Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders - L. David Marquet

CoLab Book Club - February 2026

February’s #CoLabBookClub had us diving deep (pun intended) into Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders by L. David Marquet. Some of us already knew Marquet’s work through Leadership is Language (our July 2024 pick), so this felt like a great chance to go back to where it all began.

Overview

Turn the Ship Around! tells the true story of how Marquet took command of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear submarine with the worst performance record in the US Navy fleet, and turned it into one of the best. He did it not by being a more commanding commander but by fundamentally changing how leadership worked on board.

The model he developed rests on three pillars:

🏛 Give Control - push decision-making down to where the information actually lives.

🏛 Build Competence - develop skills and knowledge before releasing control.

🏛 Achieve Clarity - ensure everyone understands the intent so they can act with confidence and autonomy.

What made this book land so well with our group was its honesty. Marquet doesn’t oversell the approach or pretend it was easy. He shows the mistakes, the course corrections and the moments of doubt. He doesn’t put anyone down and loves the fact that the people under his command went on to have great careers of their own. Nice.

Our Key Takeaways

✔️ The concepts are simple, but implementing them requires a genuine mindshift.

✔️ You need to build competence before you release control - this was the nuance the group felt could have been emphasised more in the book.

✔️ Leaders find it hard to give away control when they haven’t clearly defined their own intent.

✔️ Move decision-making to where the information is.

✔️ Psychological safety matters.

✔️ Find your allies - look for the people around you who believe in the idea and will support the shift.

✔️ Making thinking visible - getting people to “talk out loud” builds shared understanding and surfaces assumptions early.

Who is it For?

This one is for any leader who wants to genuinely change the way they engage with their team, especially if there’s a significant problem that triggers the change. It’s also a surprisingly useful read for people being led as it can help them understand what good looks like and what to ask for.

Thank you!

A big thank you to L. David Marquet for this frank, practical and genuinely inspiring account. The YouTube videos are a great companion too – well worth a search if you haven’t already watched them!

Thanks to this month’s #CoLabBookClub-ers – Alfred Enslin, Elisabeth Stiller, John Allen, Peter Bink (host), Pete Tansey and Sharon Blackbourn.

#TurnTheShipAround #CoLabBookClub #AgileLeadership #IntentBasedLeadership #BookReview #AgileCoLab #Leadership