A few weeks ago, on behalf of President Biden, I spoke to the graduating class of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, one of our nation’s five service academies. This extraordinary group of young people will spend large parts of their lives at sea so the rest of us can live safely at home. They carry out missions vital to our national security, from upholding freedom of navigation to protecting vital shipping lanes to delivering ammunition to Ukrainian soldiers fighting for their freedom. It was an honor to be part of their commencement.
After thinking long and hard about what advice I could offer these young leaders, I focused on a core attribute of leadership that often gets overlooked. People will say that leadership is about confidence or vision, and it is about those things. But leadership is not about clinging to a singular attribute. It’s about cultivating equal and opposite attributes, and learning how to put that tension to use. Holding seemingly opposing ideas at once and still finding clarity and purpose.
Here are some examples of what I mean.
Leaders are both high-ego and low-ego.
Believe in yourself. Speak up. Raise your hand for the big assignments. No one is going to advocate for you if you don’t advocate for yourself.
At the same time, know that so many things are more important than you. Your team. Your family. Your country. To do right by them, you’ll need to put others ahead of yourself. Get behind someone else’s plan. Compromise.
In the Situation Room, I lead meetings of the President’s national security cabinet. It’s my job to set the agenda—not to dominate the conversation, but to guide the discussion so that we as a team deliver him the best counsel on the toughest issues.
Leaders have the confidence to sit at tables where decisions are made—and the humility to see that other people’s contributions are as valuable as theirs, and sometimes more.
The best people I work with know how to balance these dueling impulses. They never fail to shine. But they are—to the bone—team players. Always humble. Always ready to champion someone else. Always ready to pitch in, to get the job done. Be like them—know your value, but see everyone else’s, too.
Leaders are both impatient and patient.
Don’t wait for change. Make changes as fast as you can. Set bold goals and achieve them with relentless drive. But also—be patient.
When I was in my 20s, I randomly sat next to Joe Nye, the great foreign policy thinker, on a plane. We got to talking, and he could tell I was a young person in a hurry. And he said, “Everything doesn’t have to happen tomorrow. You have time to make mistakes, explore, try things out. No need to rush.”
Now that I’m older, I see how right he was. Leadership means seeing things through. Planting seeds and cultivating them. Taking time to figure things out and getting them right.
Good leaders master another kind of patience, too. In high-stakes jobs, you can become quick to frustration and not your best self. It takes discipline to be patient with others in jobs that rapidly drain the patience out of you. You don’t want to get to the place in your career you’ve always dreamed of and realize you’ve become a jerk along the way. The people in your life deserve your grace.
Leaders focus on the big picture but also sweat the details.
Every day, I hold a meeting on Ukraine with experts from across the National Security Council staff. We never lose sight of the ultimate strategic objective: Ukraine prevails, Russia’s invasion fails, and NATO remains unified. But every day, in excruciating detail, we go through Ukraine’s monthly supply of 155 ammunition. How many Patriot interceptors they’re getting. How we’re making sure those weapons are actually getting to the frontlines.
If you’re grinding it out every day on ammunition and not connecting it to the larger strategy, you won’t succeed. And if you’re sitting around talking about the strategy but not giving any thought to the ammunition, you won’t succeed, either. Never assume that someone else has crushed the details.
Leaders hold fast to their convictions while staying open to changing their minds
The lessons we learn from our families, teachers, and faith comprise the compass that guides us through life. If you stay true to your deepest-held values and what you know to be right, you can always hold your head high.
But if you rarely update your thinking, even when you learn new information, you’ve stopped learning. Stopped listening. And that’s something to correct fast. Your ability to lead will depend on whether you can hear new ideas and arguments and take them seriously.
Besides, what are the odds that you’re just right all the time? In his best year, Ted Williams got a hit four times out of 10. Even if you’re twice as good as that, that still means that two out of 10 times, your first swing at a problem doesn’t connect. And even if you’re 80% right in an argument, that still means you’re 20% wrong. You can’t be paralyzed by this, but you should account for it.
This is one of many things I admire about President Biden. He gathers his staff nearly every day in the Oval Office to grill us on every detail of a policy. If he senses that someone is biting their tongue, he never fails to say, “Don’t hold back. I want to hear your concern.”
It's a rare leader who invites dissenting views, especially in the Oval Office. But that’s the right disposition, for leaders and everyone. It’s never been easier than today to live in an echo chamber, only listening to those who agree with us and reflect back our own worldviews. But that represents the end of personal growth—and the end of progress for our nation.
These are just a few examples of what it means to balance competing thoughts in your head and find clarity amid complexity. It’s a highly underrated skill, and one I believe every leader should seek to cultivate. I see it in my job every day.
The United States can compete with geopolitical rivals and cooperate with partners to solve the great challenges of our time.
We can support Israel’s right to self-defense and the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and dignity.
We can stand with Ukraine in its fight against tyranny and prevent World War III.
We can stand up to China and engage in responsible diplomacy with China.
These positions won’t make for a great soundbite or satisfy a certain class of D.C. pundit. But they’re what I believe. They’re what the President believes. And they represent America at our best in the world: strong, commonsense, intelligent, and unafraid.
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