In four decades as a Navy seal, they learned a lot about leadership.

He has distilled that experience into a new book called the wisdom of the bullfrog.

Leadership made simple but not easy.

A craven speaks with Walter Isaacson about global hotspots and about and often neglected virtue.

Humility.

>> Thank you.

Welcome to the show.

You have this great new leadership book out called the wisdom of the bullfrog.

Tell me about that and what you learned.

>> The title of bullfrog is given to the longest-serving Navy SEAL on active duty.

As Navy SEALs, we are frog men.

You are the longest one serving, they gave her the title of the bullfrog.

The book is about the leadership lessons I learned.

People always have the seemingly moral dilemmas here.

Should I do this or should I do that?

They always seem to know the answer.

The answer is pretty simple.

Do what is honest, do what is noble, do what is dignified, do what is respectful.

Do what you know to be right by the rank and file.

You know what right looks like.

You just have to do it.

When people fail to do what is right and failed to do what is in the best interest of the organization and the people that work for them, invariably, they have built an organization that is a house of cards.

We tumbles at the wrong time.

Do what is right.

You just need to do it.

>> You oversaw the rate that got Osama bin Laden.

Tell me what leadership lessons you got from that one.

>> By the time the rate came along, I had been in the Navy about 34 years at that point in time.

I had been involved in about 10,000 missions.

Missions I either commanded, gone on or overseen from afar.

The leadership in this case was to make sure we did them in a simple fashion.

If you make it too complex, the risk factor goes up.

You have to inspire the men on your team.

They were all men in this particular case.

That was not hard to do.

They were going after the most wanted man in the world but you always have to do things that are going to take care of the reputation, the sense of duty and honor and country that is important for any military organization.

I wanted to make sure that when they got on target, we don't need this to kill anyone.

You follow the rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict.

You protect yourself and your organization.

We want to walk away from this operation with bin Laden either captured or killed and with the dignity the United States still intact.

We will do things right.

>> This involves an attribute that you don't often hear all bidders talking about.

We really have a deficit of it in our politics today.

That is humility.

It is a nice chapter about building the frog four.

I think some of the poison in our politics today comes from the fact that we don't have enough humility.

Explain what you would do about that.

>> It pays to be humble.

You are rarely the strongest or fastest.

The best seal in the boat.

The enemy always has a vote.

The enemy can be better.

If you underplay the enemy, you will likely get yourself into trouble.

The Green Berets or the seals go out on a mission.

Even if you are the leader in charge, you are prepared to listen to the comments about the nature of the plan.

Is this plan good?

The real critique comes after the mission.

If the mission has not gone well, they get these young troops back in the room.

Metaphorically take off their color devices or rank is not an issue and everybody gets to go at each other.

Their lives on the line.

If they fail to improve the next time, somebody could die.

I have learned humility many times in my career because I have been wrong many times.

The nature of leadership as you will be wrong.

Learn from mistakes, listen better next time, try not to make the same mistake again.

>> The war in Ukraine right now seems to have really hit a stalemate in some ways.

Back and forth, a lot of people dying for a lot of -- a very few feet of territory.

Do you think Putin might have not been able to gain what he needs to gain and Ukraine should flat -- should find some way with the United States to get a cease-fire before we have this?

>> I don't think so.

I like the strategy President Zelenskyy is putting into place.

They are holding the town of Buck mood.

There's been a lot of debate even amongst Zelensky generals about the merits of Buck mood.

It probably doesn't make a lot of sense to hold a small town.

It is a little bit of a cross of some rail lines and important roads but at the end of the day, I think Zelensky's general said we need to do a withdrawal from Buck mood because we are losing too many people.

I think he really had the better thought on the switches we are going to stand our ground in buck mood.

If the Russians succeed in taking that city, and improves their morale.

It will negatively affect the Ukrainian morale.

It may affect the European support and the U.S. support to Ukraine if they feel like the Ukrainians are not making progress.

So I like the fact that Zelensky has -- is holding -- doing the best he can to hold buck mood.

I don't think we are ready for a cease-fire just yet.

He needs to get to the point to allow the Ukrainians to start their spring offensive, to push the Russians as far as they can and if anybody is going to ask for a cease-fire, it should come from Putin first.

Then that is an admittance they are failing and if they are failing, they have really lost.

I think the Ukrainians can win this fight.

They win it by ensuring the Russians are not successful in building this land bridge from Don bus down to Crimea.

I believe they can push the Russians out just a little bit.

>> We have seen these leaks from the 20 -- from this national guardsmen.

You have been chancellor of the University of Texas, unit 21 were -- 21-year-olds early well.

Tell me what was your thought when you saw this leak.

>> The one I would offer is we have to be careful about overreacting to this.

Obviously the leak is horrible and there was a lot of sensitive information.

