Archive for 2011

The more a leader is in the habit of demanding from his men, the surer he will be that his demands will be answered.

Good leadership in a platoon can only be practiced in the climate of good commandership in the units above.

Leadership needed in ordinary units is different from that required by elite units.

Do not expect to get squad, platoon, company, battalion, brigade, division, or corps commanders as replacements who are fully trained. If such people are available in the replacement system, they will probably be promoted before they arrive. Plan to coach …Read More

I know of no better reputation for an officer or noncommissioned officer to have with his men than he is a good manager and does not waste his soldiers’ time.

Regardless of age or grade, soldiers should be treated as mature individuals. They are men engaged in an honorable profession and deserve to be treated as such.

Rank is given you to enable you to better serve those above and below you. It is not given for you to practice your idiosyncrasies.

You must be able to underwrite the honest mistakes of your subordinates if you wish to develop their initiative and experience.

When things go wrong in your command, start searching for the reason in increasingly larger concentric circles around your own desk.

You owe it to your men to require standards which are for their benefit even though they may not be popular at the moment.

To create great armies is one thing; to lead them… is another.

If you cry ‘Forward’, you must without fail make plain in what direction to go. Don’t you see that if, without doing so, you call out the word to both a monk and a revolutionary, the will go in directions precisely …Read More