Colin Powell was born in Harlem, New York on April 5, 1937 to Jamaican immigrants Maud Ariel McKoy Powell and Luther Theophilus Powell. He was raised in the South Bronx and attended the New York Public Schools. He had an older sister.
Early years:
In 1950, the South Bronx during post war baby boom years “was the home of a large, thriving,” and vibrant community of mainly Jewish residence. There were synagogues, kosher bakeries, kosher butchers, and a baby equipment store called Sickser’s. There slogan was “Everything for the Baby”.
Mr. Sickser, with the assistance of his son in law Lou Kirshner, “ran a business out of the needs of the rapidly expanding child care population.” Business at Sickser’s was so busy on one beautiful spring day that Mr. Sickser and his son-in-law were unable to handle all their customers. They needed help. “Mr. Sickser ran out of the store and stopped the first youth he spotted on the street.”
"Young man," he panted, "how would you like to make a little extra money? I need some help in the store. You want to work a little?"
“The tall, lanky African-American young man flashed a toothy smile back. "Yes, sir, I'd like some work."
"Well then, let's get started." The young man, Colin Powell, "followed his new employer into the store.”
“Mr. Sickser was immediately impressed with his good manners and demeanor. As the days went by and he came again and again to lend his help, Mr. Sickser became increasingly impressed with the youth's diligence, punctuality and readiness to learn. Eventually Mr. Sickser made him a regular employee at the store. It was gratifying to find an employee with an almost soldier-like willingness to perform even the most menial of tasks, and to perform them well.”
Colin Powell from the age of 13 until his sophomore year in college worked “from 12-15 hours a week, at 50 to 75 cents an hour.”
“Colin would later recall that Sickser's offered the one stable point in his life those days.”
He appreciated “the steady employment” and “the friendly atmosphere Mr. Sickser's store offered. Mr. Sickser learned in time about their helper's Jamaican origins, and he in turn picked up a good deal of Yiddish. In time young Colin was able to converse fairly well with his employers, and more importantly, with a number of the Jewish customers whose English was not fluent.” (Warren Boroson, August 25, 2011, A (Jewish) Bronx Tale, Jewish Standard. Times)
College:
Colin Powell at 17, continued to work part time at Sickser’s and began his first semester at City College of New York. “He fit in just fine with his, for the most part Jewish, classmates.”
“The engineering and later geology courses he chose proved quite challenging.”
Collin Powell said, “It was only once I was in college, about six months into college when I found something that I liked, and that was ROTC, Reserve Officer Training Corps in the military. And I not only liked it, but I was pretty good at it. That's what you really have to look for in life, something that you like, and something that you think you're pretty good at. And if you can put those two things together, then you're on the right track, and just drive on.”
When he “shifted his study focus to ROTC he became a straight A student.” (Colin Powell Wikipedia)
Colin Powell said, “I became a leader almost immediately. Race, color, background, income meant nothing. [We] would go to the limit for each other and for the group.”
In 1958, he earned his Bachelor of Science in geology at City College of New York. “He held the distinction of being the first chairman to have attained his commission through the ROTC.”
In 1971, Colin Powell graduated with an MBA at George Washington University.
and in 1990 he received an honorary doctor of public service. (Colin Powell Wikipedia)
Army Career:
In 1958, Colin Powell began active duty as an army second lieutenant.
“The army had been desegregated just a few years earlier, but Powell refused to let racists and bigots “rent space in [my] head,” as he put it in a TV One television network interview in 2004. “I’ve never let my color or racism be a problem for me,” Powell explained. “Let it be a problem for the racists, never for me, because if you let it become your problem, then you’re weakened, and you start to doubt yourself.”
"That’s not to say he never got angry. (He remembers peeling out of the parking lot of an Alabama fast-food restaurant after being refused service at the drive-up window, for example.) His style, however, was to focus on solutions.”
Colin Powell married Alma Vivian Johnson, audiologist, on August 25, 1962. They had three children.
