Call Sign Chaos

by Jim Mattis

I believed I could not do my job well if I lost touch with those on the front lines who carried out orders at the point of danger.

everyone needs a mentor or to be a mentor—and that no one needs a tyrant.

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 ol...

If you haven’t read hundreds of books, learning from others who went before you, you are functionally illiterate—yo...

History lights the often dark path ahead; even if it’s a dim light, i...

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 subs...

A commander must state his relevant aim. Intent is a formal statement in which the commander puts himself or herself on the line. Intent must accomplish the mission, it has to be achievable, it must be clearly understood, and at the end of the day, it has to deliver what the unit was tasked with achieving.

You must unleash initiative rather than suffocate it.

once I set the tempo, the speed I prized was always built on subordinate initiative.

Like a jazzman with the ability to improvise, you need to know doctrine so that you can shift from a known point.

purposely using broad themes and objectives, leaving maximum opportunity for subordinates to use their initiative and aggressiveness.

Intangibles like will, cohesion, morale, and affection are more important than tangibles.

declining to take detailed briefs if I thought it would remove subordinate commanders’ sense of ownership over their own operations,

And “hand-con,” maintaining relationships, takes time to build, and can be lost in a second—and you may not get a chance to get it back.

High morale is reflected by the absence of self-pity.

Resourceful leaders do not lose touch with their troops. A leader’s job is to inculcate high-spiri...

Leaders must always generate options by surrounding themselves with bright subordinates and be...

We can decentralize decision-making and gain relative speed over the enemy, however, only if conditions are set to enable subordinate success.

The other necessary condition is the education and training of the subordinate leaders to ensure they have the skills necessary to take intelligent initiative.

Clarity of intent actually becomes more critical when the formative experiences of those on your team are dissimilar.

Allowing bad processes to stump good people is intolerable.

any competitive organization must nurture its maverick thinkers.

Risk aversion will damage the long-term health, even survival, of the organization, because it will undercut disciplined but unregimented thinking.

Leaders at all ranks, but especially at high ranks, must keep in their inner circle people who will unhesitatingly point out when a leader’s personal behavior or decisions are not appropriate.

I had in my command group a U.S. Army Ranger sergeant major and a U.S. Navy admiral who didn’t give a damn what I thought of them: if they thought that I had made a bad call, with door closed they would quickly make their point loud and clear. I trusted them to do this, and they never let me down. Knowing that my own approach to decisions was not foolproof, they saved me on more instances than I can recall from walking into minefields of my own making.

The growth in global wealth and the freedoms enjoyed by so many since 1945 were the direct results of America’s willingness to lead.

Their nonchalance and good cheer, even as they lived one day at a time under austere conditions, reminded me how unimportant are many of the things back home that can divide us if we let them.