“Leadership is simple, but not easy.”

A leader must care about the troops, but at the same time the leader must complete the mission, and in doing so there will be risk and sometimes unavoidable consequences to the troops.

Waiting for the 100 percent right and certain solution leads to delay, indecision, and an inability to execute.

Decisively engaged?

Even the most competent of leaders can be overwhelmed if they try to tackle multiple problems or a number of tasks simultaneously.

Relax. Look around. Make a call.

Don’t fight stress. Embrace it. Turn it on itself. Use it to make yourself sharper and more alert. Use it to make you think and learn and get better and smarter and more effective. Use the stress to make you a better you.

For leaders, the humility to admit and own mistakes and develop a plan to overcome them is essential to success. The best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas. They are simply focused on the mission and how best to accomplish it.

In the business world, and in life, there are inherent complexities. It is critical to keep plans and communication simple.

When it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate. When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable.

The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails.

As a leader, it is up to you to explain the bigger picture to him—and to all your front line leaders. That is a critical component of leadership

Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.

When it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.

After all, there can be no leadership where there is no team.

Good leaders don’t make excuses.

As a leader, you have to balance the dichotomy, to be resolute where it matters but never inflexible and uncompromising on matters of little importance to the overall good of the team and the strategic mission.

There is nothing fast or easy about diplomacy. I have no illusions about that.

When the heart is open, it’s easier for the mind to be turned toward God.

It is easier to remove tyrants and destroy concentration camps than to kill the ideas that gave them birth.

It’s easy to just write about love, because everyone can relate, but I like variety.

Painful the grounds for resentment, the easier it is for a Fascist leader to gain followers by dangling the prospect of renewal or by vowing to take back what has been stolen.

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions.

I still have a spiritual base and a spiritual foundation. And my conversation with God is very open-ended. I pray for humility, honestly, because it’s very easy to be caught up in this world.