The fact of the matter is we have a lot of great 29 rules in the military doing exactly the right thing.

We need to rely on these young men and women because we need them in order to manage the cryptology we are doing to manage all the classified materials they get handed.

We need them to do the hard work.

The fact that we have 121-year-old who got off the reservation, decided he thought impressing his friends was more important than protecting U.S. secrets, he needs to be held accountable but we really and to figure out a way to be able to maintain the chain of custody.

This is something that has been challenging in the past.

The change -- chain of custody or a classified piece of material, when it started in the military, it was a hard copy, paper.

You physically have to sign.

You signed a routing slip and that meant now you were in control of that piece of paper.

Because of the electronic nature of the information today, it can pass very quickly but if we have a good chain of custody that says this person read it and transported, this person copy that, then you would have less likely have a chance that a young 21-year-old can do something incredibly irresponsible and put the nation at risk.

>> One of the things that there is a consensus on in Washington is to be hawkish about China and both parties seem to want to out hawk each other.

Are we going to far in being provocative in China?

Do we try to find more common ground with them?

>> Absolutely.

My position on China probably diverges from a lot of those hawkish folks out there.

I believe we need to hold China accountable.

We need to hold him accountable for Hong Kong, violating the WTO.

Using the belt Road initiative to leverage small countries but at the same time, we need to find common ground with China.

We need to find common ground on trade, climate, space, something so that when things get tense, we have avenues of conversation.

I was talking to a senior official in the White House who said they have more conversations with Russia than they do with China.

That is not good.

The fact of the matter is the world needs China.

We need the Chinese economy, we need what China can offer the world.

We need to hold them accountable but I think we can maintain a two track engagement with China.

Be strong on defense, at the same time, though the path for some level of engagement.

If we don't have that engagement, we are pushing China further and further into the arms of Russia.

If you have a strong Chinese and Russian alliance, that is not good for anybody in the world.

>> Let's talk about that Chinese Russian alliance.

One thing they told us is you really can't push your two adversaries closer to each other then you are right now.

What can we do now since Russia seems to be the great threat in Ukraine to try to stop this growing alliance between Russia and China?

>> Back to the previous comments , we have to find a way to engage with China.

We need to have some sort of olive branch we extend to China in order to begin to separate them a little bit from Russia.

>> Give me an olive branch you would offer if you are in charge.

>> Climate.

The Chinese understand the climate change is an issue, let's at least start with something simple that a thin coat -- both countries can agree on, let's try to fix the climate problem.

You probably won't get very far on that but we can have a conversation.

Let's talk up -- let's talk about that South China Sea.

What is happening now is things are beginning to escalate.

We are partnering closer with our allies in the Philippines.

That is good but we will establish bases in the Philippines.

Everyone is getting to ratchet up the level of engagement in the South China Sea.

Let's find a way to lower the heat there.

Let's figure out how to work together on trade.

I think there's a number of opportunities out there where China would be willing to engage.

The fact of the matter is President Xi has been trying with his charm offensive.

He has brokered a bit of peace agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

He is trying to broker a peace agreement in Ukraine.

These are opportunities where we can try to partner with the Chinese to lower the tensions globally.

>> Already moved about a move -- are you worried about a move on Taiwan?

>> I'm always worried about a move on Taiwan.

I don't think it is imminent.

Of coarse, but we are building up the Taiwanese military.

We are partnering with our allies in Japan and South Korea.

I think what we are hoping to create is more military power in the region.

Once again, we have to be careful about pushing too far.

When you look at the 23 budget and between 24 proposed budget, it is really all about China.

At 35, more summaries, more ships, more things that can counter a competitor.

We have to make sure that it doesn't become a self-fulfilling prophecy that we end up building up a military and we are looking for the enemy and the enemy just happens to be China.

I am all about a deterrent capability.

While we are building that, we need to be working on the machine as well.

The last thing China wants to do and the last in the United States wants to do is to go to war with each other.

>> You wrote in 2020 that the world is no longer looking up to them now.

You endorsed Joe Biden for president.

How do you think he is doing?

Do you think the world is looking up to America more now in the wake of the Ukrainian war?

>> Let's take it back before the Ukraine war.

I think the evacuation out of Afghanistan was kind of a political disaster.

Once the 82nd, got on the ground I got organized, it was a remarkable feat of military professionalism to evacuate 32,000 Afghans in two weeks.

But either way you cut it, it did not look good in terms of what American leadership looks like internationally.

I think they have done a pretty good job in Ukraine.

When the work for started, I thought they were a little slow on the uptake.

I think they have gotten their legs underneath them and I think they've been doing a pretty good job.

I think as the world looks at the administration today, particularly in light of Ukraine, I think we have -- we have regained some credibility.

>> Thank you so much for joining us.