Dallas Dutch Girl

In the book: Turn the Ship Around!, former Navy captain L. David Marquet challenges the traditional leader-follower model. His central message is straightforward: organizations perform better when leaders cultivate more leaders, rather than creating more followers.

While commanding a struggling submarine crew, Marquet shifted decision-making authority to the people closest to the work. Instead of asking permission, team members learned to say, “I intend to…”

His most powerful lesson: Don’t move information to authority. Move authority to the information.

When people have clarity, competence, and ownership, they make better decisions, move more efficiently, and build stronger organizations.

Great leaders don’t make all the decisions. They build teams that can.