David Marquet, a former Nuclear Submarine Commander is a student of leadership. Named as one of the Top 100 leadership Speakers by Inc. Magazine, David is the Author of the Amazon #1 Bestseller: Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders and The Turn the Ship Around Workbook. Fortune magazine called the book the “best how-to manual anywhere for managers on delegating, training, and driving flawless execution.”

David imagines a workplace where everyone engages and contributes their full intellectual capacity, a place where people are healthier and happier because they have control over their work – a place where everyone is a leader.

His Intent-Based Leadership model is turning around all types of organisations—from big manufacturers to start-ups and sports teams to government.

In today’s episode, he discusses the importance of decision making as a leader, how a team can be an extension of your own brain and what you need to do to help them make better decisions, the challenges of the traditional leader / follower model, lean decision making and his own model, The Ladder of Leadership.

Listen out for:

• Self-control is the only control we have
• I was the greatest control freak, order giver known to humanity. That’s why I rose rapidly to the role of Submarine Commander. I could see that there was a problem with that
• In poor performing cultures, we play follow the leader. In high performing cultures, we all follow the principles. Everyone at all levels feels that connection
• We have a scarcity of thinking and an over abundance of doing and compliance. What we need are people who can think, for an organisation to survive.
• We talk about lean in manufacturing, but what about lean decision making? Businesses need to map the decisions in their organisations and identify where there is waste and lag time.
• Organisations that pay less for decisions are going to get more out of their people
• The D2A2 Model – Once you detect a problem, then you describe it, then you assess it and then you act on it

Timeless Takeaway:

• Push authority for making the decision to where the information natively lies
• If you want to scale, think about scaling your decision-making capacity

Resource Links:

http://www.youtube.com/c/LeadershipNudges

And, If you like movies, you might get a kick out of this…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv9aaTJVIxA

About the Host

Brendan brings 25 years’ experience of scaling businesses. Most recently, Brendan spent 16 years as a global business leader with CDE, 12 of those as Group MD, steering the company through the global financial crisis to considerable strategic growth success with offices now in 6 continents employing almost 700 people across the world (from 15) and 25X revenue growth.

He currently acts as a Non-Executive Director to CDE Asia (part of the CDE Group), a company he co-promoted in 2006. In 2019, he co-led the successful private equity funding round which secured investment from IIFL, India’s leading integrated financial services group to support the company’s future growth ambitions throughout the Asia region.

In 2016, he was awarded the Institute of Directors UK Young Director of the Year and Overall Director of the Year. An avid sportsman and advocate of self-leadership through good well-being practices, Brendan is also training to become a Wim Hof Method instructor.