Book Notes - The US Army Leadership Field Manual

The US Army Leadership Field Manual

The Official US Army Guide 

                                        by Center for Army Leadership

Part One – The Leader, Leadership, and the Human Dimension

Part Two – Direct Leadership: For First-line, Face-to-Face Leaders

1.     Direct Leadership Skills

2.     Direct Leadership Actions

Part Three – Organizational and Strategic Leadership

1.     Organizational Leadership – Skill and Actions

2.     Strategic Leadership – Skills and Actions

Appendix – Performance Indicators

Appendix – Character Development

1.     (Y)our mission ….is to win our wars…(Y)ou are the ones who are trained to fight. Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory; that if you lose, the nation will be destroyed… - By General Douglas MacArthur, 1962

2.     The most precious commodity with which the Army deals is the individual soldier who is the heart and soul of our combat forces. – General J Lawton Collins

3.     Just as the diamond requires three properties for its formation – carbon, heat, and pressure – successful leaders require the interaction of three properties – character, knowledge, and application. Like carbon to the diamond, character is the basic quality of the leader. But as carbon alone does not create a diamond, neither can character alone create a leader. The diamond needs heat. Man needs knowledge, study and preparation. The third property, pressure – acting in conjunction with carbon and heat – forms the diamond. Similarly, ones character, attended by knowledge, blooms through application to produce a leader. – General Edward C. Meyer

4.     “No one is more professional than I” – The Creed of the Noncommissioned Officer

5.     Leadership is “influencing” people – by providing purpose, direction, and motivation – while “operating” to accomplish the mission and improving the organization.

6.     BE, KNOW, DO

7.     When you are commanding, leading (soldiers) under conditions where physical exhaustion and privations must be ignored, where the lives of (soldiers) may be sacrificed, then, the efficiency of your leadership will depend only to a minor degree on your tactical ability. It will primarily be determined by your character, your reputation, not much for courage – which will be accepted as a matter of course – but by the previous reputation you have established for fairness, for that high-minded patriotic purpose, that quality of unswerving determination to carry through  any military task assigned to you. – General George C Marshall

8.     To our subordinates we owe everything we are or hope to be. For it is our subordinates, not our superiors, who raise us to the dizziest of professional heights, and it is our subordinates who can and will, if we deserve it, bury us in the deepest mire of disgrace. When the chips are down and our subordinates have accepted us as their leader, we don’t need any superior to tell us; we see it in their eyes and in their faces, in the barracks, on the field, and on the battle line. And on that final day when we must be ruthlessly demanding, cruel and heartless, they will rise as one to do our bidding, knowing full well that it may be their last act in this life. – Colonel Albert G Jenkins

9.     When I became the chief of staff, I set two personal goals for myself. The first was to ensure that the Army was continually prepared to go to war, and the second was to create a climate in which each member could find personal meaning and fulfillment. It is my belief that only by attainment of the second goal will we ensure the first. – GEN Edward C Meyer

10.  Everywhere you look – on the fields of athletic competition, in combat training, operations, and in civilian communities – soldiers are doing what is right. – Sergeant Major of the Army, Julius W Gates

11.  LDRSHIP

(ア)                   L – Loyalty

(イ)                   D – Duty

(ウ)                   R – Respect

(エ)                   S – Selfless Service

(オ)                   H – Honor

(カ)                   I – Integrity

(キ)                   P – Personal Courage

12. The essence of duty is acting in the absence of orders or direction from others, based on an inner sense of what is morally and professionally right. – GEN John A Wickham Jr.

13. Put the welfare of the nation, the Army, and subordinates before your own. The nation today needs men who think in terms of service to their country and not in terms of their country’s debt to them. – GEN Omar N Bradley

14. What is life without honor? Degradation is worse than death.

15. Face fear, danger, or adversity (physical or moral) – the concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to the soldiers problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation, and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he’s wrong. – William Connelly

16. Leadership is not a natural trait, something inherited like the color of eyes of hair…. Leadership is a skill that can be studied, learned, and perfected by practice. – Noncom’s Guide

17. The will of soldiers is three times more important than their weapons. – Colonel Dandridge Malone

18. The core of a soldier is moral discipline. It is intertwined with the discipline of physical and mental achievement. Total discipline overcomes adversity, and physical stamina draws on an inner strength that says “drive on”. – William Bainbridge

19. The leader must be an aggressive thinker – always anticipating and analyzing. He must be able to make good assessments and solid tactical judgments. Brigadier Gen John Nelson

20. I learned that good judgment comes from experience and that experience grows out of mistakes. – GEN Omar Bradley

21. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly and secretly what I should do in circumstances unexpected by others; it is thought and meditation.

