7
LEADERSHIP
COMMITMENTS
THAT FORGE
ELITE TEAMS
MARK DIVINE
W
hat does it take for
your team to commit
to serve at an elite
level? This is the
question I learned
to ask after meeting Mark Divine,
retired Navy SEAL Commander,
entrepreneur, and New York Times
best-selling author of Unbeatable
Mind in Anaheim at the October 2019
Scaling Up Summit. When speaking,
Mark said this: Everyone must say to
themselves, when facing conflict, “I
must challenge the story I am telling
myself.”
Not only did Mark’s quote help
supercharge the message in my book,
I became one of his Unbeatable Mind
Certified Coach students!
I asked Mark what it takes to
overcome the fear of engaging in
productive conflict resolution by
unpacking the wisdom from his new
bestselling book, Staring Down the
Wolf—7 Leadership Commitments
That Forge Elite Teams.
- Dr. Craig Overmyer, editor*
6 • ACCELER ATE THRU CONFLIC T
I was a leader in the SEAL teams,
and I found that the SEALs were very
effective at building elite teams.
I was effective as well. And when I
left the SEAL teams in active duty
and went into the business world as an
entrepreneur, I realized that it wasn’t
anywhere near as simple as the SEALs
made it look to build an elite team!
I struggled, time and again, through
my multiple entrepreneurial ventures
to do this until I finally figured it out.
What I figured out is described in
my book Staring Down the Wolf.
Elite teams who are firing on all
cylinders and accomplishing great
things together are committed to
seven key principles: Courage,
Trust, Respect, Growth, Excellence,
Resiliency, and Alignment. All of these
are present in an elite team, deeply
committed to forge the character
worthy of uncommon success.
What ensues from these practices?
It is about the great authenticity and
humility of the leader, not about the
ego of the leader. Then the team
responds in kind! The team feels the
sense that “We’re in this together,
rowing in the same direction, and
our leader truly cares about us.”
The book is called Staring Down the
Wolf for a reason. You’ve got to stare
down the fear wolf to get to the courage
role. This is a metaphor that the Native
Americans would use to help their
young leaders understand that fear
is a debilitating factor. The fear wolf
resides in the head, and the courage
wolf resides in the heart. And the wolf
that you feed the most is the one that’s
going to dominate your behavior.
Yet in our society, we’re not taught
to connect to our heart. We get stuck
in our head thinking that leadership
is all about strategy and tactics. But
that’s where the fear wolf lies!