David Marquet

David Marquet is best known for transforming the leadership culture aboard the nuclear-powered submarine USS Santa Fe. When he took command, he moved away from the traditional leader-follower model and introduced an approach designed to give people greater control and responsibility for their work. During his command, USS Santa Fe went on to achieve strong operational results and improved retention. This experience became the foundation of Marquet’s work on intent-based leadership and his bestselling book Turn the Ship Around!, in which he explains how leaders can create environments where people think, take ownership, and make better decisions.

David Marquet developed Intent-Based Leadership from his experience commanding USS Santa Fe. Instead of requiring team members to wait for instructions from a superior, the model encourages people to communicate what they intend to do and take greater responsibility for decisions. Marquet describes this as a shift from a traditional leader-follower structure toward a leader-leader model. His approach focuses on distributing control while ensuring people have the competence and organizational clarity needed to exercise that control effectively. It is particularly relevant to organizations seeking greater ownership, initiative, and decision-making throughout their teams.

David Marquet took command of USS Santa Fe in 1999 after being unexpectedly assigned to a submarine for which he had not originally trained. Rather than relying on being the person with all the answers, he began transferring control and decision-making authority to the crew. The resulting leadership approach helped turn USS Santa Fe from a struggling submarine into a highly regarded ship with strong performance and retention. The experience demonstrated to Marquet that leadership could be created throughout an organization rather than concentrated exclusively at the top, forming the basis for his later leadership work.

David Marquet’s Turn the Ship Around! explains the leadership transformation he initiated while commanding USS Santa Fe. The book challenges the conventional leader-follower model, where managers give instructions and employees execute them, and instead presents a leader-leader approach built around distributing authority and encouraging people to think and take responsibility. Published in 2013, the book translates Marquet’s experience in the U.S. Navy into leadership principles that can be applied beyond the military. Its central question is how organizations can create more leaders rather than developing increasingly dependent followers.

David Marquet describes leader-follower leadership as a structure in which authority and decision-making are concentrated at the top, while other people are expected primarily to follow instructions. His leader-leader approach aims to distribute control so that people throughout an organization can think, decide, and take ownership. This distinction emerged from his experience aboard USS Santa Fe, where he challenged conventional naval command practices. Rather than simply empowering employees as a temporary initiative, Marquet focuses on creating organizational mechanisms that give people lasting authority alongside the competence and clarity required to use it effectively.

David Marquet argues that the language used inside organizations can directly influence how people think, collaborate, and make decisions. This theme is central to his book Leadership Is Language, published in 2020. He examines how traditional workplace language can reinforce compliance and discourage independent thinking, particularly when leaders immediately provide answers or instructions. Marquet instead explores communication practices that encourage people to contribute information, challenge assumptions, and participate in decisions. The topic builds on the leadership principles he first developed aboard USS Santa Fe and applies them to modern organizational communication.

David Marquet’s leadership principles focus on creating conditions in which decision-making is not unnecessarily concentrated with the most senior person. His experience aboard USS Santa Fe showed how moving authority closer to people with relevant operational knowledge could encourage greater ownership and engagement. Intent-Based Leadership combines this distribution of control with competence and clarity, ensuring that autonomy is supported by the knowledge and organizational understanding needed to make sound decisions. His keynotes therefore have particular relevance for leaders and teams working in complex environments where decisions need to be both thoughtful and timely.

David Marquet’s keynotes are particularly relevant for executives, managers, leadership teams, and organizations seeking to improve ownership, decision-making, communication, and employee engagement. His approach grew from his experience commanding the nuclear-powered submarine USS Santa Fe and has since been translated into leadership concepts for organizations outside the military. Topics such as Intent-Based Leadership, the leader-leader model, and the ideas presented in Turn the Ship Around! and Leadership Is Language make his work especially applicable to leadership conferences, management development programs, transformation initiatives, and organizations operating in complex environments.

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