Training Leaders

In David Marquet’s “Turn the Ship Around!” book, retired United States Navy captain and author, highlights that the traditional Leader-Team-member hierarchy, where one person thinks and everyone else executes, is the fastest way to hit a growth ceiling.

For Operations, this book is relevant because it provides the tactical framework to move a company from hero-based leadership to systems-based leadership.

The 3 Pillars of Decentralized Control:

1. Shifting from Permission to Intent: in many orgs, “The Boss” can be a single point of failure. Marquet replaced “Requesting permission” with “I intend to.” This forces the team to think two steps ahead and allows the leader to coach the logic rather than just approving the action.

2. The “Technical Competence” Prerequisite: you cannot empower a team that isn’t trained. True empowerment requires a focused intent on upskilling. If your team can’t be autonomous, you don’t have a “trust issue,” you have a training gap.

3. Organizational Clarity: decisions can only be decentralized if everyone knows the “North Star.” When the mission is clear, the team doesn’t need to ask “What should I do?” they ask “Does this action get us closer to our goal?”

Most founders scale their companies by being the “Chief Answer Officer.” It works at 5 people, it strains at 15, and breaks past 50.

https://davidmarquet.com/books/turn-the-ship-around-book/