Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Richard Marcinko retired from the Navy as a full commander after more than thirty years of service. He currently lives in the Washington, D.C., area, where he is CEO of SOS Temps Inc., his private security firm whose clients are governments and corporations, and Richard Marcinko Inc., a motivational training and teambuilding company. He is coauthor with John Weisman of his #1 New York Times bestselling autobiography, Rogue Warrior® along with the New York Times bestselling novels Rogue Warrior: Red Cell, Rogue Warrior: Green Team, Rogue Warrior: Task Force Blue, and their latest, Rogue Warrior: Designation Gold.

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Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior

Pocket Books

Introduction: "I am the Rogue Warrior"

There is no substitute for victory.

-- Douglas MacArthur

Life is a struggle for survival, for success, and for dominance. Life is war.

It is an economic war.

A political war. A social war. And a personal war.

But we are not all warriors.

That is our human failing.

It doesn't need to be this way. In all of us -- sometimes deeply buried -- there beats the heart of a warrior. I want to help you find that heart in yourself. When you find it, you will become a leader -- because all true warriors are leaders.

Not all warriors now stand at the head of command, though -- not all of them are yet "the boss." But each of them is ready, when the moment arises, to assume that command and to lead the people around them. If a warrior's flag-bearer falls, the warrior is ready to take up the standard and lead the way.

WAR is an acronym: We Are Ready.

I, personally, am a warrior. I live by a warrior's code. I served my country, and served my comrades, for over thirty years in the United States Navy. During this time, I learned how to become a leader. Sometimes the lessons of leadership that I learned were painful, and often they were dangerous. I got my ass kicked in more times than I can count.

In the Navy's Underwater Demolition Teams, I visited some of the prime hellholes on earth. I learned SpecWar -- or Special Warfare -- from my sea-daddy mentors, who taught me how to not just survive in a hostile environment, but how to thrive. I learned how to destroy my enemies before they destroyed me.

I learned these lessons so well that in Vietnam I was paid the rare compliment of having a price put on my head by the Viet Cong. After that tour, I served in Cambodia, earned a couple of college degrees, and learned the intricacies of counterterrorism and special warfare. After further training, the Pentagon put me in charge of the Navy's first counterterrorist unit, the legendary SEAL Team Six. My swim buddies and I began to roam the globe, searching and destroying the enemies of the American government. We served in Central America, the Middle East, the North Sea, and Africa.

We were so successful that the Navy put me in charge of a unit called Red Cell. Our mission was to become "terrorists" ourselves, to test the security of the Navy's most secure facilities.

Every step of the way, I learned about people: how to motivate their actions, how to inspire them, how to lead them -- and how, when necessary, to destroy them.

I assure you, I got one hell of an education. Most valuable of all, it was an education in the real world, in real-time. Even though I hold a master's degree, most of the indispensable lessons I learned came the hard way: while I was in shit up to my hairy eyebrows. I learned what happens when nobody wants to take responsibility for a situation that's completely out of control. I learned how to communicate when nobody wants to listen. I learned how to set goals in the heat of battle and how to devise strategies, revise tactics, and organize men into cohesive units.

As I became a leader, I developed a set of leadership principles. This leadership code was my guiding light. I lived by it. And I was quite prepared to die for it.

Here are the principles that I lived by:

The Rogue Warrior's Leadership Code

• I will test my theories on myself first. I will be my own guinea pig.
• I will be totally committed to what I believe, and I will risk all that I have for these beliefs.
• I will back my subordinates all the way when they take reasonable risks to help me achieve my goals.
• I will not punish my people for making mistakes. I'll only punish them for not learning from their mistakes.
• I will not be afraid to take action, because I know that almost any action is better than inaction. And I know that sometimes not acting is the boldest action of all.
• I will always make it crystal clear where I stand and what I believe.
• I will always be easy to find: I will be at the center of the battle.

This code served as my "Commandments for Myself," but, subordinates also need commandments. Thus, The Rogue Warrior's Ten Commandments of SpecWar were created. These "Ten Commandments" were the rules that guided my men.

You have already seen the Ten Commandments earlier in this book, so you know that they are not easy to follow. That was their point. I did not want them to be easy. My missions were deadly and difficult -- they were, in fact, some of the most difficult missions that faced the United States armed services. Therefore, I could expect nothing less from my men than total dedication and absolute competence. My expectation of this dedication and competence is embodied in every single word of the Ten Commandments.

Since leaving the U.S, Navy, I have discovered that the Ten Commandments apply not just to military missions, but also to missions in the world of business.

Over the past few years, I have worked as a consultant to many major corporations, and have also been active in the publishing industry, and (to a lesser degree) the entertainment industry. In this book, you will find many anecdotes about the industries that I have been involved with, or have closely observed. I have found that the Ten Commandments apply almost universally to all businesses. Virtually any business leader who follows these Commandments will increase his chances of success.

Of course, I am not the only military man who has learned important lessons during war and then successfully applied these lessons to business. In this book are many examples of former soldiers who later conquered the business world.

If you, in your business, apply these Commandments, you will be able to quickly identify which of your employees are "warriors" and which are stragglers. You'll learn to better understand your employees.

You'll also learn about yourself -- and that's the most valuable education anyone can get. If you don't understand yourself, you can't possibly understand your mission. If you don't know exactly why you're on that mission, and exactly what you're capable of, I guarantee you your mission will fail.

I learned that to truly understand yourself and your mission, you have to confront yourself in the mirror each morning and demand the answers to life's six most difficult questions. These questions (which I'll also address later) are: What drives me? Was I always this way? What will satisfy me? Do I ever recognize defeat? How can I turn today's negatives into positives? What is my ultimate goal?

If you can answer each of these questions -- honestly -- at the beginning of each day, you're going to take a giant step closer to being a warrior and a leader. You won't face your day's confrontations with a mind that's mushy with ambivalence, doubt, and confusion. Your focus will be laser-sharp, and you'll pity the poor son of a bitch who tries to stand between you and your goals.

When you achieve this rare state of mind, the people around you will know it. You won't have to yell to get their attention, or "stand on your head" to get their respect. You'll radiate leadership, and...