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APPLY SPECIAL FORCES PRINCIPLES TO YOUR ORGANIZATION

Develop an elite team that routinely achieves what others believe to be impossible.

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Empower Your Leadership with Growth, Strategy, and Impact

Part One

Discover Your Potential

01
Know Your Strengths
02
Build Self-Confidence
and Courage
03
Grow Through Time-
Honored Processes

Part Two

Lead
With
Purpose

01 Define Your Mission
02 Inspire Your Team
03 Think Strategically

Part Three

Create Lasting Impact

01
Lead with Integrity
02
Create Fierce Trust
03
Achieve the Impossible. Routinely.®

What leader hasn’t wondered how to get the best out of people? How to access and employ the potential of employees?

The Green Beret Way introduces a revolutionary, practical, and groundbreaking leadership system forged in combat, diplomacy, and crisis and built around a different kind of Special Forces mission: winning people, not just winning fights. Drawing on more than forty years leading and advising elite teams around the world, retired U.S. Army Special Forces lieutenant colonel (Green Beret) and former U.S. diplomat Robert Schaefer reveals how Green Berets succeed by building trust and influence with people who speak different languages, come from different cultures, don’t work for them, may not like them, and sometimes have been trying to kill them—and still get them to choose to do what needs to be done.

Through vivid real-world stories and clear, repeatable frameworks—including a groundbreaking Fear Inoculation Training method that treats courage and composure under pressure as trainable skills rather than personality traits—Schaefer shows readers how to build unshakable rapport and communication across deep differences, lead with courage and clarity under pressure, and harness teamwork to accomplish what others think is impossible. He distills eight decades of legendary Special Forces success into concrete tools for today’s fractured workplace, where leaders must align Gen X with Gen Z, bridge cultures and worldviews, and lead people who can walk away if they don’t believe in the mission. In doing so, The Green Beret Way evolves beyond today’s popular servant and empathetic leadership models—which are necessary but not sufficient—by explicitly integrating purpose, mission clarity, and outcome ownership into the core of the system rather than leaving them merely implied, offering the next evolutionary step in leadership.

More than a memoir and more than a business book, The Green Beret Way is a field manual for anyone who is tired of abstract leadership theory and old top-down models that no longer work. It offers a revolutionary, groundbreaking next step in leadership, proven in the harshest real-world conditions, and a path to becoming the kind of leader people trust with their careers, their families, and their lives, and to building organizations that consistently win when the stakes are highest, not because they have to, but because they want to.

How is the book “revolutionary?”

This isn’t just another leadership book that espouses “work harder” or “be more disciplined.” The whole system is built around a very different core mechanic: getting people who don’t work for you, may dislike you, come from different cultures, and sometimes were trying to kill you, to willingly do what needs to be done—and mapping that directly onto today’s cross-cultural, cross-generational, voluntary workplace. That’s a real shift from standard command-and-control leadership models and from popular empathetic and servant leadership theories, which are necessary but not sufficient because they emphasize caring for people while leaving mission clarity and outcome ownership implied, not explicit.

How is the book Evolutionary?

It doesn’t throw out today’s “good” leadership models – it builds on them and then fixes what they leave out. Servant and empathetic leadership are necessary but not sufficient: they focus on caring for people, listening, and serving, but they largely treat purpose and mission accomplishment as something “implied.” The Green Beret Way keeps the best of those approaches – empathy, respect, psychological safety, service – and then takes the next step by explicitly designing in mission clarity, outcome ownership, and winning. It’s not just “be kinder” or “be tougher”; it’s a system that makes caring for people and accomplishing the mission non-negotiable, at the same time. That’s why it’s an evolution, not just a variation. The Green Beret Way is the next evolutionary step: beyond command-and-control, beyond empathy-without-outcomes, to a leadership system where purpose, people, and performance are all designed into the core.

How is the book groundbreaking?

