"), progresses to team dynamics ("laws of combat"), and culminates in strategic vision ("sustaining victory"). Throughout the discussion, our hosts emphasize that these aren't merely professional skills but life principles that transform how you approach challenges in every arena.
What sets this leadership philosophy apart is its uncompromising stance on accountability. As the authors write, "Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame." This mindset cuts through excuses and creates a foundation for exceptional performance in any organization. Whether you're leading a team of two or two thousand, these principles provide a roadmap for building trust, developing people, and achieving mission success.
Join us on this journey through military-inspired leadership wisdom that will challenge your assumptions and elevate your effectiveness as a leader. Subscribe now to gain insights from each chapter of "Extreme Ownership" and discover how taking complete responsibility can transform your leadership impact.
Extreme Ownership : https://a.co/d/b02WNv7
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Welcome to the exclusive series of what's on your Bookshelf, a life and leadership podcast where we live out loud the pages of the books that are on our shelves, with your host, denise Russo and Zach Elliott.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone, welcome back. It's not only another episode of what's on your Bookshelf, but this is an exclusive series that I'm so excited to introduce to you today. For those of you that have been following along, my name is Denise Russo, but I'm so excited to introduce you to my friend, zach Elliott. We are going to be exploring a brand new series of leadership through the lens of the military, and so I want to welcome Zach to what's on your Bookshelf and to this series.
Speaker 2:I met Zach a couple of months ago through a mutual friend and we just hit it off. You know, sometimes you meet someone that you just know, that you feel like you've always known, and we hit it off right away, and so we've come together. Zach came up with this great idea, and so what we're going to do over 2025 is walk through some of the books that are on Zach's bookshelf so not just books that are on my bookshelf. These are now new books that are on my bookshelf, some of them and Zach. I'm so thrilled that we've come together to be able to present this not only to your colleagues and friends and listeners, but also to the what's On your Bookshelf and School of Thoughts listeners.
Speaker 1:First off, thank you for having me. This is awesome. I'm so glad our paths have crossed Um. It was uh amazing and very inspiring getting introduced to you, and I'm thrilled that we were able to find something uh as far as books go and be able to talk about our passions with leadership and coaching and mentoring throughout, um, the corporate world and the military world, because this is very important to me and something I'm very passionate about. So I thank you so much for this opportunity to kind of hang out with you and just talk about things we both love.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm so excited. So this really is about the foundation of leadership. Talk to us a little bit, Zach, about why is it important to look at leadership through the lens of these authors that are people that had success in the United States military.
Speaker 1:So a lot of these folks who write these books about leadership or owning something they talk a lot about, hey, if I am able to own this problem that maybe I didn't even have anything to do with, but I own it. It builds that accountability and it builds a nice culture within that team. Um, there's, there's a lot of things that go go into a high ranking leader within the military and let's say something does happen where so andso gets hurt or something like that. They can point fingers all they want to, but once that leader steps up and says that's my fault, I didn't follow the, the direction I needed to do, I didn't fact check and I didn't go in and do certain things. That is why it's so important. That builds trust within the team, builds confidence in their leadership. It also just teaches people from the very top all the way down to take ownership in every action that you do. And I say that because it kind of dives into the book that we're going to be discussing of extreme ownership.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm excited about doing that as well. So let's talk a little bit. Zach, you and I are both executive and business coaches. We've both come from very large corporate technology organizations, and yet your role is a little different than mine in that I never was in the military. My father is a veteran, but I myself don't come from the military, and you and some of the friends that we'll be bringing on to some of our episodes are why does military leadership resonate in corporate spaces?
Speaker 1:They go through a lot of different types of leadership schools in the military. Maybe it, maybe it is something as long as how do I talk to CEOs or how do I talk to CIOs Bearing? They have a thing in the military called military bearing and typically it's something where they just keep their focus. I want to say military bearing is keeping your focus where they're not going off chart or they're getting crazy looking around, they're looking that person dead in the eye and that is instilled in a lot of the military upbringing from the ground, from first time, getting off the bus, all the way until you get to that higher level within the military in the corporate environment.
