How Do You Lead When You Work for a Large Company?
Written by Jocko Willink
December 30, 2021
Let's say you’re working for a $100 million-a-year company with over 200 employees. That's a lot of people to lead . . . and a lot of revenue at stake if you get things wrong.
Fortunately, you're doing a lot of things right. You've bought into the principles Jocko Willink teaches—like extreme ownership and the laws of combat. You want to get better at leadership. So how do you go about it?
Here’s how anyone can get better at leadership, especially if you work at a large company.
Working with Echelon Front
Echelon Front is the company that Jocko started alongside Leif Babin, another former Navy SEAL officer who served with Jocko and later became the leadership training instructor for all SEAL officers.
So when you work with these guys and their team, you're getting a crew of decorated, combat-proven veterans and leaders who know what they're talking about. And they know how to teach you how to win.
“We offer a bunch of options,” Jocko says, “and we serve them up in many different ways, depending on the size of the company, the scope of the company, what their status is, what their situation is." After all, leadership training will need to look different if your company is spread across a broad geographic area than if most people work out of the same headquarters.
That said, there are some common denominators when any company works with Echelon Front.
Live workshops
"A normal scenario is, we would do some kind of workshop with the leadership," says Jocko. These workshops can be in-person or online, depending on the company's needs. They blend presentations, discussions, Q&As, and practical exercises to help leaders better understand the Extreme Ownership principles, identify challenge areas in their company, and start putting together a plan to improve those areas.
Extreme Ownership Academy
Once leadership is onboard, it's time to start working with the rest of the company. “We would enroll a bunch of their people in the Extreme Ownership Academy. So that's our online training platform," Jocko says. This program gives your people direct access to Echelon Front’s leadership instructors, weekly live sessions, leadership courses, and a certificate of completion to show that they've put in the work to apply these skills to their daily operations.
Leadership Development and Alignment Programs
Echelon Front’s Leadership Development and Alignment Programs are customized to meet a company’s specific needs and can incorporate training sessions with every level of leadership. The programs offer in-depth knowledge of the Extreme Ownership principles and help clients get real, positive outcomes by applying those principles to the specific leadership challenges they face.
Aligning your team on leadership
Working with Echelon Front is “not about aligning your company,” Jocko says. “It’s not about saying, 'Hey, we’re aligned toward this mission.' It’s around aligning our methodology of leadership so we can actually communicate about leadership in a coherent way to each other."
When a company can align on leadership, Jocko explains, "We all have the same principles. And we all understand them. And we can all see what our shortfalls are, and we can start to correct them.”
Takeaways
When you’re working for a large company, effective leadership becomes even more essential, because there's just so much to lead. Echelon Front offers real, practical leadership training that works to build the skills you and your team need. Three of their standard services for large companies are:
- Live workshops
- Extreme Ownership Academy
- Leadership Development and Alignment Programs
When everyone at your company aligns around the same leadership methodology, you'll finally be able to communicate with each other and solve leadership problems so you can grow your people and your revenue.
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