Part 2 ( Laws of Combat) Chapter 8: Decentralized Command Flashcards
Leadership means ______ management of the team
effective
The fourth law of combat is ____ _____
Decentralized Command
_____ ______ teaches us that when the teams are composed of an unmanageable number of people, the each team must be broken down into manageable subdivisions with a clearly designated leader. These leaders are then made to fully understand the overall mission and its respective goal
Decentralized Command
Designated leaders are encouraged to make ______ to ensure proper execution and accomplishment of the mission
decisions
Junior leaders must understand that their authority has ____ and that they are required to regularly communicate with their senior leaders
limits
In line with developing decentralized command, junior leaders are also expected to develop their _____. This results from cultivating trust towards they senior leaders and the mission
confidence
Senior leaders must constantly communicate with their junior leaders to ensure ______________
situational awareness
______ ______ is a necessary component of decentralized command. ________ is important for a leader because it helps them get the right amount of involvement in the action.
Proper positioning, positioning
The best _____ is somewhere in the middle: not too involved in every detail of the front line: not too far back that you completely lose sight of the necessary details.
Position
Leaders are never supposed to be stuck in one position. They have _____ of ______, especially when the necessitates of the situation dictate
freedom of movement
Decentralized command makes sure that each _____ supports the overall mission. It also makes sure that senior leaders are never disconnected from their teams on the battlefield
team
Keeping an _______ ______ is a common practice. It makes sure that all the tasks are properly spread out through the company’s various divisions and subdivisons
organizational chart
There are instances when a dept leader is in charge of a bigger group of people. With this, a common observation is that the bigger group has slower ____ rate than smaller groups. This is because larger groups are harder to manage and leaders have a tendency to focus attention and train only the best performers
growth
A sign of good leadership is how he inspires each and every one of his subordinates to become the _____
best
In order to ensure efficiency in leadership and task fulfillment, it is necessary to create branches out of divisions and have a branch ____ clearly designated. This ensure the work is equally divided while avoiding _________
leader, micromanagement
Effective leaders understand that, as humans, we all have ______. These _____ should never be scene as roadblocks. We should learn how to embrace these ____ and devise means to divide the work among the team
Limitations
Chapter 8 is called _______ South-Central Ramadi, Iraq: A Reckoning - by Jocko
Decentralized command
The president stated his ideal size for a team would be 5 or 6 people. 4 or 5 ________ and ___ people
financial advisors and support
The Seal and US military teams are based around building blocks of “Fire Teams” which are __ to __ man teams with a leader
4 to 6, leader
The definition of “helter-skelter” according to the book is
bunch of individual elements just doing whatever they want
A _____ _____ tells your troops what you are doing
mission statement
In combat, the span of control ___ depending on factors such as quality of the leader, skill level/experience of the troops, the levels of violence
varied
As a leader, it takes strength to ___ ___
let go
Jocko expected his subordinate leaders to ___
lead
_____ learned his leadership principles through the ___ years in the seal teams
Jocko, 15 years
___ was the commander of Charlie Platoon. The Platoon Commander of Delta Platoon was unnamed
Leif
Pushing down the decision making to the _____, front line leaders within the task was critical to their success
subordinate
Decentralized command allowed Jocko, as the over all commander, to maintain focus on the ____ ____: coordinate friendly assets and monitor enemy activity
bigger picture
TUB learned their greatest lessons in decentralized command during MOUT and acronym for _______
Military operations urban terrain
The MOUT training center was at
Fort Knox, Kentucky
The MOUT facility was a multi-block mock city of concrete structures, ranging from simulated 1-room houses to large and complex multistory building built to prepare military units for the challenges of ____ ____
urban combat
Jocko later commanded the (TRADET) ____ _____ which was tasked with preparing SEAL platoons and task units for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan
training detachment
The TRADET instructor cadre constructed training scenarios to confuse, disorient, physically and mentally overwhelm participating SEAL units, particularly the ____
Leaders
A SEAL term used for a serious cheap shot or sucker punch
Mud Suck
The enemy the SEALs would face in Iraq had no rules and were experts at analyzing and exploiting their _____
Weaknesses
In TUB MOUT training, the SEAL leaders tried to control eveything and everyone themselves and manage each one of their men up to ____ individuals in TUB
35
The good understanding of the broader mission is known as
Commanders intent
In MOUT, TUB divided into small teams of __ to __ SEALs, and manageable size for each leader to control
4 to 6
Each platoon commander didnt worry about controlling all ___ SEAL operators assigned, only 3: his squad leaders and his platoon chief.
