Call Sign Chaos

by Jim Mattis

the epitaph on Jackie Robinson’s tombstone: “A life is not important except in its impact on other lives.” That sentiment captured the credo of the generation that raised me.

The Marine philosophy is to recruit for attitude and train for skills. Marines

Do not bog down once in the attack. If one thing isn’t working, change to another. Shift gears. Don’t lose momentum. Improvise.

What kept the Juliets from being seen as a spy ring by my subordinate commanders was their ability to keep confidences when those commanders shared concerns. They knew that information would be conveyed to me alone. KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS…AND

General Ulysses S. Grant, who knew a thing or two about war, had criteria for leaders, which boiled down to humility; toughness of character, so one is able to take shocks in stride; and the single-mindedness to remain unyielding when all is flying apart but enough mental agility to adapt when their approach is not working. This was how I pictured my Marines fighting. In doing so, they would present the enemy with a cascading series of disasters, shattering his coherence and creating a state of confusion and an inability to concentrate his mind or his forces.

Subordinate commanders cannot seize fleeting opportunities if they do not understand the purpose behind an order. The correct exercise of independent action requires a common understanding between the commander and the subordinate, of both the mission and the commander’s intent of what the mission is expected to accomplish.

the executive level, your job is to reward initiative in your junior officers and NCOs and facilitate their success. When they make mistakes while doing their best to carry out your intent, stand by them. Examine your coaching and how well you articulate your intent. Remember the bottom line: imbue in them a strong bias for action.

When you are engaged at the tactical level, you grasp your own reality so clearly it’s tempting to assume that everyone above you sees it in the same light. Wrong. When you’re the senior commander in a deployed force, time spent sharing your appreciation of the situation on the ground with your seniors is like time spent on reconnaissance: it’s seldom wasted.

made it clear that after ninety days, those who couldn’t embrace my priorities were to move elsewhere for a fresh start. The institutional excellence of the Corps

today’s insurgent wars, the vital ground is not a mountaintop or a key road—it’s the people.

Commanders don’t drive from the back seat. Credit those below you with the same level of commitment and ability with which you credit yourself. Make your intent clear, and then encourage your subordinates to employ a bias for action.

The result will be faster decisions, stronger unity of effort, and unleashed audacity throughout the force, enabling us to out-turn and outfight the enemy. As always, I did not rely on the chain of command to bring all important issues to my attention. I let it be known that every Friday afternoon I would be at the club for happy hour. As one man explained, when asked why Robert Burns wrote his poetry in taverns, it was in those places that one could hear “the elemental passions, the open heart and the bold tongue, and no masks.”

“We’re too old to be surprised,” Abizaid said. “Adjust to it.”

“Culture eats strategy for lunch.”

“JFCOM will no longer use, sponsor or export the terms and concepts related to EBO. We must define the problems we are trying to solve and propose value-added solutions. We will return clarity to our operational concepts. My aim is to ensure leaders

convey their intent in clearly understood terms that empower their subordinates to act decisively.”

“The only thing that allows government to work at the top levels,” he said, “is trusted personal relations.” Within my theater, the American team—diplomats, intelligence, and military officers—exhibited a high degree of trust in one another. You can’t achieve this leading by email.

America’s lack of strategy in setting priorities that would earn their trust resulted in a growing sense that we were proving unreliable.

Wise leadership requires collaboration; otherwise it will lead to failure. — After the dinner with the Vice President, I

Unless you want to lose, you don’t tell an enemy when you are done fighting, and you don’t set an exit unrelated to the situation on the ground. Dave Petraeus now faced a very short window in which to turn around a deteriorating war effort.

Ultimately, it was in our common interest that we maintain a cautious, mindful relationship, with modest expectations of collaboration. We could manage our problems with Pakistan, but our divisions were too deep, and trust too shallow, to resolve them. And that is the state of our relationship to this day.

I learned then and I believe now that everyone needs a mentor or to be a mentor—and that no one needs a tyrant.

we rise in rank, our teams are more broadly composed. Multi-service and multinational teams are the norm in our current reality. As organizational complexity grows, I’ve found that the same leadership principles endure for creating the best teams. Clarity of intent actually becomes more critical when the formative experiences of those on your team are dissimilar.