Success leaves clues.  So does failure.  Some of history's best known commanders are remembered not for their brilliant victories but for their catastrophic blunders.

Throughout the centuries countless armies have gone down to defeat, succumbing to greater numbers, more advanced technology, or more skilled opponents.  A few armies have been defeated because of the blundering incompetence of their own commanders.  What are the elements of leadership failure?  A recurrent pattern emerges over the last two thousand plus years.  Read on and see if you can identify the key ingredients to self-induced failure.