16
Each platoon Cheif and leading petty officer only had to control their fire team leaders, who each controlled ___ Seal shooters
4
And Jocko only had to control ___ people, his ___ platoon commanders
2
The junior leaders learned that they were expected to make decisions. The couldn’t ask “What do I do?” Instead, they had to
state, “this is what I am going to do”
A few months into TUB deployment, they conducted their largest operation yet. It included two different US Army Battalions -each with hundreds of soldiers, US Marine batallion, nearly 100 armored vehicles on the ground and American aircraft in the skies overhead. Many of the units operated on different ______ ____, which greatly added to the complexity and risk
communications network
The operation centered around a major north-south road that was sandwiched between 2 notoriously violent neighborhoods - _________, a war torn neighborhood to the east and _____ to the west - an American designation for an equally violent section of Ramadi
Ma’laab and J-Block
The ______ is where TUB suffered their 1st casualty during the initial weeks of deployment. A SEAL operator sustained a GSW from a machine gun that shattered his femur and left a hole in his leg. _______ laid down suppressive fire and helped drag him out. The SEAL survived
Ma’laab, Mike Monsoor
In ______, Ryan Job was shot in the face and blinded. On the same day, Marc Lee was shot and killed down the street from where Ryan was shot. Marc was the 1st member of TUB to be KIA and the first SEAL killed in Iraq
J-Block
Leif had also been wounded, shot in the _____. But still managed to continue to lead that operation
back
SEALS patrolled on foot into position ______ from COP Falcon to the west and _____ from COP Eagles nest to the east
Charlie Platoon, Delta Platoon
The ___ ___ of each SEAL sniper overwatch element made their decisions based on the underlying commanders guidance that drove their overwatch operations:
1) Cover as many possible enemy ingress and egress routes as possible
2) Set up positions that mutually support each other
3) Pick a solid fighting position that could be defended against heavy enemy attack for an extended period of time if necessary
Senior Leader
Areas that would be difficult to see and difficult to defend are called
Dead space
Delta platoon moved to a new building that was numbered
94
Building 94 proved to be a very good vantage point because
- it was one of the tallest buildings in the area at 4 stories
- it had a clear north-south road and of the location where the Army would soon construct COP Grant
- it was easily defendable and offered good firing points that covered enemy routes in and out of the area
With no permanent security in place, the Brave Army engineers began to building the new COP in a hostile combat zone. The new COP was called
COP Grant
The romantic vision was of ______ vs _____ stalking and shooting match. The preferred contest, however, was enemy sniper vs M1A2 Abrams tank
sniper vs sniper
The ___ of ___ grows quickly in a chaotic urban environment and could muddle the most seemingly obvious situations
fog of war
The company commander in charge of the Bradley Fighting Vehicles was an _____. He personally saddled up and drove out in his tank to help the SEALS
US Army Captain
The Bradley commander that reported the possible enemy snipers radioed that they were on building _____
79
25mm chain gun with high-explosive rounds describes a
Bradley main gun
Human beings are generally not capable of managing more than ___ to __ people, particularly when things go sideways and inevitable contingencies arise
6 to 10
No senior leader should be expected to manage dozens of individuals, much less hundreds. Teams must be broken down into manageable elements of ___ to __ operators with a clearly defined leader
4 to 5
Every tactical team leader must understand not just what to do but ___ they are doing it
why
The left and right limits refers to
what is within the junior leaders decision making authority
Senior leaders must constantly communicate and push information - what they call in the military “_____ _____” to their subordinate leaders
situational awareness
_____ is what SEALS call it when SEAL task units train in assaults
CQB - close-quarters battle
SEALS practice CQB in a _____, a multi-room facility with ballistic walls, which SEALS, other military, and police units rehearse their CQB skills
Kill house
In the application to business, Jocko asks to look at the presidents “org chart” which
depicted the teams organizational structure and chain of command. Responsible for dozens of branches and over 1000 employees
Situations require that the boss ____ from the problem and let the junior leaders solve it, even if the boos knows that he might solve it more efficiently. It is important that the junior leaders are allowed to make decisions and know that the boss will back them up, even if they make a call that may not result in the best outcome as long as the decision was made in an effort to achieve the strategic objective
walk away
Things that build trust are
- open conversation
- overcoming stress and challenging environments
- working through emergencies and seeing how people react
In the application to business in chapter 8 decentralized command, the regional president of an investment advisor group was having problems with his business because some branches had a strong leader that did so well that leader would be responsible for 20+ people and because of that, business growth would slow. and on the flip side, some branches only had 3 people in them but the branch manager was not as strong and had to be out in the field focusing on sales revenue instead of building and growing his team
true
There are senior leaders who try to take on too much which results in chaos and then there are senior leaders who give the appearance that they are in control but they really have no idea what their troops are doing and cannot effectively manage them. This is called
“battlefield aloofness”. This attitude creates a significant disconnect between leadership and the troops and the leaders team will struggle to effectively accomplish their mission
In chapter 8, decentralized command. The war story is about a Army Captain who believes he spotted enemy snipers on a roof. Delta platoon had switched buildings to building 94. The army requested to engage the snipers with a tank. Because Jocko was removed from the frontlines, he was able to see the whole picture and made both the SEALS and the Army identify the building. In the end, the Army incorrectly identified the building as 79 instead of 94. Had jocko not made everyone double check, the result would have been friendly casualties of the SEALs
true
