Friday Best Practices - Colin Powell

Welcome to this week’s Friday Best Practices.? Today I’m going to share thoughts about Colin Powell.? Much has been written about General Powell this week after passing away on Monday so I won’t attempt to recount his life in detail here.? What I plan to focus on is how his life as a leader and a trailblazer provided a tremendous role model for young African Americans, including myself.? For that, I am eternally grateful and will share some of his lessons in the rest of this article.?

A Life of Firsts

As the son of Jamaican immigrants growing up in New York City, Colin Powell constantly encountered new challenges from a young age - challenges that his parents didn’t have direct experience that they could use to guide him to specific solutions.? Instead, he had to take the broader lessons he learned from his family and apply them the best that he could to the situations he was facing.

In his memoir “It Worked For Me”, he details an early life example of applying this concept - hard work.? Work ethic was an important part of his life from an early age.? In his book, he describes his early jobs as a teenager, the lifelong relationships he created with these bosses and coworkers, and the lessons he carried with him for the rest of his life.? “Always do your best, no matter how difficult the job, or how much you dislike it, your bosses, the work environment, or your fellow workers”.? I believe this commitment to work is one of the reasons he lived such an impactful life.

That impact showed up consistently by breaking through racial barriers, and a long list of “firsts”.? The highest profile of these include:? the first Black national security adviser, the first Black Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first Black Secretary of State.? However, he describes his first “first” in his memoir, when he became the first Black production line worker at a Pepsi bottling plant, a more prestigious job than Blacks were historically permitted to have.? His desire for this job was to have a better, higher paying job and not to be denied it due to his race.? He worked hard in the lower level cleaning and maintenance job that he previously had with Pepsi to demonstrate he was a qualified employee, and when the opportunity came up, he asked for the better production job.? It’s this commitment to the work, the effort and seeking better opportunities is what I believe enabled him to consistently break barriers through his career.?

Core Principles That Resonated With Me - 13 Rules

Throughout his career in public service, General Powell developed a set of rules for himself.? They guided how he worked, led and lived his life.? The good thing is they are tangible and highly portable, which means they can (and should be) shared.? Here are the 13 Rules:

• It ain’t as bad as you think! It will look better in the morning.?
• Get mad then get over it.
• Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
• It can be done.
• Be careful what you choose. You may get it.?
• Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.?
• You can’t make someone else’s choices. You shouldn’t let someone else make yours.?
• Check small things.
• Share credit.
• Remain calm. Be kind.
• Have a vision. Be demanding.?
• Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers.
• Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

This set of rules is powerful due to their simple, yet comprehensive, nature.? When looking at them in aggregate, they are clear and are hard to argue against.? “Get mad and then get over it” makes sense to me because it acknowledges the reality of emotions (yes, it’s normal to get angry!) and it addresses the need to move on and address the situation at hand - clear and practical advice.? The set of rules provides a source of guidance, a tool that can be referred to time and time again when facing new challenges.? I can see General Powell facing a critical problem, reflecting on how to proceed, and using one of the 13 Rules to guide his decision making.? Lastly, the perspective the rules provide on a broad set of issues speaks to their power.? Remaining calm and being kind probably are not the easiest things to do when leading troops into battle, but as a leader with people looking to you to help them decide how they should react to the situation, it’s a critical skill to have.? In total, Powell’s 13 Rules serve as a useful tool for leaders in all walks of life.

How I Use General Powell’s 13 Rules

When I think about General Powell’s 13 Rules, I reference them as an excellent set of guidelines that help me navigate most problems I encounter as a leader.? However, there are 3 rules that I use on a regular basis:

• Remain calm. Be kind.? This rule really hits home for me, and I hope most people who work with me believe that I put this rule to work regularly.? For me, keeping a cool head, particularly during times of stress, helps me make sound decisions.? Also, calm can be contagious, so when I’m calm during stressful times, I think it can rub off on the people around me, ultimately leading to a better situation for addressing the problem at hand.? Being kind goes hand in hand with remaining calm.? In general, I think it’s always important to treat people in my life with kindness (not only because it’s the right thing to do, but it’s contagious too!).? Additionally, it may be harder to treat people with kindness during times of stress, but I do my best not to let stress get in the way of how I treat others.? Stress can’t be an excuse for bad behavior.
• Have a vision. Be demanding.? I find this rule to be critical to my leadership approach.? Much of what I do when leading my team is to create the vision for a problem and set high expectations for performance of how it will be solved.? A vision is critical to inspire a team, and creating motivation is clearly an important part of leadership.? Equally importantly, I believe that teams will rise up to (and potentially exceed) the expectations that have been set for them, and it is my responsibility to hold them accountable for their performance (along with “clearing the runway” to ensure they are set up for success).? It’s through this combination of inspiration and expectations that I create a high performance culture.
• Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.? When I lead teams, I realize that my teams look to me to see how I’m reacting to a situation.? If I seem pessimistic about a problem, there’s a very good chance they won’t believe we’ll successfully overcome the challenge - and for good reason, their leader doesn’t believe it!? On the other hand, I find being optimistic can cascade through an organization.? It empowers the team to make the incremental effort because they know I’m confident that we will successfully solve the problem, so they know their time and effort is going to good use.? I think it not only helps drive better problem solving and performance, it also creates a more positive work environment.

Conclusion

General Powell has been an important role model for me throughout my life.? As a young boy I was inspired by seeing the images of him in important roles when he was the only African American in the room.? Into adulthood, as I evolved into leadership roles, learning his leadership lessons and applying them have been extremely helpful for me.? I hope you find some of his teachings helpful as well.? If you’d like to learn more, I suggest reading “It Worked for Me” which details his 13 Rules along with many stories from his life.? Friday BPs will be back in 2 weeks. Until then, I’m always here to chat - just DM me on LinkedIn, email me, call me, etc.