Marine Corps Leadership Quotes

The cost of leadership,” explains Lieutenant General George Flynn of the United States Marine Corps, “is self-interest.

There are no heroes Only those that accomplish incredible feats Under incredible amounts of pressure

The only person I wouldn't want to fight is myself." -Kai Gug

No matter how hard you train them, how deliberately you plan, or how much support you send their way; to lose Marines is to watch as fires flicker out beneath a torrent of rain.

We are inhabitants of a world where pride and divisiveness have become common in the workplace as people fight for status. It has almost become second nature for people to be overly willful, arrogant, intolerant, and rigid in order to establish dominance within the pecking order. However, leaders with these traits are trouble, for they erode the spirit of the organization by reducing staff resolve and creating chaos.

Qualities such as honesty, determination, and a cheerful acceptance of stress, which can all be identified through probing questionnaires and interviews, may be more important to the company in the long run than one's college grade-point average or years of "related experience." Every business is only as good as the people it brings into the organization. The corporate trainer should feel his job is the most important in the company, because it is. Exalt seniority-publicly, shamelessly, and with enough fanfare to raise goosebumps on the flesh of the most cynical spectator. And, after the ceremony, there should be some sort of permanent display so that employees passing by are continuously reminded of their own achievements and the achievements of others. The manager must freely share his expertise-not only about company procedures and products and services but also with regard to the supervisory skills he has worked so hard to acquire. If his attitude is, "Let them go out and get their own MBAs," the personnel under his authority will never have the full benefit of his experience. Without it, they will perform at a lower standard than is possible, jeopardizing the manager's own success. Should a CEO proclaim that there is no higher calling than being an employee of his organization? Perhaps not-for fear of being misunderstood-but it's certainly all right to think it. In fact, a CEO who does not feel this way should look for another company to manage-one that actually does contribute toward a better life for all. Every corporate leader should communicate to his workforce that its efforts are important and that employees should be very proud of what they do-for the company, for themselves, and, literally, for the world. If any employee is embarrassed to tell his friends what he does for a living, there has been a failure of leadership at his workplace. Loyalty is not demanded; it is created. Why can't a CEO put out his own suggested reading list to reinforce the corporate vision and core values? An attractive display at every employee lounge of books to be freely borrowed, or purchased, will generate interest and participation. Of course, the program has to be purely voluntary, but many employees will wish to be conversant with the material others are talking about. The books will be another point of contact between individuals, who might find themselves conversing on topics other than the weekend football games. By simply distributing the list and displaying the books prominently, the CEO will set into motion a chain of events that can greatly benefit the workplace. For a very cost-effective investment, management will have yet another way to strengthen the corporate message. The very existence of many companies hangs not on the decisions of their visionary CEOs and energetic managers but on the behavior of its receptionists, retail clerks, delivery drivers, and service personnel. The manager must put himself and his people through progressively challenging courage-building experiences. He must make these a mandatory group experience, and he must lead the way. People who have confronted the fear of public speaking, and have learned to master it, find that their new confidence manifests itself in every other facet of the professional and personal lives. Managers who hold weekly meetings in which everyone takes on progressively more difficult speaking or presentation assignments will see personalities revolutionized before their eyes. Command from a forward position, which means from the thick of it. No soldier will ever be inspired to advance into a hail of bullets by orders phoned in on the radio from the safety of a remote command post; he is inspired to follow the officer in front of him. It is much more effective to get your personnel to follow you than to push them forward from behind a desk. The more important the mission, the more important it is to be at the front.

And the Corps as a whole focuses on its heroes and on its magnificent battle history, partly to instill a strong service culture in its new recruits, partly to instill the values necessary to do the job, and partly to teach all Marines that they have the potential to achieve something beyond themselves. After all, young Marines can understand and aspire to valor and greatness; death and defeat they cannot.

