Six Essential Elements of Leadership: Marine Corps Wisdom of a Medal of Honor Recipient

Col. Wesley Fox is a Medal of Honor recipient who wrote two widely-admired accounts of his wartime experiences in the Marine Corps. His Marine Rifleman: Forty-Three Years in the Corps and Courage and Fear: A Primer are considered classic war memoirs. Drawing on his long experience of being a leader, Fox presents the six essential elements of leadership that all good leaders employ to build successful organizations able to cope with any challenge because they are truly built on loyalty and trust. Impressed by the manner and methods of his most effective fellow Marines to guide and direct, Fox defines leadership is defined as having a strong focus on the strengths of comradeship and its core importance to all individuals and organizations. In his view, managers are concerned with the bottom line and making a profit, while leaders are concerned with their followers, their health, happiness, and daily lives. Recognition of the sources of leaders is addressed and followed with a discussion of the principles of leadership and the historical traits of a leader.

The book covers the essential elements of leadership: care, personality, knowledge, motivation, commitment, and communication with a chapter on each element. Finally, Fox provides an account of his personal experience and how his views about leadership were forged by the Marine Corps and by the crucible of combat. He provides many examples of leadership displayed by those with whom he served in battle–his fellow Marine unit leaders. While draw from a military experience, Fox contends that his six elements apply to all who want to pursue leadership. Developed during forty-three years of leading Marines in two wars and in the peace time, his principles are designed to inspire and motivate others in all endeavors.