Speaker 1:That's very that's a needed trait, right, it's something that is a lot of corporate America's looking for those next line leadership, that next, those next people who are taking accountability for things, who come in and no, I don't want to say disruptor, but kind of disrupt the old hat, so to say um, and as you probably know, corporate America is in need of strong leaders and you know the military is a great place to start looking for those strong leaders that are coming out. There's a lot of people that get out on a daily basis out of the military who are capable of running big teams and leadership type of roles within corporations, small to big. So I think translating that leadership from the military into a corporate environment, that's the easy part. That is the character of the person which I always believe in hiring for character and training for skillset.
Speaker 2:We often say, zach, when we start our episodes, that what's on your bookshelf is a life and leadership podcast, where we're living out loud the pages of the books that are on our bookshelves. I wonder if, before we jump into our first book, if you could help our listeners get a glimpse into maybe some of the books that we're picking off the shelf that we'll be talking about, and why those are so important. I'm looking forward to some of them because, as you know, some of them I've read, some of them I haven't, but I think we have a really good flow set up for 2025. So let's talk a little bit about how we selected the books that we did and how we're trying to cover different parts, or I think you can explain it better to the non-military people about the different entities of the military, since these books are written by different parts of the military so, as you and I both discussed, we had been looking at different books.
Speaker 1:That's actually on my bookshelf and it happens I had a lot that were written by navy seals. Um, so we are actually looking at other branches. Um, there are some amazing books out there that are written by army commanders army generals, uh, air force, uh, commanders. There there are a lot of different books. It just happens to be that the Navy seals happen to have a lot of leadership type quality books, and a lot of these people who write these books are famous authors.
Speaker 1:Um, some of the lessons that that I have taken on a daily basis with me on some of these books is well, use the wisdom of the bullfrog, a shepherd should always smell like his flock. So that is something that I use on a daily basis. You know, and hope is not a strategy. These are all things that come out of a lot of these different kinds of books that I do read on a daily basis. But some of the things that we're going to look at is maybe these books that we're going to be looking at may not be looked at initially as a leadership book.
Speaker 1:I'm going to use the book Inside the Delta Force. That one is how the Delta Force kind of stood up, you know, and when, what leadership principles it took to build that kind of elite fighting force for the United States Army. So there's going to be a lot of different perspectives that are going to come from a lot of these books. That, I think, is going to be really exciting One. We're going to get your perspective, we're going to get my perspective and we're going to get a lot of diverse type of audience listening to this on how they interpret what we're talking about. So I'm so excited about all the different books that we're going to be looking at.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So I often tell my clients, zach, that there's no such thing as work-life balance. You have a life, work is part of your life, and so one of the things that I hope that our listeners will be able to take away from what we've learned together is that this is a life and leadership podcast, so the things that you learn are things you can apply in your job, but they're also things you can apply in your home, and so I'm really looking forward to introduce what has now become a really page-worn book for me, even just over these last couple of weeks. So the very first book that we are going to introduce in our series is a New York Times number one bestseller, and this book is called Extreme Ownership how US Navy SEALs Lead and Win, by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin Babin, is that how you say? His?
Speaker 1:last name Babin.
Speaker 2:Babin, so Extreme Ownership. That's the first book, and Scott will put in the show notes for us how you can get a copy of this book if you want to use it to go along with us Now. I often tell our listeners, zach, that you're going to get the most out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know it's. They say that the only way to actually get smarter is to read, so I'm a firm believer in that. I've got stacks and stacks. I've got books that I haven't even read, that people recommended to me. Just stacks and stacks of books. But I agree with you 100 percent. I think these are mindsets that we can take in life and in leadership, and I'm just, I'm excited to dive into these. I'm not going to lie Awesome.
Speaker 2:So then let's talk a little bit about the logistics or the mechanics of how this book is laid out. So this book really has a three-part framework, if you will, and so what we're going to do over these next couple of weeks, just like we do on the regular series that comes out every Wednesday is that we're going to go through each of the chapters. Now, we are not teaching out of this book. We are living out loud from this book. So what we'll do is we'll talk about some of the things that we found interesting or insightful from the book and then just discuss that, and we hope that you also will engage with us. There will be ways in the show notes as well, for you to be in contact with us through the show as well as through our LinkedIn channels.
