PATTON ON LEADERSHIP

A leader has to be ahead of his men. You’ve got to know what is going on all the time. You cannot swim without being in the water! You cannot ice skate without being on the ice. Take the map with you and get up front!

Qualities of a Great General
1. Tactically aggressive (loves a fight)
2. Strength of character
3. Steadiness of purpose
4. Acceptance of responsibility
5. Energy
6. Good health

Never use the words, “In my opinion, I believe, I think or I guess,” and never say “I don’t think!” You can be wrong, but never be in doubt when you speak!
You need to establish the authority of your directives and instructions. You need to ensure that what you want done gets done.

"Patton never launches a campaign without first thoroughly exploring it with his senior commanders. He never jammed an operation down their throats. It was his practice to assemble the corps commanders in the War Room, have the planning group outline a proposed operation, and then invite the former to 'work it over.' He encouraged free and frank discussion."    -Robert S. Allen

Know the limits of what you can expect from yourself and your subordinates. Be willing to push to those limits, but understand that pushing beyond them is subject to one of the few absolute laws that govern business and other human endeavor: the law of diminishing returns. Pushed beyond their limits, people work inefficiently, poorly, even counter productively or destructively.

Everything that interested [Patton] was painstakingly typed on note cards and suitable annotated with additional ideas and comments.

"All this talk about super weapons and push-button warfare is a pile of junk. Man is the only war machine… Always remember that man is the only machine that can win the war… It’s nice to have good equipment,… but man is the key. Get a determined bunch of men and women and they will win the battles no matter what the odds or what kind of equipment they use."   -Patton

"You got to drive the body to the last inch of energy and then go on! You gain nothing by just going up to where your body says you are tired and exhausted. The body will build and grow only to fit the demands which the mind makes upon the lazy body. If all you do is exercise until the body is tired, the body will get lazy and stop a bit shorter every time. You have to go to the point of exhaustion and go on. That way the body will figure out, “We got to build up more body strength if that crazy mind is going to drive this hard.” If you always quit when you are merely tired, you will never gain. Once you let the body tell the mind when to quit, you are whipped for sure. You cannot gain by listening to the body. We can become much stronger if we drive the body. We use about one-tenth of the available strength of our bodies and less than that of our minds!”   -Patton

From  by Alan Axelrod