Sun Tzu Leadership Quotes

If soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you, they will not prove submissive; and, unless submissive, then will be practically useless. If, when the soldiers have become attached to you, punishments are not enforced, they will still be unless.

Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death.

Leaders can change the tenor of the workplace and create harmony in motion toward a favorable result. So every time you say to your team, "Let's rock and roll," make sure you have already set up the stage to where they can actually perform like rock stars.

Leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and sternness.

The Way means inducing the people to have the same aim as the leadership,

The Sun Tzu School (which wrote the Art of War) surely never imagined that their antiwar, pro-empire treatise would become known and accepted after the fall of the first empire as a text on military tactics. Likewise, they would have been surprised to see the Ping-fa military metaphor—an inspired teaching device—come to be seen as the message and not the medium.

The general is the protector of the state. If this protection is all-embracing, the state will surely be strong; if defective, the state will certainly be weak. A sovereign who obtains the right person prospers. One who fails to do so will be ruined.

Sun Tzu had described five factors that matter in competition between two opponents. Loosely speaking, these are: — purpose, landscape, climate, doctrine and leadership.

Every commander is aware of this five fundamental determinants: the path, the heaven, the earth, the leadership and discipline

Ask yourself which political leadership—your own or that of your enemy—is able to reject flatterers and draw close to the wise.

Religion will tell you that some people have ‘grace’ while economics will probably attribute it to some forces of demand and supply. The reality is that it is possible that everyone lives a life of comfort but there are 2 reasons why this will never be the reality; Firstly, humans are typically greedy and secondly, because not everyone will be committed to the process of being successful.

In essence a highly developed fingertip feel allows us to shape and reshape the circumstances and conditions. We are not merely responding we are setting up the situation or as Sun Tzu stated: “Therefore it is said that victorious warriors win first, then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first, then seek to win.”3 When having to perform effectively in the complex circumstances conflict and violence offer, we must strive to overcome obstacles and focus on exploiting weaknesses and avoiding adversarial strengths. This takes ability to intuitively feel the climate of an ongoing and rapidly changing situation and then adapt accordingly. The ability and or timing of adaptation can be fleeting as opportunities present and close often times very quickly. Developing fingertip feel so that we can rapidly transition fluidly as the circumstances require is critical. Boyd called these fast transient Maneuvers.

Sun Tzu's definition of speed is often misconstrued and shown through quick responses such as; doors being immediately kicked in upon arrival. You see knee jerk reactions to the report of a single gunshot and immediate entry made without knowing anymore than the fact that a gun went off. You see it in tactical responses and approaches to various calls for service where the possibility of danger exists.

Mastering speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of a large enemy’s inability to keep up. Use a philosophy of avoiding difficult situations. Attack the area where he doesn’t expect you.” ~Sun Tzu the Art of War1   In handling dynamic encounters, the phrase "time criticality" is often discussed. In this discussion there is often a miss-conception that to put time on your side, you must force the issue or, force the subject into action and always advance your position by moving forward. Speed is the essence of conflict, but speed does not always mean moving fast physically. It means preparing so you are in a position of advantage, which gives you time, hence speed.

From this basis, Boyd sets out to develop a normative view on a design for command and control. As in Patterns of Conflict, he starts with some ‘samples from historical environment’, offering nine citations from nine practitioners, including from himself (see Box 6.1):6 Sun Tzu (around 400 BC) Probe enemy strength to unmask his strengths, weaknesses, patterns of movement and intentions. Shape enemy’s perception of world to manipulate/undermine his plans and actions. Employ Cheng/Ch’I maneuvers to quickly and unexpectedly hurl strength against weaknesses. Bourcet (1764–71) A plan ought to have several branches . . . One should . . . mislead the enemy and make him imagine that the main effort is coming at some other part. And . . . one must be ready to profit by a second or third branch of the plan without giving one’s enemy time to consider it. Napoleon (early 1800s) Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less chary of the latter than the former. Space we can recover, time never. I may lose a battle, but I shall never lose a minute. The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack. Clausewitz (1832) Friction (which includes the interaction of many factors, such as uncertainty, psychological/moral forces and effects, etc.) impedes activity. Friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper. In this sense, friction represents the climate or atmosphere of war. Jomini (1836) By free and rapid movements carry bulk of the forces (successively) against fractions of the enemy. N.B. Forrest (1860s) Git thar the fustest with the mostest. Blumentritt (1947) The entire operational and tactical leadership method hinged upon . . . rapid concise assessment of situations, . . . and quick decision and quick execution, on the principle: each minute ahead of the enemy is an advantage. Balck (1980) Emphasis upon creation of implicit connections or bonds based upon trust, not mistrust, that permit wide freedom for subordinates to exercise imagination and initiative – yet harmonize within intent of superior commanders. Benefit: internal simplicity that permits rapid adaptability. Yours truly Operate inside adversary’s observation-orientation-decision-action loops to enmesh adversary in a world of uncertainty, doubt, mistrust, confusion, disorder, fear, panic, chaos . . . and/or fold adversary back inside himself so that he cannot cope with events/efforts as they unfold.

Every course of action you take in life needs to be seen as a war. Why? Simply put, you will be exerting effort, expending resources, and there is likely to be a winner and a loser. Not every war is violent.

There are three basic steps that can be learned when it comes to learning self-awareness: reflection, understanding, adaption.

If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy, nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

So a military force has no constant formation, water has no constant shape: the ability to gain victory by changing and adapting according to the opponent is called genius.” – Sun Tzu

If you want to become successful in your life, you must be able to compensate or overcome your own shortcoming.

Until more women become recognized as competent and reliable leaders, assuming roles of leadership will remain an uphill battle. By all means, draw inspiration from Hillary Rodham Clinton, former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, business executive Carly Fiorina, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, or Carolyn Lamm (President of the American Bar Association), but remember that the majority of effective female leaders are neither rich nor famous. They’re just competent, devoted, and hard-working people, pretty much like you.

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.

courage is the conscious choice to push past the emotion of fear and do the thing you wanted to do anyway.

Some can struggle to a victory and the whole world may praise their winning. This also demonstrates a limited ability. Win as easily as picking up a fallen hair. Don’t use all of your forces. See the time to move. Don’t try to find something clever. Hear the clap of thunder. Don’t try to hear something subtle. Learn from the history of successful battles. Victory goes to those who make winning easy. A good battle is one that you will obviously win. It doesn’t take intelligence to win a reputation. It doesn’t take courage to achieve success. You must win your battles without effort. Avoid difficult struggles. Fight when your position must win. You always win by preventing your defeat. ~ Sun Tzu" 1

Along the way after introductions to putting Boyd’s, Sun Tzu and Clausewitz (two other brilliant military (human conflict) thinkers) as well as other’s thoughts to practice, we begin introductions to actually implementing these ideas in the classroom along with examples of how they translated to the street. Over the course of the book, these real-world examples compile to actually form a real world Program of Instruction (POI) for a course that was implemented successful in a large police force just a couple of years ago.

Many Western readers act offended by the mention of war in the Bible, yet celebrate the stratagem of war taught by Sun Tzu as though it is the original book on leadership and success. The Bible, of course, was written over a 1000 years before Sun Tzu was born.