Speaker 2:And so this book, this three-part framework, what I love about it and I'd love to get your take on it as well, zach is that there's these three parts, but these three parts are essential for any good leader in business, and the first part is about focus on yourself first. It's sort of like you know, when you're on the airplane and you're getting ready to take off and the flight attendants say in the event of an emergency, put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you help others. It's not a self-ish thing to do, it's a self-focused thing to do, so that you can be at your best to help others. So the first part of the book is about self-leadership and in the book, the way the authors call it is winning the war within. So it's about starting with holistically what's inside of you so that you can be the best on what's outside of you.
Speaker 1:I agree, and you know the self. It's almost like a self-leadership, self-aware leader and and a lot of uh, there's a lot of books out there right now that say you have to be able to lead yourself before you can lead a team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, john Maxwell is a big proponent of that fact Self-aware leaders, name of one of his books. So Zach and I are also certified John Maxwell leadership speakers, trainers and coaches, and so we may often reference other books that are on our bookshelves besides the ones we're talking about as well, and so, again, we'll make sure that we have links to these books if you want to add more books to your talking about as well, and so, again, we'll make sure that we have links to these books if you want to add more books to your bookshelf as well. So the second part of the book and we'll get into this probably in a couple months from now, maybe is around transitioning from ourself to others. So others focused and what are the team dynamics. So the authors call this part the laws of combat, but it's really about how to work together with other people and how to lead well and how to step back when others need to step up.
Speaker 1:And that is a very, very important skill set, not only in the military, but also in a corporate environment. You know step stepping up and doing what you need to do, and and you know one of the first things to think about as a leader is your job is to make other leaders. So I do. I firmly believe in the part two, which is one of the sections that I'm really excited about is the is the laws of combat.
Speaker 2:Awesome. And then the third part of our book, zach, is about really the strategic vision, the strategic operations of your business. It's long-term leadership. In the book the authors call it sustaining victory and it's really about how you take where you are today and move into where you want to go tomorrow.
Speaker 1:And the book outlines that, and I think all these lessons that are the parts that we're going to talk about within this book is all tie in to each other right. You're not going to be able to sustain any type of leadership without first being a self-aware leader and implementing what is called the laws of combat.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of really real world relevance to this as well. Like we said, we're coming to this podcast series not just speaking to former military personnel or veterans or even people that are perhaps still in the military and yet. We're so grateful for those of you that are also here, but this is also for any of you who work in a corporate environment and you're looking at real world relevance of things like failures of accountability. We're seeing this day by day in the news of high profile companies, high profile leaders, who are failing their businesses and their teams. We're going to discuss, as best we can each episode, real examples where organizations who lack ownership and what that cost is to leadership and how extreme ownership truly is around. How you lead and win. That's the title of this book, and at the end of each episode, what we're hoping to do is that you could talk to the listeners about this a little bit is what do we hope for them to take away in their reflections and taking action?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also how to take action. Right, there's very many steps that we could say hey, I'd like for you to go out and think of a circumstance where you need to build trust and accountability amongst your team members. We could, we could say that all day, but how do you build trust and how do you gain that credibility amongst your team members to become that strong leader? So a lot of this book is going to tie into the how do I do it? It and then put into a practical type of thing of how you can go ahead and go to your teams or or even if you're an individual contributor, listen to this how do you start taking ownership of your own actions, making yourself a leader in your leader's eyes?
Speaker 2:You know, you could take a book or you could listen to a podcast, and it's not going to make you a better leader, or you could listen to a podcast, and it's not going to make you a better leader. It's about what you just said, which is taking the actions from here into your own life, and so one of the things that the authors say as they start out the book is that extreme ownership is not just of things that these leaders were responsible for, but for everything that impacted their mission for, but for everything that impacted their mission. And so they talk about how this is about not making excuses and not complaining, and you everyone has challenges and setbacks, but this is about getting solutions and solving your problems. One of the things that I value the most about one of my coaching certifications is that it's called solution-based coaching, which is that any challenge is an opportunity for you to come up with a solution to solve some sort of a problem, and not just stay stuck. And so one of the things that I loved about the beginning was that they set the stage by saying this is not about your title, this is about your mission, and that you set your egos to the backseat, and what we often see is sometimes people with really big titles have really big egos.
