Dave Berke is a retired US Marine Corps Officer, TOPGUN Instructor, and now a leadership instructor and speaker with Echelon Front, where he serves as Chief Development Officer. As a F/A-18 pilot, he deployed twice from the USS John C Stennis in support of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He spent three years as an Instructor Pilot at TOPGUN where he served as the Training Officer, the senior staff pilot responsible for the conduct of the TOPGUN course.

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The Learning Leader Show

Key Learnings

  • July 2001: Plans Don’t Survive Contact – Dave’s Top Gun graduation exercise as flight lead. Wingman yells, “Showtime one-one break right!” – an F-5 snuck into formation. Dave was staring at the radar instead of looking out, had to fall out of formation, and ended up at the back instead of leading from the front. Mission successful, but nothing like he planned. Dave: “The outcome was still really good… except it was nothing like I thought it was going to be.” Lesson: You’re planning for the success of the outcome, not how you’re going to do it.
  • The most important attribute in a leader is humility. To be effective, you must be able to listen, learn, be flexible, and admit you’re wrong sometimes. One of the biggest issues they deal with when working with leaders is ego and/or the inability to be humble. As leaders, we need to be self-aware enough to realize when our ego is getting the best of us. And surrounding ourselves with people who will help us know when that is happening as well.
  • Be Fluid with Plans, Deliberate with Outcomes – Be really fluid and loose with plans, but deliberate about aligning the team on outcomes. Dave grew up as a control freak, OCD planner. Dave: “In life, it’s just not how life works… If you can align on the mission and outcome, and you are very open-minded that there are a lot of different ways to get there, you’re far more likely to be successful.” The military saying, “The enemy gets a vote.” Ryan’s quarterback coach after an interception: “He’s on scholarship too, you know?”
  • Process: How You Create It Matters Most – Process is important, but how you create it matters most. If you agree on the outcome, the conversation should be less about agreement, more about “When you talk about step one, what are you thinking? How does this lead to step two?” The process has to be organic. When you create it, you’re more likely to maneuver around challenges.
  • Book Dedication: Chris and Kat – Book dedicated to Corporal Chris Leon and his mother, Kat. Chris was a radio operator on Dave’s 13-man Anglo team. June 20, 2006, Chris was killed by an enemy sniper in Iraq – first Anglican Marine killed there. Dave’s son is Matthew Leon Burke – took Chris’s last name. Chris’s mom Kat is Aunt Kat to Dave’s family. Dave: “I always say I really deep down wish I didn’t know Kat, because that would’ve meant Chris came home and life just went on. But that’s not what happened.” Chris taught bravery. Kat taught strength.
  • Top Gun Reality: It’s About the Team – 1986 Top Gun most impactful movie on Dave’s life at 14. But the movie depicts a lone wolf. Marine Corps teaches: Your contribution to the team matters most. A really good pilot who’s self-centered will do more damage than a slightly less capable pilot who’s a real team player. Dave: “If there’s ever a team sport, it’s going into combat… It’s not about you. It’s about the team.”
  • Trust: Action, Not Description – Echelon codifies relationships: Trust, respect, listening, influence. Trust is the cornerstone. Dave: “If you don’t trust me, I could be good at so many things. If there is a trust gap, there’s going to be a problem in the relationship and team.” Trust is action you take. 
  • Ego: The Universal Challenge – When Echelon works with companies, challenges are almost always connected to ego. Dave: “Our egos tend to wreak havoc at each level of organization.” From birth, the ego drives us down the wrong path. When debating plans, ego says, “You’re right, he’s wrong.” Building good leadership is managing egos. Dave: “Humility is the most important attribute in a leader. All the attributes, humility is number one, and we don’t waffle on that.”
  • Humility Enables Everything Else – Dave worked with the biggest, toughest SEALs. Attribute most critical to success: humility. Ability to listen, learn, be flexible, change, admit you’re wrong, and go with someone else’s plan. It even affects fitness. Humility touches everything. Doesn’t diminish other attributes, but allows you to strengthen them. 