22. Fatigue makes coward of us all. – GEN George Patton Jr.

23. Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not easy. – Aristotle, Greek philosopher

24. Never let yourself be driven by impatience or anger. One always regrets having followed the first dictates of his emotions. – Marshal de Belle Isle, French minister of war

25. Just as fire tempers iron into fine steel, so does adversity temper one’s character into firmness, tolerance, and determination. – Margaret Chase Smith

26. All soldiers are entitled to outstanding leadership; I will provide that leadership. I know my soldiers and I will always place their needs above my own. I will communicated consistently with my soldiers and never leave them uninformed. – Creed of the Noncommissioned Officer

27. The Army is an institution, not an occupation. Members take an oath of service to the nation and the Army, rather than simply accept a job … the Army has moral and ethical obligations to those who serve and their families; they, correspondingly, have responsibilities to the Army. – John Wickham Jr.

28. Readiness is the best way of truly taking care of soldiers. – Richard Kidd

29. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened. The courageous man is the man who forces himself, in spite of his fear, to carry on. – Gen George Patton

30. A man does not have himself killed for a few half pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify the man. – Napolean Bonaparte

31. Never get so caught up in cutting wood that you forget to sharpen your axe. – James Karolchyk

32. The most important influence you have on your people is the example you set.

33. A good leader must sometimes be stubborn. Armed with the courage of his convictions, he must often fight to defend them. When he has come to a decision after thorough an analysis – and when he is sure he is right – he must stick to it even to the point of stubbornness. – GEN Omar Bradley

34. Soldiers learn to be good leaders from good leaders. – Richard Kidd

35. For most men, the matter of learning is one of personal preference. But for Army leaders, the obligation to learn, to grow in their profession, is clearly a public duty. – GEN Omar Bradley

36. To get the best out of your men, they must feel that you are their real leader and must know that they can depend upon you. – GEN John Pershing

37. Soldiers need leaders who know how to fight and how to make the right decisions. – GEN Carl Vuono

38. Making decisions, exercising command, managing, administering – those are the dynamics of our calling. Responsibility is its core. – Gen Harold K Johnson

39. A soldier may not always believe what you say, but he will never doubt what you do. – Battalion Commander’s Handbook

40. Too often we place the burden of comprehension on (those at a different level from) us, assuming both the existence of a common language and motivation. – GEN Edward C Meyer

41. If it’s dumb it’ not our policy. – Lt Gen Walter Ulmer

42. The key is not to make quick decisions, but to make timely decisions. – GEN Colin Powell

43. It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It is morale that wins the victory. – GEN George Marshall

44. A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week. – GEN George Patton Jr.

45. None of us is as smart as all of us. – a brigade commander

46. Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. – GEN George Patton Jr.

47. The creative leader is one who will rewrite doctrine, employ new weapons system, develop new tactics and who pushes the state of the art. – John O Marsh

48. The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it. – Theodore Roosevelt

49. It is in the minds of the commanders that the issue of battle is really decided. – Sir Basil Liddell Hart

50. True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information. – Sir Winston Churchill

51. Leadership is understanding people and involving them to help you do a job. That takes all of the good characteristics, like integrity, dedication of purpose, selflessness, knowledge, skill, implacability, as well as determination not to accept failure. – Admiral Arleigh Burke

52. If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile-driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it a second time – a tremendous whack! – Sir Winston Churchill

53. It is the morale of armies, as well as of nations, more than anything else, which makes victories and their results decisive. – Baron Antoine-Henri de Jomini

54. There are no victories at bargain prices. – GEN Dwight D Eisenhower

55. The higher up the chain of command, the greater is the need for boldness to be supported by a reflective mind, so that boldness does not degenerate into purposeless bursts of blind passion. – Carl von Clausewitz

56. A good soldier, whether he leads a platoon or an army, is expected to look backward as well as forward; but he must think only forward. – GEN Douglas MacArthur

57. Performance Indicators

(ア)                   Values

①     Loyalty

(イ)                   Duty

(ウ)                   Respect

(エ)                   Selfless Service

(オ)                   Honor

(カ)                   Integrity

(キ)                   Personal Courage

(ク)                   Attributes

①     Mental Attributes

②     Physical Attributes

③     Emotional Attributes

(ケ)                   Skills

①     Interpersonal Skills

②     Conceptual Skills

③     Technical Skills

④     Tactical Skills

⑤     Actions

1.       Influencing

2.       communicating

(ア) Oral communication

(イ) Written communication

⑥     Decision Making

⑦     Motivating

⑧     Operating

1.       planning and preparing

2.       executing

3.       assessing

(コ)                   Improving

(サ)                   Developing

(シ)                   Building

(ス)                   Learning

58. Character Development

(ア)                   Leaders teach values, subordinates learn the culture

(イ)                   Leaders reinforce values, subordinates comply

(ウ)                   Leaders shape the ethical climate, subordinates internalize army values

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