My View On Leadership

I'm not really bothered by politics, as far as I'm concerned just about all politicians are worthless, but after listening to the Commander in Chief blame the Bush administration for the changes in the political landscape the last few days, I've got something to say. I spent many years in the Army, I held many leadership positions, I attended many professional leadership schools, I worked for good leaders and I struggled under bad leaders, and from all this I learned two very important things about leadership.

1. Give orders and make policy in your name, take ownership and responsibility for the orders you give or the policies you enact, don't hide behind someone else and blame them for what you're making your subordinates do.

2. Take responsibility for your command, don't blame the failures or shortcomings of your unit on your predecessor, it doesn't matter what shape your command was in when you took over, it's your responsibility to fix it if it's broke.

I truly believe that the president does not understand the basic principles of leadership, the bottom line, a strong leader takes responsibility and a weak leader blames others for his failures.