There is absolutely no reason the command group can not pick the five most probable contingencies or missions that your unit could be called on to ex… - Wheeler L. Baker

The born leader is a fiction invented by 'born followers'. Leadership is not a gift at birth; it is an award for growing to full moral stature. It is the only prize that a man must win everyday. The prize is the respect of others, earned by the disciplines that generate self-respect.

Two a.m. in a dark alley or on a mountainside is not the time to discover your unit is missing a key piece of equipment, or that you are not sure of the radio frequencies of an adjacent unit. The procedural check lists created in training will prevent those critical and unacceptable mistakes. This is the time to benefit from those "lessons learned". But leaders must schedule the time to train, do it right, critique, and move on. It is an investment that will bring the most return.

When an individual's or group's basic survival is threatened, stress becomes tremendous, and productivity drops. Under these conditions a manager's ability to reason and maintain a proper focus on developing plans or solutions to a crisis is extremely difficult.