  • Teaching Humility: Subordinate Your Ego – You can’t tell someone with a big ego to be humble. Dave: “The biggest challenge with someone else’s ego is not their ego. It’s your ego’s response to it.” Most counterintuitive thing: If you clash with Ryan, Dave has to subordinate his ego to Ryan’s. Lower your ego: “Hey Ryan, I’ve been pushing back hard, I realize I’m not listening.” Natural reaction: Ryan’s ego starts to drop. Over time, collaborate more. You connect success to the ability to control the ego. Dave: “Humility is the measurement of how much control you have over your ego.” What you give is usually what you get. It’s reciprocal.
  • Care About Team More Than Yourself – When your people see you working hard to clear paths or block an egomaniac boss, they’ll run through walls for you. Outcome of a good relationship: You care about the team, the team cares about you. That selfless act shows you care about them more than yourself. Dave: “That’s how you show that you care about them more than yourself, and that’s what a leader’s job is, to care about the team more than you care about yourself. That’s parenting, that’s marriage.”
  • Extreme Ownership – Book Extreme Ownership changed Dave’s understanding. When you take ownership, take ownership of everything. Caveat: Not things you literally don’t control. But you have ownership over everything, even just how you react. After Chris was killed, Dave said, “That’s war, nothing we can do.” Problem: When he embraced it wasn’t his responsibility, it meant he didn’t have as much to change. Should have asked: “What is everything we can do to make sure this doesn’t happen again?” The tendency is to undershoot ownership. Try to take it to the extreme. If you can take ownership of everything you can control, you get more influence over the outcome.
  • Detachment: A Superpower – Dave: “Detachment is a superpower” – (1) almost nobody can do it, and (2) if you can, it’s massively influential. Detachment is being in control of emotions. When overwhelmed with priorities and pressures, you tend to get emotional. When you react emotionally, you make bad decisions. Learn the skill of detaching – not to be devoid of emotion (we’re human), but don’t let emotions dictate.
  • Get Away from Problems to See What’s Causing It – When a problem occurs at work, you tend to focus on it, go into it. It seems good but is often wrong. You should get away from it, detach. Getting away lets you look around and see what’s really causing it. Military example: The enemy is shooting at you; the tendency is to focus on that. Usually bad because they’re hoping you do – then they send a flanking maneuver. If you detach, step back, you’ll see the flanking maneuver coming. Be able to see the future – that’s the superpower. 
  • Know Your Red Flags – Intervene Early – You have to understand where you are escalating your emotions. Know your personal red flags. Most people don’t go zero to 100. Long day, flight delayed, bad meeting – little things tick up, so zero is actually 4 or 5, which means dirty dishes put you to 7. When Dave gets frustrated, traps tighten up. Some people’s nose turns red. If you’re at level 8 and someone says, “calm down,” it makes it worse. But if at level 1 or 2 and you intervene, you’re in control. What an adult does: “I’m an emotional guy, but I have awareness of where I am. If I’m a 4, I gotta intervene then.” If at level 10, detaching is not gonna happen. That’s the difference between kids and adults. Dave: “You are much more likely to have a hard time controlling your emotions, ironically, with people you care about the most.”
  • Quotes:
    • “You’re planning for the success of the outcome, not how you’re going to go about doing that, because things get in the way.” 
    • “Humility is the most important attribute in a leader. All the attributes. Humility is number one, and we don’t waffle on that.” 
    • “The biggest challenge with someone else’s ego is not their ego. It’s your ego’s response to it.” 
    • “Detachment is a superpower.” 
    • “You are much more likely to have a hard time controlling your emotions, ironically, with people you care about the most.”
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Resources:

More Learning:

#633: General Stanley McChrystal – On Character: Choices That Define Life

#593: Kim “Killer Chick” Campbell – Aviate, Navigate, Communicate

#536: Dave Berke –  Leadership Lessons From Top Gun

Time Stamps:

01:16 Introducing Dave Burke

02:21 Dave Burke’s Top Gun Experience

05:23 Lessons Learned from Military to Everyday Life

07:56 The Importance of Flexibility in Leadership

13:07 The Need to Lead: Dedication and Personal Stories

16:58 The Realities of Teamwork in Combat and Business

21:03 Building Trust and Relationships in Teams

26:04 The Role of Humility in Effective Leadership

31:03 Understanding Ego and Humility

31:50 Subordinating Your Ego

33:38 Challenges of Teaching Humility

34:07 Personal Experiences with Ego

39:20 The Power of Ownership

42:57 Detachment as a Superpower

52:58 Advice for Young Leaders

57:26 Conclusion and Key Takeaways