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March 2 - June 21, 2025
Take a risk and your body and mind will respond with a rush of energy. Make risk a constant practice; never let yourself settle down. Soon living on death ground will become a kind of addiction—you won’t be able to do without it. When soldiers survive a brush with death, they often feel an exhilaration that they want to have again. Life has more meaning in the face of death.
In war it is not men, but the man, that counts. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 1769–1821
Any army is like a horse, in that it reflects the temper and the spirit of its rider. If there is an uneasiness and an uncertainty, it transmits itself through the reins, and the horse feels uneasy and uncertain. LONE STAR PREACHER, COLONEL JOHN W. THOMASON, JR., 1941
he ignored the one thing closest to him: the chain of command, and the circuit of communications by which orders, information, and decisions would circulate back and forth. He was dependent on that circuit to give him control of the situation and allow him to execute his strategy.
Vagueness at the top turned into confusion and lethargy at the bottom. Success depended on the speed with which information could pass in both directions along the chain of command, so that Hamilton could understand what was happening and adapt faster than the enemy. The chain was broken, and Gallipoli was lost.
If your orders are vague and halfhearted, by the time they reach the field they will be meaningless. Let people work unsupervised and they will revert to their natural selfishness: they will see in your orders what they want to see, and their behavior will promote their own interests.
Unless you adapt your leadership style to the weaknesses of the people in your group, you will almost certainly end up with a break in the chain of command. Information in the field will reach you too slowly. A proper chain of command, and the control it brings you, is not an accident; it is your creation, a work of art that requires constant attention and care. Ignore it at your peril.
For what the leaders are, that, as a rule, will the men below them be. —Xenophon (430?–355? B.C.)
The greater the number and the higher the rank of the military officers who compose the council, the more difficult will it be to accomplish the triumph of truth and reason, however small be the amount of dissent. What would have been the action of a council of war to which Napoleon proposed the movement of Arcola, the crossing of the Saint-Bernard, the maneuver at Ulm, or that at Gera and Jena?
Marshall could guide the machine with a lighter touch. The political types who were clogging the chain of command were either retired or joined in the team spirit he infused. His indirect style of communicating amused some of his staff, but it was actually a highly effective way of asserting his authority. An officer might go home chuckling about finding Marshall fussing over a gardening bill, but it would slowly dawn on him that if he wasted a penny, his boss would know.
The solution is to do as Marshall did: operate through a kind of remote control. Hire deputies who share your vision but can think on their own, acting as you would in their place. Instead of wasting time negotiating with every difficult person, work on spreading a spirit of camaraderie and efficiency that becomes self-policing. Streamline the organization, cutting out waste—in staff, in the irrelevant reports on your desk, in pointless meetings. The less attention you spend on petty details, the more time you will have for the larger picture, for asserting your authority generally and
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Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups. —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
These trends affect leaders in ways they barely know. The tendency is to give more power to the group: wanting to seem democratic, leaders poll the whole staff for opinions, let the group make decisions, give subordinates input into the crafting of an overall strategy. Without realizing it, these leaders are letting the politics of the day seduce them into violating one of the most important rules of warfare and leadership: unity of command.
Before it is too late, learn the lessons of war: divided leadership is a recipe for disaster, the cause of the greatest military defeats in history.
Hannibal, of course, was a military genius, but the Romans take much of the blame for their own defeat: they had a faulty command system, with two tribunes sharing leadership of the army. Disagreeing over how to fight Hannibal, these men fought each other as much as they fought him, and they made a mess of things.
Nearly two thousand years later, Frederick the Great, king of Prussia and leader of its army, outfought and outlasted the five great powers aligned against him in the Seven Years’ War partly because he made decisions so much faster than the alliance generals, who had to consult each other in every move they made.
Divided leadership is dangerous because people in groups often think and act in ways that are illogical and ineffective—call it Groupthink. People in groups are political: they say and do things that they think will help their image within the group. They aim to please others, to promote themselves, rather than to see things dispassionately. Where an individual can be bold and creative, a group is often afraid of risk.
This is the game you must play: Do whatever you can to preserve unity of command. Keep the strings to be pulled in your hands; the overarching strategic vision must come from you and you alone. At the same time, hide your tracks. Work behind the scenes; make the group feel involved in your decisions. Seek their advice, incorporating their good ideas, politely deflecting their bad ones. If necessary, make minor, cosmetic strategy changes to assuage the insecure political animals in the group, but ultimately trust your own vision.
