More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
You must always keep fighting for those who are still with you.
If there’s something you don’t want people to see, you ought to reconsider what you’re doing.
If, unlike Nelson, senior commanders don’t sufficiently train their subordinates so they can trust their initiative, then those commanders have failed before combat begins.
But a leader’s role is problem solving. If you don’t like problems, stay out of leadership.
The most important six inches on the battlefield are between your ears.
There’s a profound difference between a mistake and a lack of discipline. Mistakes are made when you’re trying to carry out a commander’s intent and you screw up in the pressure of the moment.
if lance corporals are not trained properly, their superiors must be held to account for their lack of leadership competence and professional supervision.
You cannot allow your passion for excellence to destroy your compassion for them as human beings.”
Initiative has to be practiced daily, not stifled, if it’s to become a reality inside a culture. Every institution gets the behavior it rewards.
PowerPoint is the scourge of critical thinking. It encourages fragmented logic by the briefer and passivity in the listener.
Commanders must encourage intellectual risk taking to preclude a lethargic environment. Leaders must shelter those challenging nonconformists and mavericks who make institutions uncomfortable; otherwise you wash out innovation.
“What do you do? What impact does your team make?”
every organization must serve a worthwhile purpose or it should go away.
Wise leadership requires collaboration; otherwise it will lead to failure.
In turbulent times, sound policy and clear strategic principles are especially necessary for achieving our objectives.
there’s no substitute for constant study to master one’s craft.
Living in history builds your own shock absorber, because you’ll learn that there are lots of old solutions to new problems. If you haven’t read hundreds of books, learning from others who went before you, you are functionally illiterate—you can’t coach and you can’t lead. History lights the often dark path ahead; even if it’s a dim light, it’s better than none.
If you can’t be additive as a leader, you’re just like a potted plant in the corner of a hotel lobby: you look pretty, but you’re not adding ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Trust is the coin of the realm for creating the harmony, speed, and teamwork to achieve success at the lowest cost.
I found staff visits and daily or weekly visits—reducing reports and getting out more to see units on their turf—essential to building trust.
Resourceful leaders do not lose touch with their troops. A leader’s job is to inculcate high-spirited, amiable self-discipline. Leaders must always generate options by surrounding themselves with bright subordinates and being catalysts for new ideas.
Allowing bad processes to stump good people is intolerable.
Risk aversion will damage the long-term health, even survival, of the organization, because it will undercut disciplined but unregimented thinking.
