In my life as a soldier and citizen, I have seen time and time again that inaction has dire consequences.
Stanley A. McChrystal
Many leaders are tempted to lead like a chess master, striving to control every move, when they should be leading like gardeners, creating and maintaining a viable ecosystem in which the organization operates.
You can get knocked down, and it hurts and it leaves scars. But if you're a leader, the people you've counted on will help you up. And if you're a leader, the people who count on you need you on your feet.
Leadership contains certain elements of good management, but it requires that you inspire, that you build durable trust. For an organization to be not just good but to win, leadership means evoking participation larger than the job description, commitment deeper than any job contract's wording.
I had known Colonel Charlie Flynn since he was a lieutenant 23 years earlier, and I remembered how his first child, Molly, had been born while Charlie was deployed to the first Gulf War.
There's an art to asking questions. Briefings are valuable but normally communicate primarily what the subordinate leader wants you to know, and often the picture they provide is incomplete.
Leaders must establish common purpose and build trust within an organization.
When I became commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force, I was leading thousands of individuals, from Special Forces to the broader interagency effort. I quickly realized that while we had the most best and most effective operators and small teams in the world, we were unable to scale.
I spent a career carrying typically either an M16 or an M4 Carbine. An M4 Carbine fires a .223 caliber round, which is 5.56 mm at about 3000 feet per second.
We need a strong civil society where the connection between different people and groups is firm and vibrant, not brittle and divided.
Public, noncommercial broadcasting is also giving kids social-emotional skills like persistence and self-control that are fundamental to success in school, not to mention in the military, the institution where I spent most of my career.
Strength is leading when you just don't want to lead.
The basic DNA we've got to implant in leaders now is adaptability: not to get wedded to the solution to a particular problem, because not only the problem but the solution changes day to day. Creating people who are hardwired for that is going to be our challenge for the future.
Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity.
We want to make the insurgents come to us. Make them be the aggressors. What I want to do is get on the inside looking out - instead of being on the outside looking in.
With my resignation, I... left unfulfilled commitments I made to many comrades in the fight, commitments I hold sacred. My service did not end as I would have wished.
I came to believe that a leader isn't good because they're right; they're good because they're willing to learn and to trust.
In June 2010, after more than 38 years in uniform, in the midst of commanding a 46-nation coalition in a complex war in Afghanistan, my world changed suddenly - and profoundly. An article in 'Rolling Stone' magazine depicting me, and people I admired, in a manner that felt as unfamiliar as it was unfair, ignited a firestorm.
Public television works hard to engage young learners and build the skills needed for a jump-start on life. We need our youngest to be curious, resilient and empathetic, and prepared for the jobs of the future.
Empowering, cultivating, and ultimately serving those who follow you will unlock massive potential within your organization, allowing you to solve for problems in real time.
Change is painful, and people are always reticent to accept a lot of pain.
When I arrived in the summer of 2009 to command the war in Afghanistan, I entered an effort that was failing. Many Afghans, some ISAF coalition members, and much of the American public had lost confidence in both the trajectory of the war and our ability to correct it.
A fundamental principle that I learned in my career, and a principle that my consulting company McChrystal Group helps American civilian companies to adopt, is that winning units and organizations ensure that the time they actually spend - daily, weekly, and yearly - must hew closely to their priorities.
Industrial technologies that allowed for increased mechanization in 19th-century armed forces also spurred Frederick Winslow Taylor to develop his 'Scientific Management' doctrine in Philadelphia steel mills.
Public broadcasting makes our nation smarter, stronger and, yes, safer.
What I'm trying to do is teach people how to actually get individuals in organizations to do the kinds of things to make a difference. It starts with not just studying the mechanics but really understanding how people operate.
There is only one Army in which you serve. When that identity is gone, it is gone forever.
How we present ourselves matters a lot, and that's every American, not just at the senior levels.
Political campaigns offer Americans an opportunity to adjust direction, reaffirm values, and recommit to the covenant that binds them together.
Like leaders in many walks of life, my business has been to serve with, and for, others.
I don't miss the bureaucracy of being in the Army. But I still love the relationships you can build. And it doesn't have to be in military service - it can be anything you're doing with someone that matters. You develop a bond.
I was raised with traditional stories of leadership: Robert E. Lee, John Buford at Gettysburg. And I also was raised with personal examples of leadership. This was my father in Vietnam. And I was raised to believe that soldiers were strong and wise and brave and faithful; they didn't lie, cheat, steal, or abandon their comrades.
I think life is hard at the combat outposts, and anything that distracts us from supporting them, in my mind, is something that we shouldn't do.
When I was a lieutenant in Special Forces many many years ago, I thought I was getting fat. And I started running, and I started running distance, which I enjoyed.
I resolved to try to steer clear of politics. That wasn't easy.
If every soldier is authorized to make one mistake, then we lose the war.
Trust is an amazing commodity. The Afghan people often talk to me about having to develop trust in America, because they believe that we deserted them in 1990 and 1991.
I can't sculpt. But if I were a sculptor, as you start to get something that actually looks like what you want, then it starts to be fun. That's the way I find writing.
In combat operations in places like Afghanistan, we often confronted the specter of dangerous people with powerful weapons who were a threat to their community and to our soldiers. Our aim was to quickly determine who in that community was a legitimate actor who could be trusted with a firearm and who was not.
What scares me about drone strikes is how they are perceived around the world. The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes... is much greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated on a visceral level, even by people who've never seen one or seen the effects of one.
Americans enjoy the exciting, cinematic vision of a squad of muscle-bound Goliath boasting Olympian speed, strength, and precision - a group whose collective success is the inevitable consequence of the individual strengths of its members and the masterful planning of a visionary commander.
There's this intense media spotlight; there's a need to be transparent, and, 'Oh, by the way, I'm also trying to fight a war at the same time.' It's a challenge, but it goes with the job.
I want the American people to understand, we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
One of the great things about America is we should not judge until we know the facts.
President Obama had voiced strong support for the effort in Afghanistan during his campaign, pledging to add two brigades, which he did. But since the inauguration... the administration had signaled that the U.S. commitment needed careful assessment, and we needed to recalibrate the strategy and objectives.
When you go through some controversy and you see your face on the news in a negative way for 48 hours... you doubt yourself. And your friends make the difference. They become a safety net that come in and say, 'That's not the case.' And the relationships that you've built... come to the fore.
My very identity as a soldier came to an abrupt end. I'd been soldiering as long as I'd been shaving. Suddenly I'd been told I could no longer soldier, and it felt as though no one really cared if I ever shaved again.
If who you were was entirely based upon the position you were in or the headlines you got in the newspaper, or you had essentially subcontracted out your self-worth to the judgments of others, then you're going to be like tumbleweed. You're going to be blown.
You're going to find out who your friends are. Anything that happens in your life is one of those challenges. It may not be at the level of celebrity, but everybody's going to travel that road.
In every relationship, there are two perspectives to it.
