Jocko Underground: Teamwork (Cover and Move) Does NOT Always Work.

Summary

Jocko Podcast Underground #195: Teamwork (Cover and Move) Does NOT Always Work

Date: January 5, 2026
Hosts: Jocko Willink & Echo Charles

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Jocko Willink and Echo Charles explore a nuanced topic: the limitations of the "Cover and Move" principle in teamwork. While “Cover and Move” is a foundational leadership strategy taught in Jocko’s Extreme Ownership framework—emphasizing mutual support within teams—the hosts examine what happens when this principle is applied to team members who are consistently toxic or underperforming. The discussion centers on discipline, escalation of counseling, leadership balance, and the necessity to sometimes let people face the consequences of their actions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. When "Cover and Move" Fails (00:50 - 04:23)

• The Question:
  A listener asks if there are situations where "Cover and Move" becomes inappropriate, particularly when supporting a toxic or consistently underperforming teammate.

• Jocko’s Response:

  • Any principle, when pushed to the extreme, becomes counterproductive—including “Cover and Move” and even “Extreme Ownership.”
  • Covering for someone who is consistently late or underperforming eventually hinders the team and damages mission success.
  • Morality, legality, and ethics set hard boundaries: “If someone's doing something immoral, illegal, or unethical, and you cover for them, you're culpable for that behavior as well.” (Jocko, 02:35)
  • Repeatedly covering for someone doesn’t teach accountability; instead, an “escalation of counseling” should occur—progressively more direct intervention.

• Memorable Quote:

  “Yes, of course, anything you do to an extreme can make it bad. And this includes taking ownership... Cover move is the same thing.”
  — Jocko Willink (01:25)

• Timestamps:

  • Question introduced [00:51]
  • Clear boundary (immoral/illegal) [02:30]
  • Escalation of counseling [03:10]

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2. Escalation of Intervention—Indirect to Direct (03:10 - 05:55)

• Strategy:

  • Start with indirect feedback: Ask reflective questions to help the teammate see how their behavior impacts the team.
  • If no improvement, gradually shift to more direct communication, ensuring the team’s performance is not compromised.

• Notable Approach:

  "My goal... is to try and help the person see how they're being perceived by others... Not to tell them, but to help them figure it out."
  — Jocko Willink (03:35)

• Tactic:

  • Transition from supportive to corrective: Questions like, “How do you think others perceive you when you act that way in meetings?”
  • If indirect interventions don’t work, move to clear warnings and structured improvement plans.

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3. Handling Chronic Toxicity (04:25 - 10:06)

• Hypothetical Scenario:
  Echo poses a common workplace challenge: Should you withhold support from someone who is competent but so toxic that no one wants to work with them?

• Jocko’s Perspective:

  • Initial efforts should always be made to help and redirect, both out of human decency and business investment.
  • If someone remains a “net negative” after multiple interventions, the reality is: sometimes you must “let them dig their own grave.”
  • The “escalation of counseling” ends in either the person self-correcting or facing formal consequences, such as isolation, diminished responsibilities, or even termination.

• Memorable Story:

  “[A CEO said] ‘They can't fire me. I created this company.’... He got fired. Straight, straight.”
  — Jocko Willink (09:27)

• Tactical Steps:

  • Escalate from guidance → directness → warnings → formal process (written warnings, PIPs) → termination as needed.

• Timestamps:

  • Handling toxic but competent people [04:25]
  • “Let them dig their own grave” rationale [05:56 - 09:43]
  • Anecdote about the CEO [09:10 - 09:43]
  • Practical outcomes: isolation or firing [10:06 - 10:30]

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4. The Importance of Leadership Balance (Throughout)

• Key Message:
  • All leadership principles, even the most foundational ones, require balance and discernment; blind adherence can damage outcomes.
  • Leaders must know when to shift from support to consequence, for the good of the team and the mission.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Just like everything else in leadership, just like everything else in life, you got to be balanced.”
  — Jocko Willink (04:20)

• “You can go too far with any of these concepts... Do you have to let someone dig their own grave? Yep... You can also just fire them.”
  — Jocko Willink (09:43)

• “There’s such a thing as people who have, like, a bad attitude and do all these things, yet do technically do their job for sure... Basically someone who rubs everyone the wrong way in every possible way aside from on paper.”
  — Echo Charles (10:09)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [00:50] — Listener Question: Limitations of “Cover and Move”
• [01:25] — The Dangers of Taking Principles to Extremes
• [03:10] — Escalation of Counseling: From Support to Consequences
• [05:56] — Letting Team Members "Dig Their Own Grave"
• [09:27] — CEO Story: Ignoring Warnings and Facing Consequences
• [10:06] — Practical Endpoints: Isolation or Termination

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Episode Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is straightforward, practical, and rooted in Jocko’s philosophy of discipline and accountability. Echo brings in relatable scenarios, while Jocko delivers hard-learned truths from his leadership experience. Listeners come away understanding that effective leadership requires adaptability, the courage to confront tough issues, and the wisdom to know when support must transition to accountability.

