Jocko Underground: The Reality When Your Boss Sucks and You Don't Respect Him At All.

>Join Jocko Underground Full Episodes< https://app.redcircle.com/shows/64a89f88-a245-4098-8d8d-496325ec4f74/exclusive-content 00:40 — How do I respect a leader I don’t respect or trust? 15:21 — How do I solve problems aggressively without being out of control? 27:22 — Should I keep pursuing more responsibility if it’s making work stressful? 38:55 — How do I stay calm when my kids are melting down? 54:38 — How important is competing in Jiu-Jitsu, and is it worth the injury risk? Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is the Jocko Underground Podcast number 230, sitting here with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. We have got some questions from the front lines, from you out there where the rubber meets the road in the trenches. And we have some answers. We have some suggestions. And at a minimum, we've got some courses of action that you can follow to navigate through this maze.

• 0:26Jocko Willink?

  That's true. All right, let's get into it. All right, on the first question, Jocko.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  I am an experienced paramedic on a strong seasoned team that takes pride in our work. One newer paramedic has developed a reputation for being lazy, dishonest, hostile to feedback, and openly admitting he doesn't meet patient care standards. Despite lacking the respect of nearly everyone on our shift, including several battalion chiefs, he was recently promoted to sergeant and is training to fill in as battalion chief, largely due to his relationship with management. How do you respect someone's leadership position when you don't respect or trust the person holding it?

• 1:10Jocko Willink?

  Well, thanks for your service. I know that is tough work out there being a paramedic.

• 1:16Jocko Willink?

  You know, there's a scene in Band of Brothers where Major Dick Winters, this is that, this is when he's become a major. It's later in the show. He's not a lieutenant anymore, subordinate to Captain Sobel. And they see each other. And Captain Sobel like, doesn't want to salute him, doesn't want to give him that respect. And Dick Winters calls him out and says, "We salute the rank, not the man." And it's very interesting because he's, he's saying in the clear, in broad daylight. Broad daylight. "Hey, I know you don't respect me. That's okay. We salute, we salute the rank, not the man." That's what he's saying. He's like, "Okay, you don't have to respect me. That's all right." Which is weird. I'm not saying I, I, I love that idea, right? But that's what he's saying.

• 2:02Jocko Willink?

  And there is a component of that. Well, actually, I do. It's a weird situation, but his message is correct. Now, what would I have done? I'd have been like, "Hey, whatever." You know what I mean? Like, you gotta let that guy just. If you were the. If I was Major Winters and I saw him, you know, and saw him trying not to make eye contact and avoid me, I'm not gonna call him out. I just don't, you know, don't really care. And that guy's already, I mean, he, he literally killed himself in, in real life, you know, so the guy already has issues. You know, I don't feel like I need to, like, make him salute me. But I understand, you know, but, and there is, there's a component with Dick Winters of like, "Hey, this is the military,

• 2:47Jocko Willink?

  and we've got people, if you're not gonna follow the protocols here, that's problematic." There would sometimes be an interesting dynamic in the military that I would see, which was, let's say you were, let's say you were a chief, right? And as a, as a chief, you kind of really flexed that, that authority that you had from being a chief. Like, "Hey, I'm a chief. You better, hey, I'm the chief. I'm a chief. You know, I'm a chief petty officer. I'm an E7," like that kind of stuff. Well, if you're gonna play that game, guess what game you also have to play? Oh, this person's an officer. Well, well, I'm a lieutenant. You know what I mean? So if you start playing the rank game, you gotta, that's, you're locked in, you know,

• 3:29Jocko Willink?

  live by the sword, die by the sword. You know, if you want to play the rank game, I, I interacted with a guy that was very much like that, very much, very, very bought into his own rank. Recently. This was a while. This is, no, this is in the teams. A guy that was very bought into his rank and flexing his rank. But other people's ranks that were above him were kind of like, they didn't matter. And I'd kind of always be like, you know? And this is funny too, because I was, this is when I was in ensign, which is the lowest ranking officer, which generally don't get a ton of respect because in the regular situations, these are guys that have been in the Navy for three days.

• 4:09Jocko Willink?

