Reviews - Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win

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721 reviews for:

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win

Leif Babin, Jocko Willink

3.94 AVERAGE

angelnash's review against another edition

4.0

Definitely one of the better leadership books I’ve read. The concepts were easy to grasp, written in a way that was easy to digest.

mrs_heath's review against another edition

"Leadership is simple, but not easy"

lillyrose249's review against another edition

1.0

I read this book with some coworkers based on the recommendation of some colleagues. Admittedly, the colleagues who really like it are all former military.. and that makes sense now that I've finished it. I rarely enjoyed the experience of reading this book and do not personally recommend it.

If you like military stories, maybe you'll find this to be an enjoyable self help style book. Every chapter opens with a military story to teach a lesson, then apply that lesson to business. First, I did not like the stories very much. I will admit I tend to only like military stories that do not glamorize the military or warfare at all. This book definitely does not fit that description. Second, the business application part... These stories were so scrubbed of detail that they felt very wooden. And the writing style was honestly terrible. It felt absurdly unnatural how the authors would relate these workshops they gave, always managing to fit in phrases like, "You need to apply more Extreme Ownership."

Barf, stop using the title of your book in the dialogue, please. Hire a ghostwriter next time.

There were some okay lessons within here but for me the experience of reading the book was not worth it. The most enjoyable part was showing up to my work book club and finding that most of my coworkers also hated it. Except the one guy who likes military stories. So, there you go.

danette_high's review against another edition

3.0

I would give this a 4 or even a 5, but I found myself tensing up with the military stories. It's well written and organized. The principles are good. The authors connect the principles and their consulting stories well to the military stories. It would be a perfect leadership book for some audiences.

nebular_fire's review against another edition

3.0

3 stars mostly because I had to read this for work and I’ll have an environment to scrutinize the principals and test them in my business’s management and see how it makes positive changes (when my industry has a history of toxic management styles) and apply some of the harsher principles to myself to break bad leadership habits. But personally I’d rate this more of a 2-star for its un-nuanced perspective of “winning” when it comes to the bigger picture of war and ethics and it’s inability to think beyond winning and into their enemy’s shared humanity.