Whether you're a second lieutenant working with a captain and a lieutenant colonel, or a four-star general working with the Office Secretary of Defense and the White House, the decision makers have got to have ground truth. Otherwise, the decisions they make could be flawed - and that can be dangerous.
Interpretation
Decisions in leadership must be grounded in reality to avoid dangerous mistakes.
This quote emphasizes the importance of having accurate and truthful information at all levels of decision-making in leadership. John F. Kelly highlights that whether in military ranks or governmental positions, leaders need to be informed by 'ground truth' to ensure their decisions are sound; otherwise, they risk making flawed choices that could have serious consequences.
In practice
In a leadership seminar discussing the importance of data-driven decision-making.
Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths. The protected can't begin to understand the price paid so they and their families can sleep safe and free at night.
Unless confronted by an immediate, visible, or uncomfortable crisis, our nation's tendency is to take the security of the Western Hemisphere for granted.
The one thing I was always told is you absolutely have to tell truth to power. Whether you're a second lieutenant working with a captain and a lieutenant colonel, or a four-star general working with the Office Secretary of Defense and the White House, the decision makers have got to have ground truth.
We have a saying in the Marine Corps and that is 'no better friend, no worse enemy, than a U.S. Marine.' We always hope for the first, friendship, but are certainly more than ready for the second.
Since 1945, no one in the U.S. military has liked the end result of the military conflicts we've been in: Vietnam, Korea, certainly Iraq, and probably Afghanistan. But in a democracy, you salute.
One day, you'll get out of the Marine Corps; you'll put your uniform up, but you'll never not be a Marine.
The true leader must submerge himself in the fountain of the people.
Execution is the ability to mesh strategy with reality, align people with goals, and achieve the promised results.
What job is worth the enormous psychic cost of following a leader who values loyalty in the narrowest sense.
The effective executive knows that it is easier to raise the performance of one leader than it is to raise the performance of a whole mass. She therefore makes sure she puts into the leadership position, into the standard-setting, the performance-making position the person who has the strength to do the outstanding pacesetting job. This always requires focus on the one strength of a person and dismissal of weaknesses as irrelevant unless they hamper the full deployment of the available strength.
The Achaeans soon experienced, as often happens, that a victorious and powerful ally is but another name for a master.
I am struggling to maintain the government, not to overthrow it. I am struggling especially to prevent others from overthrowing it.
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