  Or may, up to two years, but they're very new. They're very junior. For me, I had been in for eight years at this point. So, you know, I wasn't quite like a boot ensign. Yeah, a little bit different. In fact, in some situations, I was, had been in the SEAL teams for longer than people that were pretty senior enlisted guys. If they hadn't gone to, if you hadn't gone to BUDS right out of boot camp, if you were in the fleet prior, I would probably have been in the teams longer than you. And there is a, there is always a little bit of, "Well, I've just been in the teams longer than you." You know, "I've been in longer than you, so therefore..." Anyways, getting back to this question, this guy, this individual, he's like, "Got this guy that he's working for, he doesn't really respect.

• 4:54Jocko Willink?

  How do you deal with it?" And that idea of like, "We salute the rank, not the man." You don't have to like the guy, but in order to be a part of the, the program, like, "Okay, this guy's, he has that rank, he has that position. Okay. I'm gonna treat him with respect as the, as the protocol states. That's what I'm gonna do." And listen, I worked, like I said, I worked for all kinds of people that I didn't respect in the military. I worked for people that I didn't respect in the civilian sector. They would have never known it. And neither would anyone around us. You know what I mean? So that's what you do. You just be professional. You treat them with professional, professionalism, and that's it. This is where you have to be a little bit, you have to use a little bit

• 5:36Jocko Willink?

  more of your leadership skill. And that is, if he is behaving in a way or telling you to do things that don't make sense, and now you've got to present that to the troops, you know what I'm saying? So when you get told that the, the person that you don't really respect says, "Hey, I want you guys to, you know, wear clown shoes." And you say, "Hey, boss, I'm not sure if clown shoes are the best." "No, that's what we're gonna do." And you say, "Clown shoes aren't really, they're, they're not gonna be effective. It's gonna be hard to move in." "No, but it's gonna make us better in the long run. We go back to regular shoes." "I want everyone in clown shoes tomorrow." You see what I'm saying? Like, you can, you can get in situations like that. You don't then go, "Hey, guys, the boss is an idiot and he's making us wear clown shoes."

• 6:17Jocko Willink?

  Because then that's, you know, negative. But you also don't go, "Hey, guys, the boss has a great idea. We're all gonna wear clown shoes." And I totally agree with that. You don't do that either, because then the guys go, "Wait, you're an idiot." So what you do, you know, this is after you push back, after you present the case, then you say, "Hey, guys, here's what's going on.

• 6:37Jocko Willink?

  Look, I'm not 100% sure what the effectiveness of the clown shoes is, but, but the boss really thinks it's gonna be, make us better. Once we remove them, so that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do our best. We put these clown shoes on, we're gonna gear up, and we're gonna do the best that we can. And then I'm gonna be able to some, give them some good feedback on what it was like."

• 6:54Jocko Willink?

  That's what you do. You say, "When, hey, when we get done with this, we're gonna do it to the best of our ability. It's gonna increase my, you know, the boss's trust in me. It's gonna give me a little more influence, and hopefully I'll steer him in the right direction on this." So that's what we do.

• 7:10Jocko Willink?

  You're trying to build that relationship, you know? And it's interesting here, because this guy says, this, this individual that he doesn't respect is training to fill in as the battalion chief, largely due to his relationship with management. Now, we could say, "What a kiss ass. What a brown-noser."

• 7:30Jocko Willink?

  Or we could say, "We're getting outmaneuvered." You know what I'm saying? We could say, "We're getting outmaneuvered. Oh, oh, okay, now, now, Jock, you told me to run around and kiss people." No, I'm not telling you that. I'm not saying you'd be a brown-noser. No, I'm not saying that. Do I say build relationships? Oh, yes, I do. Now, what relationship is stronger? The relationship of someone that's just kissing ass, like, "Hey, that's brilliant." But they're not doing anything? Or the relationship with someone that's trustless and respect, influence, and care, that's working hard? That's, you, you can win that relationship game, even when you're not kissing ass. Now, are there a few just crazy narcissistic human beings that just love getting their ass kissed? Yes, there are. And they will protect their little harem of ass kissers.

• 8:16Jocko Willink?

