I was lucky in my career and life. I entered the U.S. Army in 1971 expecting to stay three years; I spent over 37. Along the way, I led a platoon in the 82nd Airborne Division, a company in the 2nd Ranger Battalion, a battalion in the 25th Infantry Division and a brigade in the 10th Mountain Division. I commanded the 25th Infantry Division and I Corps.

I led U.S. and multinational troops in Haiti in 1994, in Bosnia in 1999 and in Iraq in 2007–08. In Bosnia and Iraq, leading NATO troops also was part of my responsibility. Though never assigned, I had several special missions in Afghanistan. In these and other positions, I had great mentors. Some were senior leaders and some were peers or subordinates. A good many were sergeants. I owe much to many.

Here are some lessons I learned about my responsibilities as a commander.

Tough Training

The No. 1 responsibility is to conduct tough, realistic training done to standard or done over again. Run hard physical training, harder road marches—long, over varied terrain and carrying heavy loads. Set difficult training conditions—blank and live-fire. Integrate combat, combat support and combat service support into all training, and demand excellence. Prepare leaders through pretraining and professional development, then hold them to standard.

Let sergeants do sergeants’ business. Teach subordinates to take initiative within the senior commander’s intent—and train them to do so. Build solid, cohesive, combat-ready teams of rugged soldiers and leaders who have confidence in themselves, their leaders, their training, their equipment and the systems that will support them in combat.

All this, I came to believe, was what soldiers, leaders, the parents who sent their children to serve and the Army expected of me as a leader. All this, I was raised to believe, was the best way to take care of soldiers. This approach to training, I was taught, increases the probability of accomplishing the mission and keeping soldiers alive. But there is more to command than this.

I also was expected to create a unit in which each soldier and subordinate felt that they were important members of a team, that their contributions and sacrifices mattered to the unit, and that what they thought and how they acted reflected well or poorly on the unit. The Army expected me, so I came to understand, to create a unit where the talents of each soldier and subordinate were used—and used well; where each was not just known by the chain of command, but where the chain of command cared about the welfare of each soldier and subordinate, their families and their future.

Important Decisions

The longer I led, the more I understood that soldiers and subordinate leaders made career and life decisions based upon how they were treated in my unit, how I and my subordinates looked after their development and how much value we placed on their service. They also made decisions based upon the environment I set in the unit: a place that was drug-free, a place that was safe for all and a place that was free of prejudice. That is, a place in which each soldier and subordinate treated each other with the respect every soldier deserves.

As a company commander, and for every command thereafter, I had judicial and nonjudicial authority. This became part of the way I was expected to create a disciplined unit. Nonjudicial action was administrative in nature, for example, letters of reprimand and Article 15 procedures. Judicial action was formal, that is, charges and procedures as outlined in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. External observers and some TV shows and movies portray military justice as arbitrary, even petty. I found the reality of having that responsibility very different.

My seniors, and the Army’s education system, taught me that soldiers, leaders and the Army expected me to exercise my authority not arbitrarily, but justly—that procedural justice was just as important as the outcome of the process. Each soldier who came before my desk or appeared in front of a court-martial board expected a fair shake, to be treated as an American citizen should be. Regardless of the finding or subsequent punishment, the process mattered, and I was responsible for ensuring that the process was fair.

I learned, as I was given the privilege of command, that my formal authority came from my position and rank, but my actual authority flowed from how I ran my unit. The more I worked to create a command climate in which each soldier and subordinate was treated with dignity and respect—not only by me, but also by my subordinate commanders and the systems that ran the unit—the greater my informal authority expanded, greater cohesion was created and greater combat readiness grew.

The Standard

In my nearly four decades of service, I learned and tried to practice what the Army expected of me and of every other commander: the one standard that mattered was whether a soldier or subordinate can do their job, can they be relied upon regardless of the circumstance, could they be counted on when the chips were down, do they contribute to the team.

I led soldiers and subordinates of many religions and of no religion. My units consisted of men and women, straight and gay. My soldiers came from diverse backgrounds: family situations, education, national origin, races and all geographic regions of America. Some were Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Black Americans, white Americans, whatever Americans. In fact, some were not even Americans yet, but wanted to be. They expected, as did the Army and the parents who sent them, that none of their differences mattered. Rather, it was important that I and my subordinate leaders treated each with dignity and respect, appropriate to the sacrifices of life and limb they were prepared to make if the nation demanded.

When I was commissioned, my dad—a corporal in World War II and a sergeant in the Korean War—said to me, “Treat your soldiers with respect; they’ll be the ones dying and getting wounded.” All my soldiers expected that I apply the one-standard approach within my command. And they took for granted that regardless of the values each may have brought into the service, I and my subordinates would demand—and they would live, work and fight—according to the Army Values.

Nonpartisan Role

In my near 40 years in uniform, I served under both Republican and Democratic administrations. I led under eight commanders in chief—Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Changes in administrations were just background. The Army served the nation, I was taught and came to believe. For those of us serving, our oath and loyalty were to the Constitution. As an Army officer, I was expected to be nonpartisan. Whoever was elected president did not change what soldiers, subordinates, parents and the Army expected of me—that is: create and sustain cohesive, combat-ready units prepared to do what the nation asks, wherever we had to go and regardless of geographic or climatic conditions.

So, yes, tough, realistic training is the most important way to take care of troops and create combat-ready units, but much more is involved. I learned many of the lessons I described above early in my career, but they were reinforced throughout my time in service—reinforced not just by my senior leaders and commanders, but also throughout the Army’s professional education and development programs. Perhaps even more importantly, these were lessons my platoon sergeants, first sergeants and command sergeants major taught me. Sergeants—the backbone of America’s Army, and the representatives of the American citizens who become soldiers—formed me as much as I led them.

I was not perfect, not by a long shot. I made mistakes along the way. But they were mistakes trying to live up to the expectations set for me, trying to give soldiers and subordinates the leadership they deserved—not trying to take shortcuts.

Sound Fundamentals

Looking back now on what was a career longer than I could have imagined in 1971, I think what I was taught was right. I believe the expectations that soldiers, subordinate leaders, parents and the Army had of me and my fellow commanders are right for leaders of a democratic Army and of soldiers representing America.

I’ve seen the Army go through multiple transformations: from the Vietnam Army to the Army of the First Gulf War, from a Cold War Army to a post-Cold War Army, from a post-Cold War Army to a 9/11 Army, from an analog Army to a digital one, and now to an Army transforming again, adapting to a strategic environment reflective of the fourth industrial revolution and great-power competition.

Throughout each of these major changes, however, some aspects of the Army remained constant. One of those constants has been the kind of command climate the Army expects its leaders to create and sustain. Lose this approach to command and leadership, and regardless of advanced technology, the coolest weaponry, most up-to-date artificial intelligence systems or number of unmanned vehicles the Army develops and fields, its core fighting power ultimately will erode.

Lt. Gen. James Dubik, U.S. Army retired, a former commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, is a senior fellow of the Association of the U.S. Army. He holds a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and is the author of Just War Reconsidered: Strategy, Ethics, and Theory.