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.
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.
In my life as a soldier and citizen, I have seen time and time again that inaction has dire consequences.
Public broadcasting makes our nation smarter, stronger and, yes, safer.
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 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.
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 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.
Like leaders in many walks of life, my business has been to serve with, and for, others.
There is only one Army in which you serve. When that identity is gone, it is gone forever.
We need a strong civil society where the connection between different people and groups is firm and vibrant, not brittle and divided.
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.
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.
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'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
