David 'Bull' Gurfein compares traditional corporate top-down hierarchies with the Marine Corps model where leadership exists to support frontline operators.
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“The Marine Corps has a very different perspective. And the perspective is really that of an inverted pyramid, and that the leader is actually at the bottom trying to balance everything, because at the end of the day, for success, that eighteen-year-old rifleman must locate, close with, and destroy the enemy, and if that doesn't happen, nothing else matters. So everything in the organization exists to support that individual”
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