Summary Judgment:
“Cover and Move” and “Extreme Ownership” work best when applied with nuance and balance. When team members endanger the team culture or objectives through persistent negativity or toxic behavior, leaders must escalate intervention—and sometimes, step aside and let natural consequences unfold.

Transcript

[A]

This is the Jocko Underground, podcast number 195 with Echo, Charles, and me, Jocko Willink. We have various questions from the troopers, the members of the underground, and we are going to provide guidance, suggestions, recommendations, courses of actions, and in some cases, in some cases, answers to your questions.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Let's get into it.

[B]

We're getting through this maze of life.

[A]

The maze of life.

[B]

It can be a maze.

[A]

Yeah. Sometimes take a wrong turn. Sometimes somebody knows to tell you, go left, go right, go straight, right, turn around, go back, don't go down. Don't go any further down that particular path. Go down this other path, the path of discipline.

[B]

Sometimes you can take 1, 2, 3, 4 wrong turns. And it takes more than just one correction, maybe two, maybe three corrections. See, what I'm saying can happen. That's what we're here for.

[A]

All right, what do we got?

[B]

First question. Hello, Mr. Willink. My company buys in fully to extreme ownership. I have a question for you. Tied to cover and move. Is there ever a time in your experience that covering and moving becomes ineffective in the wrong move? Like if you help your team, your teammate, but they are inherently toxic and their involvement in most things are negatively affecting work? Or is that any conceivable? Or. Or is that any conceivable scenario? That cover move is not the right call?

[A]

Yes, of course, anything that you do to an extreme can make it bad. And this is why we wrote the dichotomy of leadership, because. Because we wanted to make sure that everyone understood that. And this includes. Includes taking ownership. Even the idea of taking ownership, if you take that to an extreme, and I'm going to own every plan, I'm going to own every decision. And now Echo, that works for me and my hierarchy, he now has no input because I'm taking ownership of everything. So even extreme ownership can be too extreme. So cover move is the same thing. And if you have someone, let's say they're showing up late all the time and you keep covering for them. Look, you show up late, Echo shows up late. I cover for them all day. Right? All day. I got you. Hey, no big deal. But two days, three days, one week, a month, you're late, late, late, late, late. You don't learn. You interrupt my capacity. The team is ultimately going to suffer and the mission's going to suffer. So, yes, there is a point where if you keep covering for someone, where it becomes negative. And not to mention, if someone's doing something immoral, illegal, or unethical, and you cover for them, you're culpable for that behavior as well. So that's the clear one. But it sounds to me probably what this person needs is like, the escalation of counseling, you know, like, and I'm not saying you need to go, Adam, like, head on, but asking some earnest questions like, hey, dude, like, how do you think other people perceive you when you act that way in the meeting? Like, I know you're trying to get your point across, but don't you think that you're making other people defensive? Or, hey, do you think that your behavior right now, do you think that's helping, like, unify the team and helps us positively get the mission done? Because, like, what is it you're trying to make happen? Or, like, hey, do you think that when you get that super negative in front of the team, do you, like, what do you think that does to the team? You see what I'm saying? It's just asking some questions. And my goal in a situation like that is to try and help the person see how they're being perceived by others, right? Not to tell them how they're being perceived by others, but to help them figure out how they're being perceived by others. That's what I want. But. And then, and then if you know that indirect approach starts to. It doesn't. You don't get anywhere with them and they keep behaving the same way. You might have to increase directness to make sure that the team's not negatively impacted. Right? So cover move is great, but if I end up covering all the time for someone that's not doing their job consistently, not doing their job consistently showing up late, consistently not performing, consistently being inherently toxic, then that is not good. So that's why we. We initiate that escalation of counseling. So that's the way it is. Just like everything else in leadership, just like everything else in life, you got to be balanced.

[B]

Let me ask you this.

[A]

Send it.

[B]

Let's see.

[A]

You know, question about the maze here.

[B]

Yeah, a little bit. No, no, no. This is actually the total hypothetical. I can't think of any particular person who's like this. But when I want to hear the idea of what if this person is toxic? So, you know, some people, they can be like, kind of good at their job or whatever, or. Or good enough, we'll say at their job. But they're toxic in the sense that they're super argumentative. They're like, blunt, unnecessarily, maybe a little crass, maybe even like, they complain. Like, a lot of they're pessimistic, like just real kind of down to ruin some short term relationships, you know, like kind of that kind of person, you know, insecure the whole deal, right? And after a while it's kind of like, yeah, they're kind of good at their job, but above and beyond that, they're just like not the person to be around, you know, like, no one likes working with this person kind of a thing. And we, let's face it, that's not like some rare thing that when you think about it, it's kind of like, oh, we all kind of either have or do know something like this is okay, so consider this idea of, hey, we're gonna like not help this person, where we're gonna kind of deliberately, straight up deliberately withhold the COVID and move idea. You know, like if, look, if, if I see this person about to fail on something, I'm not gonna give him some easy advice. I'm gonna let them fail. You know, and I'm almost kind of embracing and encouraging his failure just so he can kind of phase himself out of the organization. We'll say, right? How much value is there to that? Or am I just being toxic now?

