How to Fail in Command
By: Col Chris NiedziochaPosted on November 15,2026
A pro guide to what NOT to do…
One of the nice things about being a colonel is that people are interested in what you think (or pretend to be). I am occasionally asked by young officers the secrets to a successful command tour. I am careful with this since most advice I have received over the years is closer to nostalgia than specific, well-thought-out guidance, but one piece of advice I always give is to read. Over years of reading, I have come across many gems and been exposed to the very best thinkers and their work. For someone embarking on a career that emphasizes decision making and human interaction, one of the best thinkers I have come across is Charlie Munger, one half of the famous leadership duo that ran Berkshire Hathaway for decades. One of his most famous speeches—given at the 1986 Harvard commencement—was called “How to Guarantee a Life of Misery,” where he provides a surefire blueprint for lifelong wretchedness and despair. In that spirit, and in the words of Charlie, let us invert. Instead of providing my highly personal, idiosyncratic, and nostalgic advice for success, I will offer you—the aspiring, sitting, or soon-to-be commander—a simple, bulletproof course of action for guaranteed failure. If you diligently follow these nine practical steps, I can promise you a command tour that is painful, ineffective, disappointing, and even embarrassing. If controlled flight into terrain is your goal, these principles, when diligently applied over time, will get you there.
1. Treat Higher Headquarters as the Enemy
If you want to guarantee your command tenure is unsuccessful, first ensure your vision and intent are truly your own and do not consider your boss’ goals and objectives. This will make sure you are out of alignment right from the start. View your commander’s intent not as guidance but as a vague suggestion to be ignored. Your boss has priorities, but they are dull and uninspired. You, on the other hand, have brilliant ideas. The key is to make your boss’s priorities secondary to your own. Devote your best people and prime resources to the projects that interest you while paying only lip service to the tasks you have actually been assigned. Pay yourself first, as they say. This creates constant friction (think Clausewitz) within the organization and ensures you are working at cross-purposes with the overall effort. Withhold all bad news; what they do not know cannot hurt you. Communicate as little as possible, and when you must, be cryptic and defensive. This guarantees that when you inevitably need support, you will not have it, and when higher command makes a decision, it will be based on a complete ignorance of your reality—an ignorance you have so carefully cultivated.
Small things add up over time. Nothing is as maddening as having to pull information about everything, especially when you have the sense that your subordinate units are not being completely forthcoming. Once distrust seeps into a relationship, everything else becomes more difficult. Also, make sure your boss knows who owns what —your gear, your Marines, your time, your mission … Not theirs. Perhaps the best part of this approach is that you will never get the benefit of the doubt, ensuring failure.
2. Never Go to Bat for Your People
When one of your Marines is in trouble, or a good opportunity appears on the horizon, choose to view your Marine and their issue as an administrative burden, not a leadership responsibility. When a difficult choice must be made between defending a subordinate and appeasing a superior, always choose the path of least resistance. (I know this one might be in contrast with the previous point, but this is a really effective technique.) Championing your people requires the expenditure of your hard-earned political capital—capital that you may need for yourself someday. To ensure failure, hoard this capital. Your Marines will quickly learn they are on their own, fostering the healthy distrust that is essential for mission failure. Act as if awards are a zero-sum game and every medal you approve is coming off your chest. Do not fight for resources or the tools and means necessary to improve conditions (equipment, gear, schools and training) and never, ever say thank you—the Marines are just doing their job after all. The best part of this one is that you do not have to advertise. Your Marines will see this quickly and spread the word on your behalf.
3. Focus Your Efforts Down and In
The units to your left and right are not your partners; they are your rivals in the great game of resource allocation and credit-seeking. Hoard information. Refuse to share assets. See any request for cooperation as a zero-sum attempt to diminish your command. Building impenetrable silos around your unit is a surefire way to guarantee that in a crisis, you will face it utterly alone. Have you ever heard the old proverb, if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go with friends? You want to go fast. Do not ever contact your adjacent company, battalion, or squadron commanders. They are not doing or learning anything valuable or worth your time and attention. Make sure you learn your own lessons all the time—never benefit from their experiences. This will ensure you all are making the same mistakes, in parallel, and no one is able to get ahead. Do not ever conduct coordinated training events and ensure any request for assistance from another unit is met with one of these answers: I am too busy with my own priorities; You need to submit a feasibility of support request, or I would like to, but I have not been tasked with this. This last one has the added benefit of ensuring things proceed through a byzantine staffing process where many different organizations get a chance to say no and your headquarters gets a chance to put their spin on it. Your peers have nothing to teach you; your experiences are unique to you. Do not waste your time learning their lessons. Go out and make your own mistakes.
