Roderic Yapp is a former Royal Marines Commando Officer fortunate enough to lead Marines on operations around the world, including leading thirty Royal Marines into combat on the front-line in Afghanistan and the evacuation of civilians from Libya during the Arab Spring. He also led the recapture of the 55,000-ton MV Montecristo from pirate control in 2011, as part of a NATO counter-piracy task force off the Somali coast.
Today, Rod is CEO of Leadership Forces, a company he founded, which focusses on developing leaders within organizations. Some of his clients include HSBC, Deloitte, Jaguar, Land Rover, Rolls Royce, and Nato.
Top Takeaways: High Stakes Leadership with Royal Marines Commando Roderic Yapp
- At the start of your career you can afford to take some risks
- When you are interested, you do better
- Royal Marines, “I wondered if I could get in”
- It wasn’t a job, it was a lifestyle
- Royal Marine was something I wanted to be, not do
- I didn’t really have a plan B
- How do I make the world a better place?
- If you can connect yourself with your purpose, you can overcome diminishing motivation
- In high stakes performance isn’t a luxury
- If I could understand other leaders, I could replicate it
- Everything we did was well planned and thought through
- The mental model, the planning, gives you the confidence
- Leaders fundamental drive performance and check culture
- Leadership begins with self-awareness
- A strong leader creates clarity
- Leaders are decisive and comfortable making decisions with limited knowledge
- Taking control of a situation that is out of control
- Give your followers an inside track on who you are and how you think
- Demonstrate you care to begin to build trust
- Likeability often comes from expressing a bit of vulnerability
- Harder to lead in the workplace than the home
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Learning From Leaders:
Current Book: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
Leadership Superpower: Curiosity
Motivational Mantra:
[shareable cite=”Theodore Roosevelt”]It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.[/shareable]
Book Most Often Gifted: Stoicism and the Art of Happiness: Practical Wisdom for Everyday Life (Teach Yourself) by Donald Robertson
Additional Items Mentioned
Rod’s website: Leadershipforces.com
