The man who always takes and never gives is not a leader. He is a parasite.
When you exact respect from soldiers, be sure you treat them with equal respect. Build up their manhood and self respect. Don't try to pull it down.
For an officer to be overbearing and insulting in the treatment of enlisted men is the act of a coward. He ties the man to a tree with the ropes of discipline and then strike him in the face knowing full well that the man cannot strike back.
Consideration, courtesy, and respect from officers toward enlisted men are not incompatible with discipline. They are parts of our discipline. Without initiative and decision, no man can expect to lead.
Genius is merely the capacity for taking infinite pains. The man who was ready is the man who has prepared himself. He has studied beforehand the possible situations that might arise, he has made tentative plans covering such situations. When he is confronted by the emergency he is ready to meet it.
He must have the decision to order the execution and stick to his orders.
Any reasonable order in an emergency is better than no order. The situation is there, Meet it. It is better to do something and do the wrong thing than to hesitate, hunt around for the right thing to do, and wind up by doing nothing at all, And, having decided on a line of action, stick to it. Don't vacillate. Men have no confidence in an officer who doesn't know his own mind.
Occasionally you will be called upon to meet a situation that no reasonable human being could anticipate. If you have prepared yourself to meet other emergencies that you could anticipate, the mental training you have thereby gained will enable you to act promptly with calmness.
You must act without orders from higher authority. Time will not permit you to wait for them.
If you have a comprehensive grasp of the entire situation and can form an idea of the general plan of your superiors, that your previous emergency training will enable you to determine that the responsibility is yours and to issue the necessary orders without delay.
Be the friend of your men, but do not become their intimate. Your men should in awe of you, not in fear! If your men presume to become familiar it is your fault, not theirs, your action have encouraged them. And, above all things, don't cheapen yourself by courting their friendship or currying their favor. They will despise you for it.
If you are worthy of their loyalty, respect, and devotion, they will surely give all these without asking. If you are not, nothing that you can do will win them.
Moral courage you need as well as mental courage, that kind of moral courage which enables you to adhere without faltering to a determined course of action which your judgement has indicated is the one best suited to secure the desired results.
You will find many times, that after having issued you orders, you will be beset by misgivings and doubts, you will see, or think you see, other and better means for accomplishing the object sought. You will be strongly tempted to change your orders.
Don't do it until it is clearly manifested that your first orders were radically wrong. For, if you do, you will be again worried by doubt as to the efficacy of your second orders.
Every time you change your orders without obvious reason you weaken your authority and impair the confidence of your men. Have the moral courage to stand by your order and see it through.
Moral courage demands that you assume responsibility for your own acts. If your subordinates have loyally carried out your orders and the movement you directed is a failure, the failure is yours, not theirs. Yours would have been the honor had it been successful. Take the blame if it results in disaster. Don't try to shift it to a subordinate and make him the goat. That is cowardly act.
There is something wrong about the man whose wife and children do not greet him affectionately on his homecoming.
Keep clearly in mind your personal integrity and the duty you owe your country. Do not let yourself be deflected from a strict sense of justice by feelings of personal friendship. If your own brother is your second lieutenant and you find him unfit to hold his commission, eliminate him. If you don't, your lack of moral courage may result in the loss of valuable lives.
Remember that your aim is the general good, not the satisfaction of an individual grudge. I am taking it for granted that you have physical courage. Courage is more than bravery.
Bravery is fearlessness the absence of fear. He lacks the mentality to appreciate his danger, he doesn't know enough to be afraid.
Courage, however, is that firmness of spirit, that moral backbone which, while fully appreciating the danger involved, nevertheless goes on with the undertaking.
Bravery is physical, courage is mental and moral.
You may be cold all over; your hands may tremble, your legs may quake, your knees be ready to give way that is fear. If, nevertheless, you go forward; if in spite of this physical defection you continue to lead your men against the enemy, you have courage.
You may never experience them but once they are the "buck fever" of the hunter who tries to shoot his first deer, you must not give way to them. If you give way to fear that will doubtless beset you in your first action, if you show the white feather, if you let your men go forward while you hunt a shell crater, you will never again have the opportunity of leading those men.
Use judgement in calling on your men for displays of physical courage or bravery "Don't ask any man to go where you would not go yourself."
If your common sense tells you that the place is too dangerous for you to venture into, then it is too dangerous for him. You know his life is as valuable to him as yours is to you.
If your men know you and know that you are "right" you will never lack volunteers, for they will know your heart is in your work, that you would willingly carry the message yourself if you could. Your example and enthusiasm will have inspired them.
