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Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior: A Commando's Guide to Success Hardcover – June 1, 1996
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length176 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherAtria
- Publication dateJune 1, 1996
- Dimensions5.75 x 1 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100671545159
- ISBN-13978-0671545154
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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From the Publisher
Richard Marcinko's explosive #1 New York Times bestselling autobiography, Rogue Warrior, chronicled the wild, death-defying adventures of his thirty controversial years as a Navy commando and creator of the legendary SEAL TEAM SIX. Three blockbuster Rogue Warrior novels transformed classified information he could never reveal in nonfiction into blistering tales of international warfare and counterterrorism. Now, writing in the tradition of A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, Japan's greatest samurai, Marcinko blasts other self-help guides out of the water. In LEADERSHIP SECRETS OF THE ROGUE WARRIOR, he shows how anyone can apply the skills he has honed throughout his remarkable career to the challenges of business and everyday life.
In the raucous, no-holds-barred style for which he is famed, Marcinko uses examples from his own missions plus case studies of Fortune 500 companies and smaller businesses to clarify the leadership principles derived from his Ten Commandments of Special Warfare, including:
I shall punish thy bodies because the more thou sweatest in training, the less thou bleedest in combat.
American businesses are rediscovering that excellence and perfection are useful conceptual tools. The more you train, the more you will be prepared for Murphy's inevitable visits. Remember that your troops (employees) are your greatest asset; see to it that they are prepared for any contingency.
Thou shalt never assume.
Realize that no two people see the same situation the same way. Remember that all strategies, yours and your competitors', contain hidden or "working" assumptions -- identify and examine them. Respect other team members' views, for they may see hidden truths that you have missed.
Verily, thou art not paid for thy methods, but for thy results, by which meaneth thou shalt kill thine enemy by any means available before he killeth you.
Take risks to conquer new markets, create new products, or increase profits -- but do nothing that will compromise your character. Judgment and discretion are the hallmarks of a professional. Know yourself, and act accordingly. The success of a strategy is measured by results, but the character of an organization is measured by how it achieves them.
With rightful scorn for those who attempt to lead from "on high," Marcinko reveals the true nature of dynamic, gutsy, front-line leadership. As provocative, bold, and entertaining as the man himself, LEADERSHIP SECRETS OF THE ROGUE WARRIOR presents the simple -- but profound -- principles wrested from hard-earned experience that have made him an extraordinary success, both in and out of the military.
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior
A Commando's Guide to SuccessBy Richard MarcinkoPocket Books
Copyright © 1996 Richard MarcinkoAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0671545159
Introduction: "I am the Rogue Warrior"
There is no substitute for victory.
-- Douglas MacArthur
The essence of leadership is vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.
-- Father Theodore Hesburgh
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 people will want to follow you.
Think this sounds easy? Think again. It sounds simple, and it is simple -- but simple is never easy. What's easy is to be so complex, and obtuse, and ambivalent, that nobody even bothers to challenge you.
When you approach your life and your goals with simplicity, you naturally draw fire, because you're not hiding behind a wall of obscurity. People know where you stand and what you believe -- and, I guarantee you, not all of them are going to like it. If they do, then you've got a big problem -- because if everybody agrees with you, you obviously stand for nothing.
That's the problem with so many of today's leaders, in business and in politics. Their idea of leadership is to take surveys and polls and find out what's popular, and then try to adopt that stance. They want to be all things to all people, and they end up being nothing to nobody. They think popularity is leadership.
But popularity is not leadership.
Leadership is taking a position, drawing fire, ducking bullets -- and then firing back. You do that, and people will follow you.
Your intention may be to just act like a man, but the result will be that you'll act like a leader.
The path you'll follow will not be easy, but it will be the path with heart. Every step of the way, you'll be an obvious target for all the snide little snipers hiding in the bushes. Because you'll be visible, you'll be vulnerable. And because you'll be vulnerable, you'll be very much subject to Murphy's Law. After all, the very nature of Murphy's Law is that it strikes when you can least afford it.
But if you're a warrior, you'll welcome Mr. Murphy, because he'll help keep you honest. He'll make sure you cover every possibility and anticipate every problem. He will call your bluff when you least expect it. Murphy knows that, in some perverse way, he exists because you need him to bring out the best in yourself.
Personally, I get a little disappointed whenever Sir Murphy doesn't rear his ugly little head.
When Murphy doesn't show, I lose the opportunity to demonstrate to the men I'm leading that I've prepared for every possibility. And, believe me, preparation is an absolutely critical element of leadership.
But even preparation does not lie at the absolute core -- the ground zero -- of leadership. At the core of leadership is one, single trait: belief in a cause. If you don't believe with all your heart and all your soul in what you're fighting for, you will not be a leader. You will not inspire others to follow you unless you are a man of absolute conviction.
You've got to have a cause. If you aren't fighting for something that's bigger than yourself, you'll be nothing more than just one more ambitious, opportunistic asshole who's trying to claw his way to the top. Personal ambition may motivate you, but it's not going to motivate anyone to follow you.
Being a warrior and a leader is not about achieving personal success. Success usually does come to leaders, but to a real leader, personal success is just a secondary gain -- a nice payoff, but not the real prize.
The real prize is achieving the victory of a great principle -- like freedom, or peace, or the prosperity of the many.
Therefore, a real leader is actually a servant. He's the servant of a great cause.
It's true: Life is war. But if a leader is serving a great cause, he can achieve power. And glory. And fulfillment.
And peace.
Copyright © 1996 by Richard Marcinko
Continues...
Excerpted from Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warriorby Richard Marcinko Copyright © 1996 by Richard Marcinko. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Atria (June 1, 1996)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 176 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0671545159
- ISBN-13 : 978-0671545154
- Item Weight : 12 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.75 x 1 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #207,777 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,629 in Leadership & Motivation
- #3,808 in Motivational Self-Help (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Richard Marcinko retired from the Navy as a full commander after more than thirty years of service. He currently lives in the Alexandria, Virginia, area, where he is CEO of SOS Temps Inc., his private security firm -- whose clients are governments and corporations; Richard Marcinko Inc., a motivational training and team-building company; and Red Cell International, Inc., which conducts vulnerability assessments of high-value properties and high-risk targets. He is the author of The Real Team; The Rogue Warrior's Strategy for Success: A Commando's Principles of Winning; and the four-month New York Times business bestseller Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior: A Commando's Guide to Success. Rogue Warrior, his #1 New York Times bestselling autobiography, set the stage for his bestselling Rogue Warrior novels, eight of which were coauthored with John Weisman.
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NUFF SAID!
It helped a lot with my adaption from military to civilian life.
I make a point of reading excerpts from Marchinko's bible throughout the year to stay on point and to remain focused.
It would be an honor to shake this man's hand to thank him personally for his honorable service to this Great Nation of ours.
It's men like Richard Marcinko we should all try to emulate.
A real Hero with sound advice for any man looking to be in charge on the world he lives in.
Top reviews from other countries
I find his perspective enlightening, and a vote towards MY perspective on how to manage yourself in the work place. If it wins you support from others, then you know who to 'work with'... if it upsets others, then you will know when to keep your back to the wall.




