Exclusive — Jocko Willink: Humility and Meritocracy Are Fundamental to Military

Meritocracy and humility are essential to the development of excellence in the U.S. military, said Jocko Willink, retired Navy SEAL and author of Final Spin: A Novel, on Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

“One thing that is great about the military — at least when I was in the military — [is that] it was based on what your performance was,” Willink stated. “If you performed well, if you did your job well, you would move up the chain of command, and that’s what makes the SEAL teams good.”

Humility is fundamental to personal development, Willink added.

He determined, “If someone lacks humility, or someone has issues, they will get removed from the system. So we always hope that’s the way things work, because that’s how you end up with a highly disciplined and well-performing team.”

Willink elaborated on humility as a prerequisite virtue for personal progression. He identified its opposite vice — arrogance — as a fatal flaw facilitating failure.

“The most important characteristic that I talk about all the time that someone needs to have in order to be successful is humility,” he emphasized. “When we would fire someone from a SEAL leadership position, the reason we would fire that person … wouldn’t be because they weren’t in good physical condition, or they didn’t know how to shoot their weapon, or they didn’t know how to read a map. The reason we would fire someone is because they lacked humility.”

He continued, “Think about what that does your mindset. You don’t listen to anybody else; you don’t evolve; you don’t take on any new methodology, and you just underestimate your opponent; you underestimate the enemy; you don’t respect the enemy. All those things are a complete recipe for disaster.”

Willink identified listening as an overlooked communication skill needed for quality leadership.

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