“leadership is the single greatest factor in any team’s performance.”

A good leader does not get bogged down in the minutia of a tactical problem at the expense of strategic success.

His realistic assessment, acknowledgment of failure, and ownership of the problem were key to developing a plan to improve performance and ultimately win.

There is only hard work, late nights, early mornings, practice, rehearsal, repetition, study, sweat, blood, toil, frustration, and discipline.

Leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities, between one extreme and another.

A mission statement tells your troops what you are doing.

People do not follow robots.

A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove.

If we could execute with a monumental effort just to reach an immediate goal that everyone could see, we could then continue to the next visually.

I can remember many times when my boat crew struggled. It was easy to make excuses for our team’s performance and why it wasn’t what it should have been. But I learned that good leaders don’t make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get it done and win.

Repetitive exceptional performance became a habit.

All elements within the greater team are crucial and must work together to accomplish the mission, mutually supporting one another for that singular purpose.

But we can’t ever think we are too good to fail or that our enemies are not capable, deadly, and eager to exploit our weaknesses. We must never get complacent. This is where controlling the ego is most important.

Get after it.

Generally, when a leader struggles, the root cause behind the problem is that the leader has leaned too far in one direction and steered off course. Awareness.

So how can a leader become great if they lack the natural characteristics necessary to lead? The answer is simple: a good leader builds a great team that counterbalances their weaknesses.

There is no easy way.

I would also urge leaders to remain humble. If you don’t worry about who gets the credit, you get a lot more done.

The conservatives saw the Fascist leader as someone they could hide behind, manipulate, and, when convenient, replace.

This was how twentieth-century Fascism began: with a magnetic leader exploiting widespread dissatisfaction by promising all things.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.

Leadership consists of character and strategy. If you can’t have both, opt for character.

The leader must own everything in his or her world.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.