I often say founders are like the Navy SEALs of business: They're both leading small, agile teams, in stealth mode, through uncertainty and chaos. And because the stakes are high, their success relies on a culture of psychological safety and trust.
Retired Navy SEAL Dave Cooper built some of the best teams in the Navy SEALs — he's the one who oversaw the training for SEAL Team Six in preparing for the mission to capture Osama Bin Laden.
He says: "Psychological safety is not something we can just order. It's something that emerges from a group of people who are mutually respectful, right? Inside an operational SEAL team, we're much more egalitarian than the rest of the military. And people feel safe to say, 'Hey, boss, I see things differently.'"
Dave and I talked about how:
- "tough guys" show vulnerability, without looking weak
- the small gestures that create a culture where people feel safe to disagree
- the dangers of "authority bias" and why "command and control" leadership doesn’t work anymore
- he structured after-action reviews to extract more learning from their mistakes in preparing for the Bin Laden mission
Follow Dave on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-cooper-387aaa3b/
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