4. Have Low Standards and Be Inconsistent in Enforcing Them
High standards and clear expectations are the enemy of mediocrity. This prescription has two parts: Never set the bar too high, and whatever you do, do not be clear or consistent about what you expect. High standards are a problem because, in this business, people generally want to do well and, if given something to strive for, will usually accomplish it using various creative and innovative solutions. You can see how this could be a problem if failure is the goal. There will always be those in your organization who want nothing more than for today to be exactly like yesterday. Those are the people you should cater to. Listen carefully to the naysayers, and especially those who will have to change, do more work, or have something to lose if you disrupt the status quo in search of achievement. The high achievers and strivers will never be satisfied, so do not try. Keep your unit mired in the present. Things have always been done this way and should continue to be done the same way. Any new initiative will bring with it dozens of unintended consequences. Are you sure you are ready for everything that goes along with improving how you operate? Also, do not enforce your standards, and do not expect your leadership team to either. If you do communicate expectations, it is best to do it in your command philosophy, once, and never say or do anything about it again. Constant repetition, the kind that lets people know you are serious or will inspire them to change, should be avoided.
Do not treat a mishap or near miss as something to learn from. Think of it as an opportunity to come down on someone like a ton of bricks.
Whatever you do, do not make corrections when you see something clearly out of alignment with your expectations. Corrections are unpleasant; your Marines will not like it (or you), and it is someone else’s job anyway. Some other tips regarding standards: change them frequently. The moving goalpost is one of the best techniques for this. Never provide clear guidance on what right looks like. Instead reject everything brought to you as not being good enough without saying what good means. “Bring me a rock” is another great game you can play with your subordinates if you want to keep them frustrated and confused.1
5. Do Not Think Too Much About Risk
There are two paths to failure, both equally effective. The first is to become paralyzed by risk, seeing danger in every decision, and thus making none. The second is to ignore risk entirely, substituting blind optimism and bravado for sober calculation. There are several ways to do this. Whatever you do, do not make a conscious effort to understand and manage risk. Any risk assessment effort you undertake should be instinctive, emotional, and guided by your experiences. Risk management, if you do it, should be done by action officers and planners. Never waste your time or the time of your subordinate leaders thinking about, discussing, or actively managing risk. Do not under any circumstances consult references or follow any of the proven risk management frameworks available. When you talk about risk, use vague, imprecise terms. Never be specific or quantify the risk in concrete terms. That will only scare people or embolden them. When you communicate risk to higher headquarters, ensure it is in the form of a boilerplate slide developed by an action officer at the very end of the brief developed after the majority of planning is complete. Another effective way to ensure your unit has a poor safety culture and does not manage risk well is to react badly when things go wrong. Shoot messengers, hold people accountable for slips, lapses, and errors regardless of whether there was negligence or procedural deviance. And always assign blame.
Do not treat a mishap or near miss as something to learn from. Think of it as an opportunity to come down on someone like a ton of bricks. Very effective. Do not think probabilistically about risk. Instead, dwell on graphic outcomes that are easy to imagine. Ignore everyday drivers of risk and focus on the sensational. One last point: probably the most important thing you can do if you decide you are going to manage risk is to decide in advance what you want to do, then carefully select the evidence and indicators you consider in your risk assessment. They should tell you your chosen course of action is best and contains an acceptable level of risk. Ignore any evidence to the contrary; it will only get in the way of getting what you want.
6. Run Bad Meetings
A big part of your time in command will be spent in meetings. If you want to fail, ensure that time is wasted. Do not treat meetings as an opportunity to learn about your organization and do work. Instead, treat them as hollow rituals where everyone is focused on looking good rather than solving problems. Meetings are a superb tool for wasting your organization’s most precious resource: time. The first and most important step in preventing good meetings is to not have an agenda. If people are not sure what the meeting is for, you cannot accomplish its purpose. Everyone should have different views of what the meeting is about.
Treat any new or dissenting view as an affront to your identity and values … Never change your mind and never consider anyone else’s opinion if it differs from yours.
Do not require people to be prepared for the meeting either. In fact, they should be unable to prepare if you have taken the first step and they are not sure what the meeting is really about. In an ideal situation, people should not even be sure if they need to attend. Do not have a clear goal, and whatever you do, do not specify deliverables and timelines. Any goal should be vague and shapeless. Concrete outcomes, razor-sharp milestones, and specific due dates will prevent you from accomplishing your goal of running bad meetings. Do not under any circumstances publicly assign one person the responsibility of assigning a task and for heaven’s sake, never tell them exactly what is due and when. When you are executing meetings, ensure everyone is mainly focused on looking good and saying the right things. Everyone should agree on everything all the time, and no one should ever offer a dissenting view. How else could groupthink take hold if you allowed people to speak their minds from a position of psychological safety?