Wars may be started by the failings of humanity But they are won By the craft Of the keen and intelligent minds that fight them

But I also learned important things on Peleliu. A man’s ability to depend on his comrades and immediate leadership is absolutely necessary. I’m convinced that our discipline, esprit de corps, and tough training were the ingredients that equipped me to survive the ordeal physically and mentally—given a lot of good luck, of course. I learned realism, too. To defeat an enemy as tough and dedicated as the Japanese, we had to be just as tough. We had to be just as dedicated to America as they were to their emperor. I think this was the essence of Marine Corps doctrine in World War II, and that history vindicates this doctrine. To

When you are with Marines gathering to eat, you will notice that the most junior are served first and the most senior are served last. When you witness this act, you will also note that no order is given. Marines just do it. At the heart of this very simple action is the Marine Corps’ approach to leadership. Marine leaders are expected to eat last because the true price of leadership is the willingness to place the needs of others above your own. Great leaders truly care about those they are privileged to lead and understand that the true cost of the leadership privilege comes at the expense of self-interest.

A proper training and management culture will cultivate the leadership qualities desired.

Qualities such as honesty, determination, and a cheerful acceptance of stress, which can all be identified through probing questionnaires and interviews, may be more important to the company in the long run than one’s college grade-point average or years of “related experience.

It must be remembered, however, that everything looks good on a resume and that previous experience is difficult to verify and to quantify.

If the company has a reputation for offering the most complete, albeit rigorous, training in the world, one will feel cheated by working anywhere else. A corporation cannot develop and sustain this kind of attitude purely through PR.

These kinds of programs require a commitment from the company, which must invest time and energy into the community.

When you think about it, it makes sense,” says Lt. Colonel William Leek, commanding officer of the Los Angeles Recruiting Station. “Recruiting and basic training are two sides of the same coin. Why have two commanders for what is essentially one process, the making of Marines?

Are poor recruiting practices less consequential to the fate of a corporation? Clearly, every business is only as good as the people it brings into the organization. No function is more important to the ultimate survival of the company than human resources.

If the world’s finest fighting force assigns only its best people to a three-year challenge in recruiting, and then rewards them afterwards with promotion, why shouldn’t corporate America make HR a similar rite of passage for its most promising managers?

In private enterprise, the human resources office is the prospective employee’s first introduction to the corporation. Management must realize that the company is being appraised from the moment a bright, discerning candidate enters through the door. If he is greeted by a cheerful receptionist and led to an office that exhibits signs of good taste and stability, he will be pleasantly biased before the interview even begins.

If we want to be the best company for our customers and investors, we must first be the best company for our employees.

In a metaphorical sense, Marine Corps recruiters are the kingdom’s best knights, sent back from the battlefield into the villages to gather volunteers.

How many companies can say they have sent their “best knights” out onto the college campuses and job fairs to represent them? More often than not, management hires out this critical responsibility to a third party. Headhunters represent the company, taking on the perceived burden of interviewing and screening so many candidates.

belief in the product may be the single most compelling factor in that exchange of trust we call a sale.

The headhunter, generally paid by commission only, must place his applicant somewhere, and soon. He is motivated by a successful placement, rather than by a successful matching of individual talent to companies.

The recruiter is confident that the transformation will take place. He can cast a wide net because of his faith in the best training in the world.

It’s the training, not the screening, that can put a high school graduate, who may have never driven a car, at the wheel of a fifty-million-dollar tank.

It’s the training, not the screening, that creates Marine Corps leaders of all ranks.

Every drill instructor knows that leadership is something to be cultivated and that virtually every recruit has the potential.

By emphasizing its screening procedures, instead of its training, management rarely experiences that pleasant surprise of watching a leader emerge from an unlikely recruit.

Employees, too, could sign on for a year’s tour of duty, at a certain department, branch, or product line. Having the option to extend their stay or to apply for a lateral move into another assignment would give most employees a much appreciated sense of autonomy. Tours of duty could also be mandatory.

