America needs a restart. It has long devoted its energies to solving its many big problems - unequal opportunity, crumbling infrastructure, lagging education, inadequate training in a changing economy, and threats to peace around the world.
— Stanley A. McChrystal
Change is painful, and people are always reticent to accept a lot of pain.
In our society, I see public media as a lever. It pushes people by elevating them and their sights. It brings them into more thinking and understanding, and it brings us together.
Tensions and violence in cities across America are reminders of how quickly communities can erupt with an absence of social trust.
How Americans restore trust may be an existential question for their country, then, but it's ultimately a practical one: What U.S. society needs to answer it in the coming years aren't lamentations but practical measures, especially among the emerging generations that will define America's future.
I came to believe that a leader isn't good because they're right; they're good because they're willing to learn and to trust.
I think my biggest achievement was being part of a team of outstanding, entrepreneurial military leaders and civilians who helped change the way in which America fights by transforming a global special operations task force - Task Force 714 - that I commanded.
Soldiers fighting a daily battle under frightening conditions can feel their leaders are far removed from their reality. There's no magic cure for this challenge, and soothing words that aren't backed up by action encourage cynicism.
Many leaders are tempted to lead like a chess master, striving to control every move, when they should be leading like gardeners, creating and maintaining a viable ecosystem in which the organization operates.
When I became commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force, I was leading thousands of individuals, from Special Forces to the broader interagency effort. I quickly realized that while we had the most best and most effective operators and small teams in the world, we were unable to scale.
If we are visiting Afghans, typically the Afghan governor, district or provincial governor, we see he doesn't wear body armor, and yet we're walking through his streets. I'm his guest. I think that that's important that I send a message that I trust him and I don't think I am more valuable than I think he is.
I think with the beginning of any political administration, you have to build trust, and it takes time.
Any war or conflict you enter where you are likely to lose more Americans and expend more treasure is something worthy of very detailed debate. There ought to be a lot of skepticism. There ought to be a lot of discussion.
Trust is an amazing commodity. The Afghan people often talk to me about having to develop trust in America, because they believe that we deserted them in 1990 and 1991.
My very identity as a soldier came to an abrupt end. I'd been soldiering as long as I'd been shaving. Suddenly I'd been told I could no longer soldier, and it felt as though no one really cared if I ever shaved again.
President Obama had voiced strong support for the effort in Afghanistan during his campaign, pledging to add two brigades, which he did. But since the inauguration... the administration had signaled that the U.S. commitment needed careful assessment, and we needed to recalibrate the strategy and objectives.
There is only one Army in which you serve. When that identity is gone, it is gone forever.
The basic DNA we've got to implant in leaders now is adaptability: not to get wedded to the solution to a particular problem, because not only the problem but the solution changes day to day. Creating people who are hardwired for that is going to be our challenge for the future.
In an organization that is unwilling to change, find the opportunity to talk and interact with people - figure out why they don't want to change. It could be habits. It could be people's personal equities and reputations are defined by the role they're in or the process they've mastered.
Public, noncommercial broadcasting is also giving kids social-emotional skills like persistence and self-control that are fundamental to success in school, not to mention in the military, the institution where I spent most of my career.
Political campaigns offer Americans an opportunity to adjust direction, reaffirm values, and recommit to the covenant that binds them together.
I was raised with traditional stories of leadership: Robert E. Lee, John Buford at Gettysburg. And I also was raised with personal examples of leadership. This was my father in Vietnam. And I was raised to believe that soldiers were strong and wise and brave and faithful; they didn't lie, cheat, steal, or abandon their comrades.
A fundamental principle that I learned in my career, and a principle that my consulting company McChrystal Group helps American civilian companies to adopt, is that winning units and organizations ensure that the time they actually spend - daily, weekly, and yearly - must hew closely to their priorities.
When I arrived in the summer of 2009 to command the war in Afghanistan, I entered an effort that was failing. Many Afghans, some ISAF coalition members, and much of the American public had lost confidence in both the trajectory of the war and our ability to correct it.
There's an art to asking questions. Briefings are valuable but normally communicate primarily what the subordinate leader wants you to know, and often the picture they provide is incomplete.
Empowering, cultivating, and ultimately serving those who follow you will unlock massive potential within your organization, allowing you to solve for problems in real time.
I think life is hard at the combat outposts, and anything that distracts us from supporting them, in my mind, is something that we shouldn't do.
Anyone in a position of power is either corrupt or assumed to be corrupt, and the assumption of corruption is as bad as the reality of it.
The challenge that we faced with the arrival of the Obama administration is, they didn't really have time to build trust before they had to make big, difficult decisions.
I think every war certainly wears on national will and national patience, particularly a counterinsurgency.
You're going to find out who your friends are. Anything that happens in your life is one of those challenges. It may not be at the level of celebrity, but everybody's going to travel that road.
I don't miss the bureaucracy of being in the Army. But I still love the relationships you can build. And it doesn't have to be in military service - it can be anything you're doing with someone that matters. You develop a bond.
One of the great things about America is we should not judge until we know the facts.
In June 2010, after more than 38 years in uniform, in the midst of commanding a 46-nation coalition in a complex war in Afghanistan, my world changed suddenly - and profoundly. An article in 'Rolling Stone' magazine depicting me, and people I admired, in a manner that felt as unfamiliar as it was unfair, ignited a firestorm.
The military does very well taking average people and making them very good leaders.
We need a strong civil society where the connection between different people and groups is firm and vibrant, not brittle and divided.
Public television works hard to engage young learners and build the skills needed for a jump-start on life. We need our youngest to be curious, resilient and empathetic, and prepared for the jobs of the future.
A year of service has the power to bring young people together from different races, ethnicities, incomes, faiths, and political backgrounds to work on pressing problems facing U.S. society today.
You can get knocked down, and it hurts and it leaves scars. But if you're a leader, the people you've counted on will help you up. And if you're a leader, the people who count on you need you on your feet.
Leadership contains certain elements of good management, but it requires that you inspire, that you build durable trust. For an organization to be not just good but to win, leadership means evoking participation larger than the job description, commitment deeper than any job contract's wording.
Over my career, I'd watched senior leader visits have unintended negative consequences. Typically, schedules were unrealistically overloaded and were modified during the visit to cancel parts of the plan.
By nature, I tended to trust people and was typically open and transparent... But such transparency would go astray when others saw us out of context or when I gave trust to those few who were unworthy of it.
Leaders must establish common purpose and build trust within an organization.
We could do good things in Afghanistan for the next 100 years and fail.
I go back and think of President Kennedy, who had a military service background, but he comes into the presidency, and he's faced with a decision on the Bay of Pigs, with the C.I.A. and the military giving him data, and it turns out very badly.
Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity.
In every relationship, there are two perspectives to it.
If who you were was entirely based upon the position you were in or the headlines you got in the newspaper, or you had essentially subcontracted out your self-worth to the judgments of others, then you're going to be like tumbleweed. You're going to be blown.
When you go through some controversy and you see your face on the news in a negative way for 48 hours... you doubt yourself. And your friends make the difference. They become a safety net that come in and say, 'That's not the case.' And the relationships that you've built... come to the fore.
Like leaders in many walks of life, my business has been to serve with, and for, others.
