Retired Admiral William McRaven on Why U.S. Leadership Matters

Retired Navy Adm. William McRaven's nearly 40-year career in the U.S. military has spanned everything from deployments as a Navy SEAL, hunting down high-value targets overseas, commanding U.S Special Operations forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and advising Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. But McRaven is best known for planning and overseeing the 2011 raid that ended with the death of Osama bin Laden. In December that year, McRaven was named as a runner-up for TIME's Person of the Year for his role in the operation. "There is nobody in the U.S. government that thinks we can kill our way to victory, certainly not the special-operations guys," he told TIME in 2011, "but what happens is, by capturing and killing some of these high-value targets, we buy space and time for the rest of the government to work." After retiring from the U.S. military in 2014, McRaven served as the chancellor of the University of Texas System and has written several books on leadership.