Speaker 2:This book is not about that. This is about setting that aside. Stop making excuses, stop blaming others. Take ownership in everything in your life and be compelled to take action to solve your problems. That's literally on page one. So that's what you want to listen to. I hope you'll join us for the next several weeks.
Speaker 1:And what's funny is, as you say, that, but I also want to reiterate a little bit about what you said is, yes, it's about taking responsibility for the outcomes of what can happen, and that includes in success and in failure. So it's and they the good. The cool thing about this book is they take you front row seat to kind of what they went through in their, in their experiences and and the little, the little nuggets that they pulled down from these experiences. And the more you read this book in my opinion I've read it four times the more you read it, the more little nuggets you get from the reading, which is really cool because you come in at first oh, this is just another military book, and there are a lot of military books out there yeah but, yeah, the more you read this and you understand who jaco is.
Speaker 1:jaco has one of the number one podcasts in the in, I think in america at, and maybe you know, in the world. But when you start listening to him now I have seen Jocko live, he is. Sometimes he comes off really strong, which you would expect from a Navy SEAL commander, but some of the lessons that he teaches and learns you know that you're going to learn from a lot of the things that he talks about is just how do you take ownership of something that may not be the right thing to take ownership for? What if this happened miles and miles away from me? But it's still part of what I command, or what I, what I'm in charge of?
Speaker 2:I mean he says in here the principles are simple, but they're not easy. Yeah, correct, they're not easy.
Speaker 1:They're not easy at all the principles are simple, but they're not easy. Yeah, correct, they're not easy. They're not easy at all. The principles are not easy. He also talks about how extreme ownership is non-negotiable. It's something that all leaders have to take full responsibility of their team's actions and outcomes, no matter what setting it is. So the other one is is he talks about how the accountability strengthens that team.
Speaker 2:So this is really for any company of any size, any leader in any part of the hierarchy. I love that these guys both authors talk about in the book how they consult big companies we don't work for them, we're not getting paid to talk about them. The book how they consult big companies we don't work for them, we're not getting paid to talk about them. Okay, but I want to just share one snippet of what they said in this book of results that they've gotten by helping companies and leaders. It's how people all over the world whether it's for-profit or non-profit do these things Receive a major promotion, land a better job with greater responsibility and more opportunity for growth, hit numbers far beyond expectations, achieve special recognition as an exceptional team member or accomplish their goals, whatever they may be.
Speaker 2:So I'm thinking about Zach. Here we are. It's the beginning of Q1. Businesses are just getting in the swing of announcing their annual goals. If they're on an annual cycle, it starts in January. We already went through massive layoffs last year at a lot of companies, and now we're starting to see hiring take place again, and so talk to me a little bit about what you think in regards to what some of the things are that you found, having listened to the authors live, having read this book many times, what can it do for somebody, personally and professionally, as a leader in their business? Holistically?
Speaker 1:So, so I think what you get out of a lot of this reading is the mistakes are inevitable, they're going to happen, right, but you always have to, as a leader, provide opportunity for growth, no matter what that mistake may be. You have to not only celebrate your successes, but you also kind of have to celebrate failures, because you can't grow without failing. So, in my opinion, the military is a great example you could have now. Now I know we might be jumping ahead a little bit, but there's a, there's a chapter in this book that I reference a lot, and it's probably a chapter that resonates with you, as well. As the boats. Whenever they have the boats and they and they swap leaders in the boats and the next thing, you know that leader who swapped in that boat is now winning instead of losing.
Speaker 1:So it's very, very interesting of of the mistakes that are inevitable. So, was that leader making mistakes could be? He probably wasn't motivating enough, but in today's society, with, with how the layoffs from last year happened and the companies of today are starting to rehire, they are going to be looking for a strong leadership base, and and a company who has strong leaders typically succeed in the long run. So you've got to make sure that your leaders are equipped to handle what they need to handle, and this mindset of extreme ownership to me is a must in all leaders.
Speaker 2:I can't wait where we talk about that story a little bit deeper, because you're talking about companies that have strong leaders, have good companies, but companies that have strong leaders and weak teams are misaligned, and companies that have strong teams and weak leaders are misaligned.
