Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders Hardcover – May 16, 2013

One of the words that are used in leadership in civic leadership, corporate leadership, non-profit leadership, and the military is the use of the term ‘empowerment.’ The use of this word is inspiring and it has great meaning to people but the truth is very few leaders and organizations really do not know how to correctly share power with others. To empower people requires the discipline for the leader not to over-perform as to take matters into one’s own hands and to complete tasks themselves or the leader to simply give directional commands to people in order to complete a specific task. Most often, what occurs in organizations is that we empower ‘followers’ which creates a dependency on people for not having to think for themselves as well as not having to take on any real ownership of what the mission and goals of a particular organization is leaving the desire for excellence to be regulated to a few leaders who are brokering all the power. What this creates are organizational cultures that cannot realize the best of the intelligence, talent, and skills from their greatest resource which is their people. In this top-down culture leadership is not understood to be an emotional phenomenon not simply a cognitive process by which transformation of the individual begins in the interior life of an individual person as one is given the opportunity to take risks and explore the credibility of one’s on authority as part of a team.Therefore, the author takes the reader on his journey of becoming the captain of the nuclear powered attack submarine U.S.S. Santa Fe. The author begins to discuss his own emerging philosophy borne out of his reflection that he no longer desires to lead from the top down but instead desires to lead leader to leader. It is in the context of becoming a leader of a low performing ship with men who were used to a top-down culture that dehumanized their ability to contribute to the betterment of the operation of the vessel by thinking and taking responsibility for more than just their own assigned task but to see how they contributed to the overall mission of the ship. The understanding concerning this new paradigm of leadership is more of an enabling art as it related to releasing human talent and potential. In the words of the author, David Marquet,”You may be able to “buy” a person’s back with a paycheck, position, power, or fear, but a human being’s genius, passion, loyalty, and tenacious creativity are volunteered only. The world’s greatest problems will be solved by passionate, unleashed “volunteers.”[1] This writer appreciates what Dana Theus in her review of this book presents a functional definition of empowerment by writing,” By definition, we’re sending our troops inside their soul, where we have no control. The essence of empowerment is that you hand over control and see what they can do with it. When it works, they boost performance with creativity, drive and innovation. But of course, they sometimes don’t.Leading this way is impossible for control freaks and nerve-wracking for everyone else, because we may end up presiding over a performance nosedive, lost profit or angry customers. True empowerment that which leads to inpowered success, is not bunk, but it is a risk.”[2]None of us are as smart as all of us!David Marquet’s definition of leadership is interwoven throughout the book: “Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.” [3] It is with this definition that you the reader can begin to see the writings of Robert Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership Theory on steroids. Ultimately a leader is more concerned for the success of those that leader serves than even their own success. In order to embrace this perspective as more than a trendy approach for a leader to disguise their mechanisms for control the author presents how a leader must begin to deconstruct a culture of control and then build mechanisms on two pillars which are competence and clarity. A leader who is going to begin a leader to leader culture must begin with the conviction that genius resides in the people that they serve with and decision-making at its best requires that genius to be heard.Me Pastor- You SheepI highly recommend ecclesiastical leaders to read this book because most of the mistakes of leadership in the church come from archaic notions of leadership that are simply untrue. We are living in the middle of one of the most profound shifts in human history, where the primary work of mankind is moving from the Industrial Age of “control” to the Knowledge Worker Age of “release.” What a think this book can do for Pastors in the local church is a functional matrix by which the theological conviction of the “Priesthood of all Believers” can possibly find expression. Protestants for years have been critical of other Christian traditions identifying them as being theologically institutional giving birth to hierarchical systems which create top-down priestly elite. Thus, people must be dependent on these leaders for their ability to contribute and grow. What I have experienced is that Protestants have created their own hierarchies with very controlling environments just different language. If ecclesiastical leadership are convinced that each person is “God’s workmanship” (Ephesians 2:10) than I agree with the author, David Marquet, that our goal should not simply be “empowerment” but instead “emancipation.” With emancipation we are recognizing the inherent genius, energy, and creativity in all people, and allowing those talents to emerge. It is with this understanding of emancipation that one comes to the sobering awareness, “That a leader realizes that they do not create the talents in people nor do they empower them to use their talents. But a leader understands that they do have the power to prevent the talents of the people they lead to come out.” The awareness that I as a leader can limit the giftedness and talents of others being expressed is enough for me to recommend that you read this book.[1] L. David Marquet, Turn the Ship Around, p xxi.[2] Dana Theus on October 22nd, 2012, [...][3] L. David Marquet, Turn the Ship Around, p xxii.

I've been interested in communication and leadership styles and found this book among the most recommended. It didn't disappoint. The author gives a simple outline of management that isn't theoretical - it works. And that wasn't just his opinion - he backed it up with the spectacular performance gains of his 'company' (a nuclear submarine). By giving workers (sailors) control and responsibility he took his sub from being the worst performer to the best. No gimmicks, no 'empowerment', just common sense methods that changed a sub from being a gulag with a tyrant as captain to a true team effort that made sailors feel appreciated and valued. But his methods didn't just make his sailors feel better, it unleashed their talents into making things work better on the sub. It required a change in philosophy from the captain knows everything and is never wrong, to an admission that one person can't possibly run a submarine by themselves and that the people who perform the necessary jobs might be able to think of how to do them better. It took the atmosphere from one of inaction due to fear of making mistakes to one of actively solving problems and making real progress.The author referred to previous navy models of the captain as an 'individual hero'. This is being in charge and trying to control everything that happened so that no one made any mistakes (leader-follower) model. It is an example of what I call fear-based-leadership and is probably the leadership model that is easiest to implement, but exhausting and crippling to group efforts that require cognitive thinking. For things like football teams or small organizations that don't rely on much thinking this can be successful, but to practically anything else it creates a climate of dread that people can't wait to get away from.My only criticism is that in some places it was difficult to understand the technical sub language and the lack of clear explanation of what 'deliberate action' was. It was something that the author said was one of the most important parts of his success but yet I did not get a clear sense of what deliberate action involved on the sub, let alone what it might look like in a business organization.It is remarkable that the military, one of the most closely monitored and outcome-based institutions, has not implemented this already. With the indisputable results it should be the model that all leaders are taught. The trick is, it takes a lot of work to let other people figure things out and not just solve a problem for them. And the results don't pay off immediately, but they are much longer-lasting. Human nature doesn't like change, and yet figuring out how to do things better is what made our species survive and thrive as well as we have.

The leader-leader method of leadership is by no means a new idea, in fact it has been used in ancient world to great effect to concur empires, by some. But this modern version written brilliantly not just as a how to manual but also as an easy flowing read that stays with the reader long after.I highly recommend this book not only to those who are new to leadership, but especially to those who aren't new to it and think they're good at it. Because if you use the traditional leadership methods, it's nothing good compared to this.I just wish the author had not intentionally mis-stated the name of the Persian Gulf as the arabian gulf. This is a political hackery to not use the correct name not only in use since thousands of years ago but also the geographic society and united nations have always recognized the correct name of that body of water as Persian Gulf. It sadly and greatly lowers the author's own intellectual level. Otherwise he has achieved a masterpiece of work on the subject of leadership which should be required reading for all leadership positions.