From Command to Shared Leadership
Many workplaces wear people down in the same quiet way. Employees begin with energy, judgment, and ideas, but over time they learn that their role is to wait, obey, and avoid mistakes. Leaders suffer too, because they end up carrying all the pressure, making all the decisions, and watching capable people stop thinking for themselves.
That pattern is what David Marquet came to reject. In the usual leader-follower system, one person is expected to think and many others are expected to execute. That may have worked when work was mostly physical, but it breaks down when success depends on judgment, learning, and quick thinking from everyone.
His answer was a leader-leader model. Instead of creating better followers, the goal was to create more leaders at every level. On the USS Santa Fe, a submarine known as the worst-performing boat in the fleet, he began pushing control outward, asking people to think, decide, and take ownership. The change rested on three connected ideas: give people control, build their competence, and make sure they clearly understand the mission.
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