My definition of leadership is this: Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.
One of the things that limits our learning is our belief that we already know something.
It didn’t matter how smart my plan was if the team couldn’t execute it!
When the performance of a unit goes down after an officer leaves, it is taken as a sign that he was a good leader, not that he was ineffective in training his people properly.
I asked them a loosely structured set of questions like these: What are the things you are hoping I don’t change? What are the things you secretly hope I do change? What are the good things about Santa Fe we should build on? If you were me what would you do first? Why isn’t the ship doing better? What are your personal goals for your tour here on Santa Fe? What impediments do you have to doing your job? What will be our biggest challenge to getting Santa Fe ready for deployment? What are your biggest frustrations about how Santa Fe is currently run? What is the best thing I can do for you?
“Don’t move information to authority, move authority to the information.”