General Patton is today remembered as the Commanding General of the United States Third Army, an organization that varied in strength and has the distinction of having gone the farthest and fastest than any other army known in history. He was known to be abusive, but yet, if you looked beyond his expletives and four letter words, he had a rare distinction of saying the mightiest things with a touch of the common man. A superb leader and someone from whom we have loads to pick up for the betterment of our leadership capabilities.

Here is a video on his famous speech :

Listed below are a few of his thoughts, commandments and orders that could help you strategize and run your business better by being the best leadership :

1. Toujours l’audace : French for always audacity. Audacity is everything though a lot of business people cringe when it comes to any practical implementation. However, we all know that little or no merit can be accomplished without audacity. One must remember that the price of failure is great and hence with audacity, the stakes are high. So, are the rewards. The price of avoiding audacity is high-as well. If that’s the case, why not pick audacity as something to follow and pay the inevitable high price leading to apparent success ?
2. Take the Road Less Travelled because ‘The impossible place is usually the least welll-defended’. If you are aping what your competition seems to be doing and given that everything else is the same, you aren’t reall ydoing anything. Beat the competition, think of new, untried ways to beat it. Think of anything. Think whacky. Think out of the world. If people don’t laugh at your ideas, the ideas don’t have any merit.  
3. Courage ought to be a habit : As Patton says ” Courage is largely habit and self-confidence” - In the board rooms, courage can make or break an entrepreneur. It is everything. It can be aquired through practice. It can be learned through implementation and execution. It can be put to use by anyone and how! It ought to be the rule, rather than the exception.
4. Bounce : Everyone fails. hell, you ought to. What has life taught you if it hasn’t taught you to bounce ?The difference between a winner and a loser is the only thin thread of the greatest possibility of this bounce. Winners always bounce back with a conviction that can melt steel. They come back to face the very problem that has tormented them. They come back to solve problems and they develop enough mettle and strength to face their own fallacies. You cannot avoid failure all the time, but if you choose, you can always choose to refuse to be pinned down by it.
5. Enterprise is fuelled by Daring : If there is anything that is more than essential for any enterprise, it is creative risk- taking. Thoughtless caution is far more dangerous than thoughless risk, ironical though it might seem, because this thoughtless caution promts inaction which can be an entrepreneur’s single biggest handicap.
6. Conquer Fear : Man can be crumpled by fear. It can devastate him. Before fear can get to you, you have to get to fear. You need to act in the realm beyond your fears. beat fear and see success looming like a giant right there in your precincts.
7. Own up and take acocuntability for your decisions : It takes guts to own up, in case you didn’t know or rather forgot. If you are a leader, never use your authority to hide your mistakes. It is more a sign of weakness than that of leadership. Admit your mistakes, explain your fallacies, correct yourself and most importantly use your mistakes to learn.
8. Do what Must be Done: Decide when you have to. The worst state you can ever be in is a state of indecision. Making quick decisions, whether informed or not and then owning up the ramifications of the decisions made is the mark of a true leader. A true leader exercises initiative and not suffer paralysis. When push comes to shove, Shove !
9. Drive, Drive, Drive : To grow one needs to stretch. One needs to change. Change isn’t easy. It makes you sweat and is not a pleasant feeling. But if done right, it can make you happy. You push limits and define new limits. You then push those! It never ends. The quest for success would make you strive for the impossible. Raise your own bars !
10. Make greatness a matter of routine: One of Patton’s most profound observations was that all those great things that man seems to have done would have been fairly simpe decisions that simply appear to be great after they have been done. The full import of your decision will be magnified later, but then every decision must be made normally. Make greatness look like it had to happen. A matter of routine.

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