#022 - Leadership with Captain D. Michael Abrashoff '82

The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience

In this episode, I'm joined by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff who is a class of 1982 graduate from the United States Naval Academy. Captain Abrashoff was a Political Science major at the academy and a member of the 29th Company.
In this episode, we discuss leadership through the lens of his time at the academy, his time in the fleet and his subsequent career as a New York Times best selling author, keynote speaker, and leadership consultant.
Mike Abrashoff is at the center of one of the most remarkable modern-day stories of organizational transformation.

At 36, he was selected to be Commander of USS Benfold and was the most junior commanding officer in the Pacific fleet. The challenges of this underachieving destroyer were staggering, with low morale and the highest turnover rate in the Navy. Few thought the ship could improve. Yet 12 months later it was ranked #1 in performance -- using the same crew. How did Mike do it? By replacing command and control leadership with commitment and cohesion.
The lesson was clear: Leadership matters and culture is everything.

Since leaving the Navy, Captain Abrashoff has worked with over 1200 organizations instilling leadership initiatives at every level – achieving phenomenal change in unexpected places. Leaders especially identify with Mike being accountable for results in an environment where he couldn’t make the rules. He focused on the one thing he could influence: his crew’s attitude, because culture is the ultimate competitive weapon for any organization. That’s why Wall Street Journal, Fast Company and others have cited his story. It’s also why he is so popular with such a wide range of audiences.

I read Captain Abrashoff's book It's Your Ship while I was at the academy before being a summer detailer and it transformed my view on leadership. I feel so very privileged to sit down and talk with one of the leaders and authors I admire so much.
He is bright, insightful and entertaining. He shares great stories from his time at the academy and the fleet to illustrate the lessons he shares with us.
I encourage everyone to order an

The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.

He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.

We are here to be your guide through the USNA experience.

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