It is interesting that you mention military experience. The best manager I ever worked for had been an Israeli commando officer during the military service por

It is interesting that you mention military experience. The best manager I ever worked for had been an Israeli commando officer during the military service portion of his life. (If you remember the rescue at Entebbe, he was in the "Plan B" unit that was staged and ready to go in without the element of surprise should Plan A fail. Happily, Plan A worked.) So what made him a great manager? 1) You never had any doubt in your mind whatsoever what he wanted and when he wanted it. 2) He then asked you if you had everything you needed to get the job done. And then he listened to what you said until he was certain that he understood, and got you what you needed or adjusted the plan. When you think about it, failure to do those two things as a commando officer means having to write unpleasant letters to parents. I mentioned this to another friend, also ex-commando (Royal Navy Special Ops Diver "We taught the SEALs how to do it.") He told me he often spent days thinking about exactly the right words to articulate the goal to his unit.