The Green Beret Way is groundbreaking because it treats fear and courage as design problems, not personality traits, and gives leaders a concrete, step-by-step system for building real courage under pressure. Instead of simply telling leaders to “be brave” or “manage their anxiety,” it introduces Fear Inoculation Training (FIT), a method forged in elite Special Forces training and aligned with multiple validated psychological frameworks, and then shows exactly how to apply it to everyday leadership fears: fear of being wrong, fear of losing control, fear of losing status, fear of not getting credit, and more. It moves fear from the background to the center of the leadership conversation and gives readers a practical way to dismantle it in themselves and their teams.
What makes this truly groundbreaking is that it unifies what has traditionally lived in separate silos—special operations training, clinical and performance psychology, and business leadership—into a single, operational leadership system. The Green Beret Way doesn’t just reference courage, resilience, or psychological safety as buzzwords; it shows leaders how to deliberately build them using the same underlying mechanics that create elite Special Forces operators, translated into accessible tools for modern organizations. In doing so, it turns “be courageous,” “be empathetic,” and “drive results” from competing slogans into an integrated, teachable method for leading people to do the hard things that matter when the stakes are highest.

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REVIEWS

The Green Beret Way is complete leadership training. The lessons in the book have given me the confidence, skills, and tools that no other leadership training in my military or professional career ever has. Rob He takes you on a journey to know yourself better than you ever thought possible.

Alex Hays

ALEX HAYS

PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, ORION AND TAURUS LLC

As a sales director, leadership is a core asset. Rob makes you reflect on yourself, how you need to find the inner courage and confidence to over achieve. The SF model reflects the importance of knowing how the team operates on an intimate level in order to empower and manage the team of “Alpha Lions.”

Marty Johnson

MARTY JOHNSON

DIRECTOR, GOVERNMENT SALES DIVISION, GALLO

Rob’s work is a powerful read for anyone aspiring to lead with integrity and inspire those around them. Rob makes complex leadership principles accessible and actionable. His work is concise, no-nonsense, and a must-read for those looking to lead by example.

Shalom

SHALOM SMOLIK

CHIEF PSYCHOMETRICIAN, PHALANX SSI

The Green Beret Way is an insightful exploration of leadership under duress. This book captivates with its vivid accounts of first hand experiences, imparting timeless wisdom on strategy, resilience, and the power of effective collaboration.

Aja Baliker

AJA BALIKER

DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, ELEVATE STAFFING AND EVENTS

Rob Schaefer 276 min
Rob Schaefer 276 min
Rob Schaefer in Uniform min

Meet the Author

Robert W. Schaefer

Robert W. Schaefer is a distinguished leader with over 35 years of experience in the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets), where he served in various roles from sergeant to officer and special operations commander to diplomat. His leadership has been recognized with the prestigious OSS Veterans & USSOCOM Award of Excellence, an honor akin to being named “Man of the Year” for all U.S. Special Operations Forces and the CIA, underscoring his exceptional contributions.

Rob’s expertise extends beyond the military. He is a founding partner of American Freedom Distillery, the makers of the award-winning Horse Soldier Bourbon, and the Managing Director of Phalanx Strategic Solutions, a consultancy focused on leadership development and organizational culture. His academic credentials include a Master’s Degree from Harvard University, and he is an inaugural member of the University of Louisville’s ROTC Hall of Fame.

As a best-selling author, Rob’s work has received acclaim for his previous works from major outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Economist. His current book The Green Beret Way: Leading Elite Teams Under Extreme Conditions, distills the leadership principles he observed over his career, offering insights on how to build effective teams and lead with integrity. Drawing from his extensive experience, the book provides actionable strategies for leaders in any field, emphasizing the values of empathy, purpose, inspiration, and character.

As a keynote speaker, Rob has captivated audiences around the world with his engaging storytelling. Rob remains focused on helping others to become more successful. His approach to leadership is rooted in the belief that the best leaders inspire others to achieve greatness. Whether through his writing, speaking, or consulting, Rob continues to influence and guide leaders across the globe.

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The Green Beret Way launches

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