Concept
Intent-based leadership
Intent-based leadership is David Marquet's mechanism for leader-leader: people stop asking permission and say 'I intend to…' with their reasoning, and the leader answers 'very well'. Stating the intention aloud makes the person think it through, and a wrong intention is caught in the sentence, not the outcome.
On the Santa Fe the change was a rule of language. Officers were no longer allowed to say 'request permission to'; they said 'Captain, I intend to submerge the ship', followed by why it was safe and what they had checked. The shift sounds small and it moved the ownership of every decision: the person with the information now had to think it through before speaking and state the reasoning where others could hear it, so that a mistake surfaced in the sentence. The captain's part was to reply 'very well' when the reasoning was sound, even when he would have chosen differently, and to ask a question when it was not. For a manager the practice starts with one decision: pick something you currently approve, tell the person closest to it that they now decide it, and ask to hear 'I intend to' with the reasoning for the first few weeks. Then resist improving their decision.
A real-life example
The owner of a bakery chain in Gaziantep used to approve every change to the day's production by phone. She tells her shift leaders that from now on they decide it, and that she wants one message each morning: 'I intend to bake…, because…'. The first week's messages are long and cautious; she answers each with 'very well' or a single question. By the end of the month the messages are three lines, the calls have stopped, and less bread is left at closing, because the shift leaders see the morning orders and she does not.
How to use it
- 1Replace 'can I…?' with 'I intend to…, because…', starting with one decision.
- 2Answer 'very well' when the reasoning is sound and the choice is not the one you would have made.
- 3Ask a question, not give an order, when the reasoning is missing.