Control is an elusive phenomenon. Often, the harder you tug at people, the less control you have over them. Leadership is more than just barking out orders; it takes subtlety.
Be careful in assembling this team that you are not seduced by expertise and intelligence. Character, the ability to work under you and with the rest of the team, and the capacity to accept responsibility and think independently are equally key.
Franklin D. Roosevelt had his infamous “brain trust,” the advisers and cabinet members on whom he depended for their ideas and opinions, but he never let them in on the actual decision making, and he kept them from building up their own power base within the administration. He saw them simply as tools, extending his own abilities and saving him valuable time. He understood unity of command and was never seduced into violating it.
The master of this game was Napoleon, who created a kind of shadow brigade of younger officers in all areas of the military, men chosen for their loyalty, energy, and intelligence. At a moment’s notice, he would send one of these men to a far-off front or garrison, or even to enemy headquarters (ostensibly as a diplomatic envoy), with secret instructions to gather the kind of information he could not get fast enough through normal channels.
Vague orders are worthless. As they pass from person to person, they are hopelessly altered, and your staff comes to see them as symbolizing uncertainty and indecision. It is critical that you yourself be clear about what you want before issuing your orders.
Napoleon was the master. His orders were full of juicy details, which gave his officers a feel for how his mind worked while also allowing them interpretive leeway. He would often spell out possible contingencies, suggesting ways the officer could adapt his instructions if necessary.
Bland, bureaucratic orders filter down into listless activity and imprecise execution. Clear, concise, inspiring orders make officers feel in control and fill troops with fighting spirit.
Napoleon changed all that. In the years of peace between 1800 and 1805, he reorganized the French military, bringing different forces together to form the Grande Armée, 210,000 men strong. He divided this army into several corps, each with its own cavalry, infantry, artillery, and general staff. Each was led by a marshal general, usually a young officer of proven strength in previous campaigns. Varying in size from 15,000 to 30,000 men, each corps was a miniature army headed by a miniature Napoleon.
The key to the system was the speed with which the corps could move. Napoleon would give the marshals their mission, then let them accomplish it on their own. Little time was wasted with the passing of orders back and forth, and smaller armies, needing less baggage, could march with greater speed. Instead of a single army moving in a straight line, Napoleon could disperse and concentrate his corps in limitless patterns, which to the enemy seemed chaotic and unreadable.
Patton’s philosophy of command was: “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” PATTON: A GENIUS FOR WAR, CARLO D’ESTE, 1995
Separate to live, unite to fight. —Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821)
Sun-tzu expressed this idea differently: what you aim for in strategy, he said, is shih, a position of potential force—the position of a boulder perched precariously on a hilltop, say, or of a bowstring stretched taut. A tap on the boulder, the release of the bowstring, and potential force is violently unleashed. The boulder or arrow can go in any direction; it is geared to the actions of the enemy. What matters is not following preordained steps but placing yourself in shih and giving yourself options.
“A favorable situation will never be exploited if commanders wait for orders. The highest commander and the youngest soldier must always be conscious of the fact that omission and inactivity are worse than resorting to the wrong expedient.”
Nothing epitomized the outlook and performance of the German General Staff, and of the German Army which it coordinated, more than this concept of mission tactics: the responsibility of each German officer and noncommissioned officer … to do without question or doubt whatever the situation required, as he saw it. This meant that he should act without awaiting orders, if action seemed necessary. It also meant that he should act contrary to orders, if these did not seem to be consistent with the situation.
A major, receiving a tongue-lashing from the Prince for a tactical blunder, offered the excuse that he had been obeying orders, and reminded the Prince that a Prussian officer was taught that an order from a superior was tantamount to an order from the King. Frederick Charles promptly responded: “His Majesty made you a major because he believed you would know when not to obey his orders.” This simple story became guidance for all following generations of German officers.
Napoleon had always aimed at his version of shih, and he perfected it in the 1805 campaign. Obsessed with structure and organization, he developed the corps system, building flexibility into the very skeleton of his army. The lesson is simple: a rigid, centralized organization locks you into linear strategies; a fluid, segmented army gives you options, endless possibilities for reaching shih. Structure is strategy—perhaps the most important strategic choice you will make. Should you inherit a group, analyze its structure and alter it to suit your purposes.
Shortly after Napoleon’s devastating defeat of the Prussians at the Battle of Jena in 1806 (see chapter 2), the Prussian leaders did some soul-searching. They saw they were stuck in the past; their way of doing things was too rigid. Suddenly the military reformers, including Carl von Clausewitz, were taken seriously and given power. And what they decided to do was unprecedented in history: they would institutionalize success by designing a superior army structure.
