Leif Babin is a former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, co-author of the #1 New York Times best seller Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win (revised edition published in 2017) and co-author of The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win. He is the co-founder of Echelon Front, where he serves as President and Chief Operating Officer, leadership instructor, speaker, and strategic advisor to companies and business leaders across the civilian sector. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Leif served thirteen years in the U.S. Navy, including nine years in the SEAL Teams. As a platoon commander in SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser, he planned and led major combat operations in the Battle of Ramadi alongside the “Ready First” Brigade of the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division. Task Unit Bruiser became the most highly-decorated special operations unit of the Iraq War.
Leif returned from combat and became the primary leadership instructor for all officers graduating from the SEAL training pipeline. There, he reshaped leadership training to better prepare SEAL officers for the immense challenges of combat. During his last tour, Leif served as Operations Officer and Executive Officer at a SEAL Team where he again deployed to Iraq with a Special Operations Task Force.
Leif is the recipient of the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and a Purple Heart. In 2011, Leif left active duty and co-founded Echelon Front, a premier leadership consulting company that helps others to train, build and lead their own high-performance winning teams. Clients include companies and organizations in a broad array of industries, from Fortune 500 companies to successful start-ups. Leif speaks on leadership, U.S. military strategy, and foreign policy matters. His editorials have been published in the Wall Street Journal and he has appeared frequently on a variety of national television news, radio programs, and podcasts.
Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win
In this updated edition of the blockbuster best-selling leadership book that took America and the world by storm, two US Navy SEAL officers who led the most highly decorated special operations unit of the Iraq War demonstrate how to apply powerful leadership principles from the battlefield to business and life.
Combat, the most intense and dynamic environment imaginable, teaches the toughest leadership lessons, with absolutely everything at stake. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin learned this reality first-hand on the most violent and dangerous battlefield in Iraq. As leaders of SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser, their mission was one many thought impossible: help US forces secure Ramadi, a violent, insurgent-held city deemed “all but lost.” In gripping, firsthand accounts of heroism, tragic loss, and hard-won victories, they learned that leadership - at every level - is the most important factor in whether a team succeeds or fails.
Willink and Babin returned home from deployment and instituted SEAL leadership training to pass on their harsh lessons learned in combat to help forge the next generation of SEAL leaders. After leaving the SEAL Teams, they launched a company, Echelon Front, to teach those same leadership principles to leaders in businesses, companies, and organizations across the civilian sector. Since that time, they have trained countless leaders and worked with hundreds of companies in virtually every industry across the US and internationally, teaching them how to develop their own high-performance teams and most effectively lead those teams to dominate their battlefields.
Since its release in October 2015, Extreme Ownership has revolutionized leadership development and set a new standard for literature on the subject. Required reading for many of the most successful organizations, it has become an integral part of the official leadership training programs for scores of business teams, military units, and first responders. Detailing the mindset and principles that enable SEAL units to accomplish the most difficult combat missions, Extreme Ownership demonstrates how to apply them to any team or organization, in any leadership environment. A compelling narrative with powerful instruction and direct application, Extreme Ownership challenges leaders everywhere to fulfill their ultimate purpose: lead and win.