If you aspire to leadership, you need to study your men. Get under their skins and find out what is inside. Some men are quite different from what they appear to be on the surface determine the workings of their mind.
You cannot know your opponent in this war in the same way. But you can know your own men. You can study each to determine wherein lies his strength and his weakness, which man can be relied upon to the last gasp and which cannot.
Know your men, know your business, know yourself!
"Make bold decisions quickly"
Your definite chief aim will never be anything else but a mere wish unless you become a person of initiative and aggressively and persistently pursue that aim until it has been fulfilled.
Your aim must be active not passive.
You can get nowhere without persistence, a fact that cannot be too often repeated.
The difference between persistence and lack of it is the same as the difference between wishing for a thing and positively determining to get it.
To become a person of initiative, you must form the habit of aggressively and persistently following the object of your definite chief aim until you acquire it, whether this requires one year or twenty years. You might as well have no definite chief aim as to have such an aim without continuous effort to achieve it.
If you do not take some step each day that brings you nearer of your definite chief aim. Do not fool yourself, or permit yourself to be misled to believe that your definite chief aim will materialize if you just wait.
The materialization will come only through your own determination, backed by your own carefully laid plans and your own Initiative in putting those plans into action, or it will not come at all.
One of the major requisites for leadership is the power of quick and firm decision!
Analysis of more than 16,000 people disclosed the fact that leaders always make ready decisions, even in matters of small importance, while followers never make quick decisions.
This is worth remembering!
The follower vacillates, procrastinates, and actually refuses to reach a decision, even in matters of the smallest importance, unless a leader induces him or her to do so.
To know that the majority of people cannot and will not reach decisions quickly, if at all, is of great help to the leader who knows what he or he wants and has a plan for getting it.
The leader not only works with a definite chief aim, but also has a very definite plan for attaining the object of that aim.
The chief reason why the followers does not reach decision is that he or she lacks of self confidence.
Every leader makes use of the law of definite aim, the law of self confidence, and the law of Initiative and leadership. And an outstanding, successful leader also makes use of the laws of imagination, enthusiasm, self control, pleasing personality, Accurate thinking, concentration, and tolerance.
Without the combined use of all these laws no one may become a really great leader.
Omission of a single one of theses laws lessens the power of the leader proportionately.
If you have a talent, use it in every way possible, Don't hoard it. Don't dole it out like a miser. Spread it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke.
-Ben Brendan Francis
When you exact respect from soldiers, be sure you treat them with equal respect. Build up their manhood and self respect. Don't try to pull it down.
For an officer to be overbearing and insulting in the treatment of enlisted men is the act of a coward. He ties the man to a tree with the ropes of discipline and then strike him in the face knowing full well that the man cannot strike back.
Consideration, courtesy, and respect from officers toward enlisted men are not incompatible with discipline. They are parts of our discipline. Without initiative and decision, no man can expect to lead.
Genius is merely the capacity for taking infinite pains. The man who was ready is the man who has prepared himself. He has studied beforehand the possible situations that might arise, he has made tentative plans covering such situations. When he is confronted by the emergency he is ready to meet it.
He must have the decision to order the execution and stick to his orders.
Any reasonable order in an emergency is better than no order. The situation is there, Meet it. It is better to do something and do the wrong thing than to hesitate, hunt around for the right thing to do, and wind up by doing nothing at all, And, having decided on a line of action, stick to it. Don't vacillate. Men have no confidence in an officer who doesn't know his own mind.
Occasionally you will be called upon to meet a situation that no reasonable human being could anticipate. If you have prepared yourself to meet other emergencies that you could anticipate, the mental training you have thereby gained will enable you to act promptly with calmness.
You must act without orders from higher authority. Time will not permit you to wait for them.
If you have a comprehensive grasp of the entire situation and can form an idea of the general plan of your superiors, that your previous emergency training will enable you to determine that the responsibility is yours and to issue the necessary orders without delay.
Be the friend of your men, but do not become their intimate. Your men should in awe of you, not in fear! If your men presume to become familiar it is your fault, not theirs, your action have encouraged them. And, above all things, don't cheapen yourself by courting their friendship or currying their favor. They will despise you for it.
If you are worthy of their loyalty, respect, and devotion, they will surely give all these without asking. If you are not, nothing that you can do will win them.
Moral courage you need as well as mental courage, that kind of moral courage which enables you to adhere without faltering to a determined course of action which your judgement has indicated is the one best suited to secure the desired results.
You will find many times, that after having issued you orders, you will be beset by misgivings and doubts, you will see, or think you see, other and better means for accomplishing the object sought. You will be strongly tempted to change your orders.
