The Powell Principles: 24 Lessons From Battle-Proven Leader Colin Powell
by Oren Harari
Business professor Oren Harari (1949-2010) encapsulated Colin Powell’s (1937-2021) lessons of leadership in 24 three-page chapters. “The Powell Principles constitute a clear, strategic, philosophical, value-based, and ethical blueprint. The blueprint guides Powell, but the blueprint has enormous flexibility and opportunism built into it.” The 24 lessons are:
- Promote a clash of ideas
- Be prepared to piss people off
- Establish trust
- Walk the talk
- Pick the right people
- Listen
- Be vigilant in details
- Be a disorganizer
- Check your ego at the door
- Let change lead growth
- Seek consensus (but don’t be ruled by it)
- Fit no stereotypes
- Simplify
- Let situation dictate strategy
- Push the envelope
- Close with the enemy
- View People as partners
- Challenge the pros
- Don’t rely on charts and title
- Trust those in the trenches
- Make optimism a top priority
- Have fun in your command
- Strive for balance
- Prepare to be lonely
According to Powell, “the key attributes of a leader are competence, character, courage, loyalty, and confidence. These qualities build trust and credibility, which are essential in order to lead. Additionally, “a leader who doesn’t have a sense of humor is unlikely to be effective over the long run.”
Powell emphasizes attention to detail. “The Big Picture is made up of hundreds or thousands of details… If you are not the master of the details, you can’t be the master of the Big Picture.”
Powell says “the stewardship of people is a strategic priority” and adds “influence accomplishes as much as, if not more than, authority.” He advises hiring and promoting people who demonstrate “intelligence and judgment, a capacity to anticipate, loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego and the drive to get things done… Powell’s favorite attributes are hard to infer from a resume.”
This book offers a concise summary of Powell’s leadership principles, but it does not include any anecdotes from his career to illustrate the points. The more recent book It Worked For Me by Colin Powell and Tony Koltz includes stories from Powell’s experience in the military and the State Department.
Harari, Oren. The Powell Principles: 24 Lessons from Colin Powell, Battle-proven Leader. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005. Buy from Amazon.com