With technology almost daily reinventing the ways we work, fierce global competition, and constant disruption, business is in need of a new kind of leadership: high-stakes, take-command leadership. That is the no-holds-barred premise of Take Command Lessons in Leadership: How to Be a First Responder in Business, by Jake Wood.
To succeed in today’s high-pressure business climate, leaders, no matter what their position, experience or job title, must rise to the challenge of leadership as never before. They must prepare themselves to be what Heraclitus in 500 BC called the Warrior — the one out of 100 who brings the others home. And while we can’t all literally be warriors, we can all be leaders, according to Wood. He poses a set of ambitious challenges to every individual: prepare yourself to fi ght under conditions of extreme pressure and uncertainty, learn to lead others and create the life you want for yourself.
Wood was a member of one of the Marine Corps’ most elite units, the Marine Scout Sniper Platoon. He had tours in Al Anbar Province, Iraq and Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He was named a CNN Hero for 2012 and awarded the 2011 GQ Better Men Better World Award. He was also profiled in People and Forbes magazines.
Wood has turned his experience as a Marine sniper into a management book that tells readers how to apply military leadership principles to their work in business. Wood’s firsthand experience of why having every individual be an effective leader is good for business as well as society is both eye opening and affirming. It should encourage each of us to persevere in our own professional lives while becoming leaders for the world we want to live in.
After military service, Wood and fellow veteran William McNulty formed a nonprofit organization Team Rubicon, named after the river Caesar crossed to march on Rome, which was known as being a point of no return. The organization unites the skills and experiences of military veterans with fi rst responders to rapidly deploy emergency response teams. It includes nearly 20,000 volunteer veterans and first responders. It has conducted more than 50 missions on four continents, responding to tornados, typhoons and other disasters.
Wood draws on the experience of running this organization as well as his military background in developing his principles on leadership. He sets an urgent tone on the need for leadership. His book opens with a graphic description of a mission to aid a platoon of Marines in Fallujah, Iraq. It was during his first combat deployment, and he knelt over the dead body of a friend and fellow Marine.
Seeing a void in leadership, Wood realized he had to take command. That realization “changed the course of my life forever,” he writes. Most of us don’t work at jobs that involve leading a battalion of Marines on the battlefield, but Wood’s point is succinct: In today’s world, we are all on the front lines. To be successful, each of us is called upon to take the first plunge into the unknown and take command.
“Every profession has its front lines, whether you work on a commodities floor, or in a courtroom, or in a cubicle behind a computer,” Wood writes. “Sure the situations aren’t exactly the same. But the principles that carry you through to success are.”
Wood breaks his eight Lessons in Leadership into four parts: prepare, analyze, decide and act. Each of these sections contains a principle illustrated with examples from his military background, management experience and outstanding instances of leadership in contemporary business. The section on team building is particularly valuable. Wood takes the idea of team to another level: the High-Impact Teams (HIT).
Such a team “is defined by some special internal characteristics along with some environmental ones,” he writes. For instance, it must be faced with a daunting task or high-stakes opportunity. The HIT “must be foolish enough to think it can make a change, daring enough to try, and persistent enough to have a chanc” To accomplish great things and make a great impact, a high-impact team is needed.
The other Lessons in Leadership include maintaining transparency, determining goals, gathering pertinent information, understanding risks and overcoming setbacks. While such lessons may not be original, Wood’s approach creates an urgency that underscores their importance.
The ability to take charge is a fundamental issue for every successful leader — and both personal and organizational lessons must be learned to make it so. Take Command gets to the heart of leadership and guides the reader to personal and organizational success.