On Character

McChrystal wrote this as a collection of reflections from his military career and beyond. It reads like field notes from someone who’s been through it and thought hard about what worked and what didn’t.

On who we are vs. who we say we are

We can claim to be one thing, but in the end, we are what we do.

I wish I’d thought more, been more contemplative about my convictions, and been more deliberate about the person I sought to be.

Life, I’ve learned, is mostly about who we decide to be.

The only person who really fixates on what happened to you—is you.

Identity is action, accumulated over time. Not aspiration.

On self-discipline and priorities

Self-discipline as the will of an individual to consistently do what they believe is right.

Simple definition. Hard execution.

Prioritizing is about choices. While formal prioritization typically occurs in strategy sessions outlining how we must achieve our objectives, most of our priorities are embedded in our daily decisions.

What you do with your Tuesday afternoon reveals your priorities more than any strategic plan.

Getting your priorities right should be priority number one.

On thinking for yourself

Identify the question or issue at hand, leverage our extraordinary access to information—not to be influenced, but to be educated. And use the opportunity to decide what you think. Then ask yourself why. Don’t pull your punches. Cross-examine yourself with hard, uncomfortable questions and see if your logic is convincing.

And the next time you begin a sentence with “I think,” make sure you did.

I hear this constantly. Someone walks into a meeting with “we need a data mesh” or “we should move to event-driven.” Why? Because they read an article, or because they thought through the problem? There’s a difference between being informed and doing your own thinking.

On leadership

Leadership is not about what the leader transmits; it hinges on what followers hear and how they process it.

This is the gap I see most in technical leaders. They know the material. They present it clearly. And the room still walks away confused. The problem isn’t the content. It’s that the focus was on what they were saying instead of what the audience was hearing.

Choosing to lead is a serious step… It involves creating a vision, setting and enforcing standards, and committing to the welfare and development of others—sometimes many others. While not being false, you must will yourself to be a better, more courageous, more generous, and more mature person than you’d otherwise be.

Leaders must do what their people need, not what they want.

You can’t burden those you lead with your cares. They have their own to worry about.

Every young leader navigates a period of wanting to be friends with the ones they lead. But this is unfair and doesn’t work.

It’s about setting high standards and embodying them. It’s not complicated or sophisticated, just difficult. And sometimes, that’s the secret.

On urgency and moving fast

Going faster is simply a matter of demanding faster.

Looking at our watches while others focused on their calendars. Urgency is often a matter of perspective.

The problem lies not in the circumstances but in how we operate, what we expect, and what we demand. We often have more control over a problem and its subsequent solution than we think we do.

I’ve seen this in consulting. Projects that “take six months” often take six months because everyone assumes they do. Question the timeline.

In very difficult counterterrorism operations, I’d often task the unit selected for the mission to first come up with a concept entirely unconstrained by resources (aircraft available, number of personnel, etc.). Only after we’d identified the perfect-world possibilities did we layer reality back in. The objective was to open up everyone’s mind to what was possible, then get as close to that solution as we could.

That’s a framework worth stealing. Start with the unconstrained version, then layer reality back in. Most teams do it backward, scoping to constraints before they understand what’s possible.

On teams and cohesion

The best teams I’ve seen tend to perform as teams, not as a set of individual actors connected only to the boss. Achieving that level of cooperation and connection demands clearly defined roles and responsibilities, underpinned by a shared sense of mission. Each member owns their particular function but automatically backstops the others.

Your team should help make you better, not accentuate your shortcomings.

Without clear communication, team building, and trust, no complex effort can succeed.

The veneer that every successful leader has created over a career needs to be pierced, if only for a time, so that something deeper and more personal can be forged.

On rafting trips and off-sites: it can’t be a meeting. It needs to take people out of their given roles so real connection can happen.

On intensity and caring

Intensity does not always make one popular, but it does produce results.

The more you care, the more frequently you’ll be inclined to anger.

Calmly but directly telling someone you’re deeply disappointed or very angry is more powerful than acting it out. The contradiction of appearing calm while signaling fury is disconcerting to many.

The calmest person in a tense conversation usually has the most influence. Not because they don’t care. Because they clearly do and still have control.

Quiet, relentless determination replaces hyperbole.

On the long view

Speak from your heart and to your granddaughters (that’s what I do). I know that what I say may be attacked in the near term, but I try to consider how Emmylou, Elsie, and Daisy will assess my comments in future years.

Command like it’s your last job. If you make overcautious decisions or parse your words to the point of voicing no position so that you can ascend to a higher level, you’ll become a leader the organization doesn’t need.

Just do what we believe is right simply because it’s right.

On service

“Where do you want me in the morning?” The clarity and purity of simply seeking where he and his exhausted soldiers were most needed is selflessly focused on the overall mission, and quietly heroic.

The takeaway

I keep coming back to a tension McChrystal names directly:

I have struggled over the years with the tension between driving the organizations I’ve led to perform well and the natural desire to be liked.

You don’t get both. The best you can do is make sure people understand why you’re pushing, that you’re pushing yourself harder, and that you genuinely care about their development.

The score reflects a game’s outcome, but the manner of play defines its quality.