Don't do it until it is clearly manifested that your first orders were radically wrong. For, if you do, you will be again worried by doubt as to the efficacy of your second orders.
Every time you change your orders without obvious reason you weaken your authority and impair the confidence of your men. Have the moral courage to stand by your order and see it through.
Moral courage demands that you assume responsibility for your own acts. If your subordinates have loyally carried out your orders and the movement you directed is a failure, the failure is yours, not theirs. Yours would have been the honor had it been successful. Take the blame if it results in disaster. Don't try to shift it to a subordinate and make him the goat. That is cowardly act.
There is something wrong about the man whose wife and children do not greet him affectionately on his homecoming.
Keep clearly in mind your personal integrity and the duty you owe your country. Do not let yourself be deflected from a strict sense of justice by feelings of personal friendship. If your own brother is your second lieutenant and you find him unfit to hold his commission, eliminate him. If you don't, your lack of moral courage may result in the loss of valuable lives.
Remember that your aim is the general good, not the satisfaction of an individual grudge. I am taking it for granted that you have physical courage. Courage is more than bravery.
Bravery is fearlessness the absence of fear. He lacks the mentality to appreciate his danger, he doesn't know enough to be afraid.
Courage, however, is that firmness of spirit, that moral backbone which, while fully appreciating the danger involved, nevertheless goes on with the undertaking.
Bravery is physical, courage is mental and moral.
You may be cold all over; your hands may tremble, your legs may quake, your knees be ready to give way that is fear. If, nevertheless, you go forward; if in spite of this physical defection you continue to lead your men against the enemy, you have courage.
You may never experience them but once they are the "buck fever" of the hunter who tries to shoot his first deer, you must not give way to them. If you give way to fear that will doubtless beset you in your first action, if you show the white feather, if you let your men go forward while you hunt a shell crater, you will never again have the opportunity of leading those men.
Use judgement in calling on your men for displays of physical courage or bravery "Don't ask any man to go where you would not go yourself."
If your common sense tells you that the place is too dangerous for you to venture into, then it is too dangerous for him. You know his life is as valuable to him as yours is to you.
If your men know you and know that you are "right" you will never lack volunteers, for they will know your heart is in your work, that you would willingly carry the message yourself if you could. Your example and enthusiasm will have inspired them.
If you aspire to leadership, you need to study your men. Get under their skins and find out what is inside. Some men are quite different from what they appear to be on the surface determine the workings of their mind.
You cannot know your opponent in this war in the same way. But you can know your own men. You can study each to determine wherein lies his strength and his weakness, which man can be relied upon to the last gasp and which cannot.
Know your men, know your business, know yourself!
"Make bold decisions quickly"
Your definite chief aim will never be anything else but a mere wish unless you become a person of initiative and aggressively and persistently pursue that aim until it has been fulfilled.
Your aim must be active not passive.
You can get nowhere without persistence, a fact that cannot be too often repeated.
The difference between persistence and lack of it is the same as the difference between wishing for a thing and positively determining to get it.
To become a person of initiative, you must form the habit of aggressively and persistently following the object of your definite chief aim until you acquire it, whether this requires one year or twenty years. You might as well have no definite chief aim as to have such an aim without continuous effort to achieve it.
If you do not take some step each day that brings you nearer of your definite chief aim. Do not fool yourself, or permit yourself to be misled to believe that your definite chief aim will materialize if you just wait.
The materialization will come only through your own determination, backed by your own carefully laid plans and your own Initiative in putting those plans into action, or it will not come at all.
One of the major requisites for leadership is the power of quick and firm decision!
Analysis of more than 16,000 people disclosed the fact that leaders always make ready decisions, even in matters of small importance, while followers never make quick decisions.
This is worth remembering!
The follower vacillates, procrastinates, and actually refuses to reach a decision, even in matters of the smallest importance, unless a leader induces him or her to do so.
To know that the majority of people cannot and will not reach decisions quickly, if at all, is of great help to the leader who knows what he or he wants and has a plan for getting it.
The leader not only works with a definite chief aim, but also has a very definite plan for attaining the object of that aim.
The chief reason why the followers does not reach decision is that he or she lacks of self confidence.
Every leader makes use of the law of definite aim, the law of self confidence, and the law of Initiative and leadership. And an outstanding, successful leader also makes use of the laws of imagination, enthusiasm, self control, pleasing personality, Accurate thinking, concentration, and tolerance.
Without the combined use of all these laws no one may become a really great leader.
Omission of a single one of theses laws lessens the power of the leader proportionately.
If you have a talent, use it in every way possible, Don't hoard it. Don't dole it out like a miser. Spread it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke.
-Ben Brendan Francis
Comments
Post a Comment