Whenever an HR representative speaks of “snagging” a prospect, or of “stealing” somebody from another company, he runs a substantial risk of losing his “catch” once the new employee has had time to consider the ramifications of a hurried decision. Another approach, one that uses less overt pressure but a great deal of “wining and dining,” has its own traps. HR should never confuse an applicant with events that will never be repeated. Too much attention, while flattering to a prospect, does not prepare him for the day-to-day work ethic he will be expected to follow.

The training of new personnel, whether they are Marines or corporate “soldiers,” simply costs too much to be thrown away on the uncommitted.

They have spoken, perhaps for the first time in their young lives, words that cannot be retracted. There is no turning back. They are in the Marine Corps, for real.

No matter how hard you train them, how deliberately you plan, or how much support you send their way, there is one constant that does not change; to lose marines is to watch as fires flick out beneath a torrent of rain.

… listening does not mean simply maintaining a polite silence while you are rehearsing in your mind the speech you are going to make the next time you can grab a conversational opening. Nor does listening mean waiting alertly for the flaws in the other fellow’s arguments so that later you can mow him down.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” —Theodore Roosevelt

Make sound and timely decisions. To make a sound decision, you should know your mission, what you are capable of doing to accomplish it, what means you have to accomplish it, and what possible impediments or obstacles exists (in combat, these would be enemy capabilities) that might stand in the way. Timeliness is almost as important as soundness. In many military situations, a timely, though inferior, decision is better than a long-delayed, though theoretically correct, decision.

Without unselfishness, it may be difficult to be dependable.

the value of continual training and personal skill development, straightforward and honest speech, and a pride in their mission which had come to be defined for the first time in official manuals: “To support combat operations by delivering precise fire on selected targets from concealed positions.

A leader expresses loyalty to his subordinates by supporting their needs and ensuring their welfare in a number of ways. Subordinates express loyalty to that sort of caring leadership by positively and efficiently carrying out the leader’s orders or instructions.

Leaders have many tools at their disposal to increase loyalty, such as backing up their people when they are right, correcting them in private when they are wrong, and publically criticizing neither superiors nor subordinates.

The essence of loyalty is the courage to propose the unpopular, coupled with a determination to obey, no matter how distasteful the ultimate decision. And the essence of leadership is the ability to inspire such behavior.

It was the marine corps where I first ordered grown men to do a job and watched them listen; where I learned that leadership depended far more on earning the respect of your subordinates than on bossing them around; where I leaned how to earn that respect; and where I saw that men and women of different social classes and races could work as a team and bond like family. It was the Marine Corps that first gave me an opportunity to truly fail, made me take that opportunity, and then, when I did fail, gave me another chance anyway. p175

General Gray, the 29th Commandant of the Marine Corps, characterized this evolutionary development this way: You have to understand Maneuver Warfare is really a thought process.... So it was much more of an impact and it is probably not even a good name but that’s what we gave it. The point is, it was all about empowering people and letting people do what they think they had to do, letting people make mistakes and so on, so they learn, and that was one of the big leadership parts of the maneuver thought process. The empowerment of people, and the idea of decentralization, in other words, maybe decentralizing operations so the intent is to understand two echelons up, and two echelons down, that type of thing. So that thought process is very, very important. I think that we in essence turned the Marine Corp loose. So the Marine Corp really did it. I just let them do it. 7

On the first run, two bombs landed within fifty yards of the target. We were shocked but still unbelieving. Someone else chose another target, and on this run the bombs made a direct hit! After three more runs, all with similar results, there was no doubt: all-weather bombing had arrived in the Marine Corps. On that day, Dalby earned a chorus of supporters. The support was not, however, universal. In the audience was a brigadier general from Washington. After the demonstration, he examined the equipment and was repelled by its obvious tentative condition. He commented that it had no real combat application, that "rain would short out this maze of wires in nothing flat." I heard Dalby declare that he would "never let a general behind the scenes again until I have it packaged up like a box of candy.