Speaker 2:And so this book talks about how you know, when you think of the Navy SEALs or at least for somebody like me who's not from the Navy, was not in the military you think of these guys as the MVPs of the military, and that it's about you know, the glory of being in that sort of a role to protect our country. But this book is about the team and they talk about how the SEAL program itself, and they tell lots of stories in the book about what it's like to go through the SEAL team training, and it's about the team and that the sum is far greater than the parts. And so, even though in this first series of episodes that we'll be doing is about reflecting on yourself, it's so that you are at your best for your team, because as a leader, if you don't have people who are following you, then you're not a leader, and just because you have a title doesn't mean that you have influence, and John Maxwell says it best, and he says that leadership is about influence, nothing more and nothing less. Now, you can be a bad person and be a leader, like we can think of some leaders that have been in the world that were very not good people, that had lots of followers and they led their people off cliffs and did destructive things in the world.
Speaker 2:So it's not about if you are a good or bad person per se, yet it's about do you have influence and do you look at the people that you're leading and have their best interest at heart? That's why I think probably for me, zach I also love the second section of this book, which is about the influence and the shepherding of the people and your responsibility as a servant leader.
Speaker 1:I agree 100%, and I want to go back to a little bit about what you said about leadership doesn't necessarily mean you're qualified to do anything, right? I always say leadership doesn't automatically equal experience, right, because you could have somebody in a leadership position who may not really understand what the run the business type of thing. Now they're going to learn it, of course, but when they first get there as a leader, they're there for a reason, and that that reason is to lead the team yeah um.
Speaker 1:so I I like using auto-magically equal experience and I also like being that person in charge doesn't make you qualified to do something. I think those are two very important things. Now in Jocko's case, in that first chapter where he talks about, I believe, the first one, when they were in Ramadi, iraq, and they're talking about, they had what is called a blue on blue incident and that equals friendly fire. And I think in our next episode we will we'll dive a little bit deeper into what all that means and and kind of why he took ownership of this incident that happened and what that means. And to translate it into a corporate world of, let's say, manufacturing, it could be a same example Maybe the distributor wasn't going. Who's going to take ownership of that? Is that the leader? Who's putting these people in charge, or is it somebody else? So I think it's something we should dive into in our next episode, because I know we are getting really close on time today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're close on time, so I'm going to leave you with a couple of things that I took out of the book as a reflection, and then maybe, zach, you can help our listeners think of some action. How does that sound?
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it.
Speaker 2:Cool. So a couple of things I took away from the book in this intro section and we're only at the intro is that the authors say that the only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. Only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. There are only two things that matter whether you're effective or ineffective. Ineffective leaders are not successful. And then the last part that I'll leave you with as my reflection is they say at the end of the intro that decisions have immediate consequences and everything, absolutely everything, is at stake, and that it's about your mindset. Leaders must own everything in their world. There's no one else to blame. So this is about self-leadership. That's what we're going to dive into over the next several chapters. It's about making good decisions, making sure you have a solid mindset and making sure that you're focused on your team. So those are the things I took away from just the intro, Zach, curious about your thoughts on that and what actions our listeners can take away. For today.
Speaker 1:I think that is perfect for the intro of this book. We haven't even started diving in to the meat and potatoes of the book, but in just the intro alone you get what I call a personal accountability checklist. Whenever you're going in to assess your responsibilities, ask yourself at the end of each day and project what outcomes am I responsible for? You know, identify your successes and the failures and don't blame others. Own your mistakes publicly. I think that's a big step in extreme ownership. I could sit here all day behind my computer screens and say, oh, that's on me, but if I'm not telling that to anybody else, that's not extreme ownership. So just say here's what I'm going to do to fix it. Always have the problem and the solutions handy there. Communicate those expectations and evaluate your processes regularly. Those are kind of what actionable items you can do on your personal accountability checklist from just the intro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, awesome, awesome. Well, friends and new friends, thanks for joining us on this exclusive series that we have with my friend, zach.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:My name is Denise Russo. Thanks for joining us on this episode of what's on your Bookshelf.
Speaker 1:Bye everybody.