[A]

Well, I think it would depend on the situation where, you know, how much have you tried to help them? How much have you tried to steer them in the right direction? And I have said before, two people, like, they're going to dig their own grave, like at a certain point, okay, they're going to dig their own glaive. And, and you actually don't want to get your hands in the dirt, right? So that does apply sometimes. You know, you always make a concerted effort to try and help someone. Of course you want to help people out, you want them, you got, you got them hired. I mean, not just beyond like the human component of like, hey, dude, if I see you going the wrong direction, I'm gonna try and help you. And I'll first start with an indirect question. Like, hey, dude, you know, everyone notices when you're late. Like, is everything okay? You know, that whole thing we've been through a thousand times, but not only that, but as a business, you know, you hired the person, you put in the effort, you've given them, you've issued them their laptop or their gear or whatever. Like, they like, we want people to be successful, but if they start to be. Where I thought you were gonna go with this question was like, hey, if they're negative attitude, but they're a good performer, what do you do? Well, you, your scale and you Weigh, you know, what is the, what is, is this a net positive or net negative? And if it's net positive, okay, we try and help the person. But if it's a net negative, well, we don't really want that, especially once we've tried to make it a net positive. We've tried to make those adjustments, we tried the counseling, we tried to talk to them, and just still ends up being a net negative. At a certain point you go, okay. And then it's like, well, we're going to let them dig their own grave. And you know, how long does it take someone to dig their own grave? Usually when they're that toxic that they can't be corrected, it doesn't take them that long. So, yes, sometimes that is an appropriate course of action. And the other thing that's kind of, I guess what I use the digging their own grave is sometimes I've told you, I've been indirect with you. I've escalated directness. And I've literally now told you, like, hey, if you keep acting this way, you're not going to be here anymore. And you still don't listen to me. So it's not until you start to dig, you. You start looking around going, oh, wait a second, I can see where this is going. And you self correct because you were able to realize that what I was saying wasn't just my opinion, it was for real. So for me, the last sort of step in, in counseling, in the escalation of counseling, the last step is like, okay, good luck. And you watch them dig their own grave. And on the way out, you know, as they're digging, you're like, hey, do you notice it's getting dark around you right now? Do you notice that there's, like, depth underneath your feet? Do you notice that there's a big pile of dirt next to you that's going to cover you? Do you, do you realize that? Do you realize that, like, you haven't gotten any calls, you haven't got this person. You have, this thing has happened. You haven't gotten the whatever. Like all those things are adding up. You're not getting invited to the meeting, you haven't been asked to take lead on this project. All those things, you know what that is? That's you digging your own grave. So sometimes the reality doesn't set in until they've start to dug their own. Dig their own grave a little bit. And that's sort of my final, I would say my final step in escalation of counseling is like, okay, dude, I'M telling you, like, this isn't gonna work out. Well, I had a. I was working with a CEO that I told, hey, if you keep acting like this, you are going to get fired. And he said, they can't fire me. I created this company. I was like, okay. I was like, listen, dude, I'm telling you, like, the board does not. You're not your company anymore. It was your company. You did create it. Good job. It's not your company anymore. And if you proceed like this, you will get fired. And by the way, the board told me you will get fired. I told him that. I'm like, the board told me you will get fired. This isn't me making stuff up. He got fired. Straight, Straight. So, yes, can you go too far to cover?

[B]

Move.

[A]

You can go too far with any of these concepts, but that is how I would handle it. Little escalation to counseling. And eventually. Do you have to let someone dig their own grave? Yep. I mean, let's do. You can also just fire them. You can also be like, hey, look, we've done everything for you. This was your last warning. You didn't heed it. You're out of here. You know, because the escalation of counseling goes into written paperwork. It goes into, you know, a personnel improvement program. It's like the whole nine yards.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And by the end of it, it's like, yeah, you're not gonna be here anymore.

[B]

Yeah. So it. I'm thinking of being actually in the situation because, like, there's such thing as people who have, like, a bad attitude and do all these things, yet they do technically do their job for sure. And basically someone who rubs everyone the wrong way in every possible way aside from on paper. You see, I'm saying, like, you know, the guy at the meeting.

[A]

And there's also. There's also people that you go, okay, cool. The person's a really good performer. I'm gonna isolate them as much as I can. I'm gonna let them kind of do their. Do what they have to do to get the work done, mitigate as much as I can with the rest of the group because they're, you know, they have a bad. They have a negative attitude, and I can still let them do that. So, yes, I will try isolation as a component. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to jockounderground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this. We're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms, so we are not subject to their control. And we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko podcast, which will remain as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we are we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So, thank you. It's Jocko underground.com it costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email assistancecounterground.com and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized. Underground.