  But it's not normal. And if it is, you got, you, guess what you have to do? You have to maneuver through that environment. You know, you gotta figure out how to make it work. Otherwise, what you end up doing is you end up ostracizing yourself. Now you're viewed through a negative light, and not only does that screw you, but that screws your team too. So, hey, that's the way the game is played.

• 8:40Jocko Willink?

  And am I saying, you know, "Oh, you should run around and kiss people's asses"? No. What I'm saying is you build relationships with people. That way, instead of this knucklehead getting to be the fill-in for the battalion chief, it'll be you. So, that's what I'm thinking, man. That's what I'm, that's where I'm at on this one. It's one of those scenarios. How do you respect someone's leadership position when you don't respect or trust the person holding it? You be professional. You try and build that relationship. That's the best possible outcome. What are you gonna do? "Oh, you know what you should do is confront him and tell him how you think." How's that gonna work out? It's not gonna work out well. Think of what the alternate, alternative courses of action are, you know? Sabotage him.

• 9:22Jocko Willink?

  Oh, now the whole team looks bad. Undermine him. Now the team is not performing well. Call him out. Now you have an antagonistic relationship with the person that you work for. Like, there's so many quote unquote, like, aggressive options to stand your ground. And guess what? You end up losing each one of those. It's like, you know, this is the same, you know, you're walking down the street and someone, someone, you know, insults you. What should you do? Well, you know, you could use a double leg. You could just go one, two combination to the face. You could, you know, spin him around real quick with that self, you ever seen that self-defense move where you just grab one shoulder, you pull one and you push the other, and it just turns him around, you rear naked choke him? Like, wait, of those options, which one do you think is the best one?

• 10:06Jocko Willink?

  In this, it's like, "Oh, actually, I'm sorry, but none of them." You know, the best one is to just go, ignore him and move on. Yeah. But what about the?

• 10:17Jocko Willink?

  Cause where does those three end up? You're getting sued. You're on social media beating up some bum. Uh, you're, you go to jail by the way, like there's all kinds of, all kinds of gnarly things that can happen. And it's the same thing here. Antagonistic relationships, antagonistic relationships are not going to help you. So build some good relationships.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember that's when you first said that I was like, dang, that's the perfect way to put it because there's no sidestep in that fact. Like there's nothing good comes from building an antagonistic relationship. The, the whole playing the game thing where, you know, the boss will say, whether it be upper management, your boss, whoever, whatever, you know, they kind of look at everybody beneath them as like, okay, like who has potential, you know, they, they have this like evaluation always running, right? And you can have a guy who does good work, but you could tell like he's kind of undermining you sometimes or like, you know, like, let's say you're in a group setting and they kind of like roll their eyes or, you know, like that kind of stuff.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  You're like, okay, versus the other guy who's like, yeah, yeah, I'm kind of on board for all your stuff, even all the way down to the kiss ass guy. Who's like super extra on board with everything. So those kind of guys, the upper management guy, whatever the boss is kind of rooting for them. You know, like, oh, I hope this, I really hope this guy does good work. In fact, I'm going to help him. So, cause if I want anyone promoted, I want this guy, cause I'm rooting for him. He's not undermining me. He's not freaking making me feel, you know, like I shouldn't be here, all this other negative stuff, this antagonistic climate, you know, this work environment kind of a thing. So yeah, like I said, the guy can be doing good work, the other guy, right? But if he's kind of like, hey, it brings along this element of toxicity, but that guy's not rooting for you at all. In fact, they're kind of hoping you show up late one day.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Kind of hoping you can give them the excuse to write them up and maybe, you know, phase them out or whatever. So it's kind of like, bro, you're totally screwing yourself actively.

• 12:11Jocko Willink?

  And, and, and most important, you're hurting the team and you're hurting the mission. But that's the most important thing here. You look, you may not get, you, I'm not talking about you, you won't get promoted. You're not going to get the opportunity for promotion. All, all that's secondary, tertiary, doesn't matter. What matters is you're not in a good relationship with your boss. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to jacood underground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this, we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms.

• 12:50Jocko Willink?

  So we are not subject to their control and we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko podcast, which will remain as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we, but we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we are, we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So thank you. It's jacood underground.com.

• 13:31Jocko Willink?

  It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email assistance at jacood underground.com and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.