The Navy SEALs are run by great leaders. And the SEALs are the best at what they do because they are a team – not a bunch of incredibly well trained men who only follow the micromanaging orders of the person in charge.As an illustration, consider a football team. The quarterback on a football team doesn’t micromanage the offense; each player on a championship football team knows his job, knows how to adjust as the defense adjusts, knows how to react when the play unfolds, and understands how critical his job is to mission accomplishment. It is the quarterback who calls the play, gives the orders to start (calls the cadence), and has the most strategic view of everyone on the offense on how to accomplish their part of the mission.
If you’ve coached team sports before, you know that what is most important to winning is not having the best players; it’s having the right ones. You need players who can do the job, of course, but there also has to be no question that each member on that team knows his job and is committed to team success before his own success. The SEALs do not screw around with this concept
It seems that we can deduce that what it most important to great teams isn’t having great people – it’s having the right people. I’m not saying the SEALs aren’t great people – they most certainly are -- it’s just most important that they are the right people. I assert that building and leading a very effective team hinges on 5 things (not in any order):
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