Colin Powell’s leadership secrets in chapter seven showed the importance of making use of certain leadership principles. Given the opportunity to name and discuss the top five principles, they would be the high performance, flexibility, communication, teamwork and organization, and preparedness principles.
Being high performance means that one is always prepared to do what is needed to be done in order to solve a problem in a crucial situation. There were numerous examples that Colin Powell used in the book to explain the application of this principle in real life. He used certain political problems during Reagan’s administration in order to show how a leader that possesses the principles he discussed would act in anticipation of being able to apply those principles . There were numerous problems that he encountered while he was serving as one of the members of the U.S. administration under the military. He mentioned security and administrative issues. He was never a master of all of these things. What he made use of instead were his leadership principles. The most important of which arguably would be his principle of high performance. Raising the performance bar to make sure that one does not dwell on mediocrity, creating an environment that promotes excellence, being able to handle low performers and convert them into high performance individuals were among his best strategies under his principle.
Flexibility would be the next one. Flexibility refers to one’s ability to adapt. During Colin Powell’s reign as one of the leaders of the U.S. military, he was able to set up plans aimed at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of some programs, most especially those that have something to do with defense and security. However, the author of The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell suggested that his ability to convert those plans into reality was not a hundred percent but he was able to deliver excellent performances nonetheless. The answer to which would be flexibility or his ability to adapt. Plans are conceptualized in order to reach a main goal and in this case, what he focuses on is that main goal—sometimes it can be more than one. Once he sets his focus on certain goals, he could craft any form of strategy or plan that he likes—for as long as they bring him closer and closer to such goals. This is where flexibility comes in. When one encounters certain problems, hindrances, and drawbacks, an effective leader is not supposed to stop. Instead, he should continue looking for ways to address those problems, being resourceful, until such that that the goals are achieved.
Communication is also important in that it serves as an indicator of how effective or efficient an organization can function. An organization is composed of numerous people working on different jobs but for a single purpose or mission. This is what Colin Powell showed during his tenure as one of the U.S. military’s greatest leaders. According to him, communication and organization is more important than having a lot of people. A smaller team of people that is highly organized as far as communication is concerned would be able to outperform almost any organization. This can be proven so far by his track record and performance during the administration where he served various U.S. agencies and departments.
Teamwork and organization has something to do with communication in that the latter is an integral component of teamwork and organization. That is, an organization would not be able to organize itself and promote teamwork without making use of stable and high quality means to communicate. If an organization is made up of only one person this would not be the case—teamwork and organization would be non-essential. Unfortunately, an organization is composed of often a lot of people and so the only way to do it is to do it with unity. Colin Powell has an exceptional ability to encourage people to rally behind him and follow his orders. Respect, integrity, and expertise are important factors here. Among the strategies he made use of under this category were delegation, mobility, and the use of consensus. Colin Powell was never a dictator, he often makes use of democracy—although not excessively. This is where consensus would be effective. Selecting people with intelligence and good judgment is also the key when it comes to delegation.
Preparedness is something that is beneficial to almost any form of organization. In this aspect, Colin Powell puts a premium on simplicity. Being able to simplify things while addressing all of the non-superficial (i.e. deep) aspects of a problem would prove to be a highly effective strategy to prepare an organization to solve a problem—which is one of the fundamental reasons why they exist. He also considers the importance of clarity—making use of non-fuzzy language, when it comes to directing and delegating because it can make a huge difference on the outcome of an operation or process.
All in all, Colin Powell is an effective leader that makes use of numerous leadership strategies and principles. This is what makes him unique; he is multi-dimensional.
Works Cited
Harari, O. "The LeadershipSecrets of Colin Powell." (2002): 107-112. Print.
