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

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.

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.

Leaders must accept total responsibility, own problems that inhibit performance, and develop solutions to those problems.

There’s a lot of blood, sweat, and guts between dreams and success.

I’ll never give up on a player regardless of his ability as long as he never gives up on himself. In time he will develop.

I’m no innovator. If anything I’m a stealer, or borrower. I’ve stolen or borrowed from more people than you can shake a stick at.

For a manager to be perceived as a positive manager, they need a four to one positive to negative contact ratio.

If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes real good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.

Sacrifice. Work. Self-discipline. I teach these things, and my boys don’t forget them when they leave.

It is a weakness that I lead from my heart, and not my head?

You must learn how to hold a team together. You must lift some men up, calm others down, until finally they’ve got one heartbeat. Then you’ve got yourself a team.