7. Ignore the Details. Be a “Big Picture” Leader
One of the best ways you can ensure failure in command is by being a “big picture” leader who treats the details of execution like the unimportant and trivial minutiae they are. You think outside the box and should not waste your important time dealing with the box’s contents or the realities of roles and functions. Do not demand and ensure your team masters the specific and concrete actions necessary to take a plan from concept to action. Instead, rouse the troops with bland platitudes like, NCOs (noncommissioned officers) need to lead from the front, while talking about brilliance in the basics without explaining exactly what that means. Speak often about how good squads make good platoons, and good platoons make good companies, but never say how or why. Never immerse yourself in timelines or how an event will be supervised. Always assume the right people with the right qualifications will be on hand to oversee training. Never make any effort to confirm the plan is any good, or is understood, or has been handed off to the executors, or that they know what to do. Assume all gear and equipment is functional, calibrated, has updated preventive maintenance checks and services, and is approved for whatever it is you are doing. When it is time to launch an operation, let it just launch itself. People should just assume that, since the mission was approved at the confirmation brief, the conditions exist, whether it be on the ship, in the air, at sea, or on the objective, for the mission to succeed. Do not ever slow down your unit’s mindless momentum as it barrels ahead, stopping to check if the situation is ripe for safe, successful execution. If you do stop and check, you might have to make an unpopular decision, in public, that will create more work for everyone and possibly expose holes in your own guidance and intent. It is always better to assume everything will work out, and if it does not, rationalize away your bad decisions and blame someone below you. Involvement with details is beneath someone of your standing and should be ignored if you want to fail in command.
8. Never Learn Anything New or Allow Yourself to Be Coached
You were selected for command; therefore, it is clear you have nothing to learn from anyone, especially your Marines. Furthermore, everything your unit is doing and will do is unique, unprecedented, and exceptional. Make sure you come up with every new idea. Everything that goes on in your unit must have either originated with you or have your explicit approval. Treat any new or dissenting view as an affront to your identity and values. In public, you must never be wrong. Never change your mind and never consider anyone else’s opinion if it differs from yours. Saying things like, I have never considered that, or, that changes how I think about this, will only make your subordinates think you value their input, that you are still learning, or that when facts change, you change your mind.
Your goal should be to win everything all the time. Prove you are the smartest person in the room and always right. This will make your Marines unwilling to offer anything new, cause them to second guess their own knowledge, and make it harder for your staff and commanders to work together effectively. Also act as though nothing whatsoever has changed since you were a platoon or company commander. The gear, the training, the regulations, the threat are all the same. Do not let those with the benefit of recent schooling or operational experience sway you. Your worldview should be crystallized in amber like those mosquitoes in Jurassic Park. This will prevent you from having to change, adapt, or admit you are wrong.
9. Make Yourself the Center of Every Decision and Approval Authority for Everything
Always ensure you are the only one in your unit with the authority to make decisions. This principle applies across several settings and circumstances: it works in garrison, in training, and in combat. Your goal should be for everyone in your unit to never act without being told specifically to do so. One effective way to accomplish this effect is to react negatively to any independent effort not specifically ordered by you that does not progress perfectly. The zero-defect mentality is your ally in this effort. People should be more afraid to do the wrong thing and bring down your wrath than they are of not solving problems or avoiding crisis. An additional benefit of this is the additional time even simple actions take. This works in combat too. Ensure all decisions must move from the tactical edge back to you through unreliable comm pathways. Your goal should be self-imposed latency. Even if the decision makes it back from the frontline to you and back again, the decision may be late and overcome by events—in other words, irrelevant—making the whole effort a waste of time and energy. This has excellent long-term consequences as well, as your people will lose any sense of personal agency, drive, or desire to excel. Remember: You know best and only your way of doing business will work.
There you have it. Nine simple prescriptions. Follow them in a rigid and unyielding manner, and you will achieve a level of failure others can only dream of. Or, if you are a person of perverse intellect, you might consider what would happen if you did the exact opposite. The choice, as they say, is yours.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
>Col Niedziocha is a career MAGTF Officer and currently serves as the Expeditionary Warfare School Director. He has commanded platoons, a company, an infantry battalion, and the 31st MEU.
Notes
1. “Bring me a rock” is one of my favorites. It goes like this. Leader: “Bring me a rock.” Subordinate: “Here it is” (produces rock). Leader: “I wanted a flat rock. That one is round.” Subordinate: “Here you go” (produces round rock). Leader: “That is dull. I wanted shiny.” Subordinate: Getting tired of this, finds a round, shiny rock. Leader: “That is a sedimentary rock. I wanted an igneous rock.” You see where this goes. Hysterical.