At the core of this revolution was the creation of a general staff, a cadre of officers specially trained and educated in strategy, tactics, and leadership. A king, a prime minister, or even a general might be incompetent at war, but a group of brilliant and well-trained officers on the army’s staff could compensate for his failures.
The Auftragstaktik—inspired by Prussia’s archenemy Napoleon and the leeway he gave his marshals—permeated the general staff. Officers were first inculcated with the philosophy of German warfare: speed, the need to take the offensive, and so on. Then they were put through exercises to help them develop their ability to think on their own, to make decisions that met the overall philosophy but responded to the circumstances of the moment.
The general staff (with a few interruptions) was in place from 1808 to the end of World War II. During that period the Germans consistently outfought other armies in the field–including the Allies in World War I, despite the severe limitations of trench warfare. Their success culminated in the most devastating military victory in modern history: the 1940 blitzkrieg invasion of France and the Low Countries, when the German army ran rings around the rigid defenses of the French. It was the structure of their army, and their use of the Auftragstaktik, that gave them more options and greater
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The secret to motivating people and maintaining their morale is to get them to think less about themselves and more about the group. Involve them in a cause, a crusade against a hated enemy. Make them see their survival as tied to the success of the army as a whole. In a group in which people have truly bonded, moods and emotions are so contagious that it becomes easy to infect your troops with enthusiasm. Lead from the front: let your soldiers see you in the trenches, making sacrifices for the cause. That will fill them with the desire to emulate and please you. Make both rewards and
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the way to get soldiers to work together and maintain morale is to make them feel part of a group that is fighting for a worthy cause. That distracts them from their own interests and satisfies their human need to feel part of something bigger than they are.
Napoleon once said, “The moral is to the physical as three to one.” He meant that his troops’ fighting spirit was crucial in the outcome of the battle: with motivated soldiers he could beat an army three times the size of his own.
Since they believed that God was with them, they had no fear of death: they could march straight up a hill into enemy fire without breaking step. Having gained control over his cavalry, Cromwell could maneuver them with infinite flexibility. His troops won battle after battle.
Although he was ahead of his times with his visions of mobile warfare, Cromwell was not a brilliant strategist or field tactician; his success lay in the morale and discipline of his cavalry, and the secret to those was the quality of the men he recruited—true believers in his cause.
People are contradictory and defensive: push them too hard and they resent you; treat them well and they take you for granted. Johnson avoided those traps by making his staff want his approval. To do that he led from the front. He worked harder than any of his staff, and his men saw him do it; failing to match him would have made them feel guilty and selfish. A leader who works that hard stirs competitive instincts in his men, who do all they can to prove themselves worthier than their teammates.
Personal example is the best way to set the proper tone and build morale. When your people see your devotion to the cause, they ingest your spirit of energy and self-sacrifice. A few timely criticisms here and there and they will only try harder to please you, to live up to your high standards. Instead of having to push and pull your army, you will find them chasing after you.
they had the chance to join the Carthaginian army, to go from being abject prisoners to free soldiers fighting for a great cause, the defeat of the hated Romans. You soldiers, said Hannibal, are in exactly the same position. You face a much stronger enemy. You are many miles from home, on hostile territory, and you have nowhere to go—in a way you are prisoners, too. It is either freedom or slavery, victory or death. But fight as these men fought today and you will prevail.
Four brave men who do not know each other will not dare to attack a lion. Four less brave, but knowing each other well, sure of their reliability and consequently of mutual aid, will attack resolutely. There is the science of the organization of armies in a nutshell. COLONEL CHARLES ARDANT DU PICQ, 1821–70
Hannibal was a master motivator of a rare kind. Where others would harangue their soldiers with speeches, he knew that to depend on words was to be in a sorry state: words only hit the surface of a soldier, and a leader must grab his men’s hearts, make their blood boil, get into their minds, alter their moods.
few players noticed something different about Lom-bardi: he oozed confidence—no shouts, no demands. His tone and manner suggested that the Packers were already a winning team; they just had to live up to
Between battles Napoleon would sometimes wander among the soldiers’ campfires, mingling with them. He himself had risen through the ranks—he had once been an ordinary gunner—and he could talk to the men as no other general could. He knew their names, their histories, even in what battles they’d been wounded. With some men he would pinch an earlobe between his finger and thumb and give it a friendly tweak.