“When he and his new bride were assigned to live at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Powell was unable to find suitable housing and contemplated sending his wife, who was pregnant with their first child, back to her parents’ house in Birmingham. An army pal insisted they stay with his family – despite the neighbors’ consternation at a black couple living with a white family – and Powell and his wife slept in kid-size bunk beds. For Powell, success has always been about coupling a big-picture focus with a drive to prove his opponents wrong by sticking it out and doing his best. “By doing my best every day, day after day, year after year,” he writes, “I finally got to the top.”
He served “two tours of duty in Vietnam.” He “rose to the top ranks of the U.S. military. In 1989, under President George Bush, Colin Powell was sworn in as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
“In 1993, two years after he guided the American victory over Iraq in the Gulf War, Colin Powell visited the Holy Land. Upon meeting Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in Jerusalem, he greeted the Israeli with the words Men kent reden Yiddish — "We can speak Yiddish." (Warren Boroson, August 25, 2011, A (Jewish) Bronx Tale, Jewish Standard. Times)
“Shot Callers and Brawlers”
“When he rose in the ranks, working under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Powell never hesitated to give his honest input, even if it ruffled feathers. “I’ve said to the president, ‘You don’t pay me to give you happy talk, you pay me to tell you what I think."
“Powell revealed in an interview with teenink.com, during which he encouraged young people to stand up for their beliefs and speak their minds.”
“In 1990, Powell was at a high-level meeting to plan a response to Saddam Hussein’s march into Kuwait. As the meeting wound down, Powell felt a key question had been sidestepped: would the United States be willing to go to war to liberate Kuwait? Although he knew the question might be premature and should not technically come from him, he remembered his repugnance for leaders who let the Vietnam War go on without pressing political leaders for clear objectives. He brought up the issue and was greeted by a palpable chill. Later, then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney rebuked him for the broach of protocol. Still, Powell remained unapologetic. “
“I’ve told this to many bosses over the years,” Powell told teenink.com . “If you don’t want me to tell you what I think, then you need to find somebody else, because if you ask me a question, I’m going to answer it, and it’s kind of irrelevant to me whether you like the answer.”
“According to Powell, debates exist in all healthy organizations. “We’re supposed to sharpen the edges of debate, we’re supposed to argue with each other, we’re supposed to examine issues fully and without filters to help the president with issues,” he says. “So, if Don Rumsfeld comes from one point of view and I come from another and the vice president does and the director of Central Intelligence does, and we argue and debate and fight about it, this doesn’t mean the place is falling apart; it means it’s working.”
After the boss has made a decision, however, Powell considers it imperative to support it fully, no matter what his personal opinion might be. “Once a decision has been made,” he said in his autobiography, “the debate ends.”
“Powell demands the same kind of honesty from his own subordinates. As a general, for example, he always asked his commanders to speak up, share bad news quickly and ask questions if his guidance seemed unclear, even if that meant asking continued questions after repeated explanations. “The worst thing,” he wrote in his autobiography, “was for subordinates to labor in ignorance in order to conceal their confusion and wind up doing the wrong thing.”
“Powell can be as tough as they come, but those who’ve worked with him point out that he is also incredibly personable and engaging. “A friend of mine was an ambassador to Amman, and when he came back from his tour of duty, there was a note on his desk from Powell, thanking him for everything he’d done,” says General Anthony Zinni, USMC (ret.), who served as Powell’s special envoy to the Middle East from November 2002 to March 2003. “That had never happened before,” Zinni says. “He never had the secretary of state come down and shake his hand.” (Mission Critical: Leadership Lessons from Colin Powell by SellingPower .com/7045)
“From the Front Lines”
“Leadership can be lonely, but Powell never hid behind his lofty titles and trappings of power. In fact, he will go out of his way to eliminate the invisible lines of power that can cut leaders off from vital information. “In the military, when you become a four-star general, people will do anything you even suggest you want. If you say a wall looks a little dirty, by sundown, it’s painted. I had to work at breaking down that deference to hear from my people,” Powell said in Oren Harari’s Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell.” (McGraw-Hill, 2002).
“Over the years Powell developed ways of making himself available to anyone who might want to share a problem or idea with him. During his army command, he made a habit of walking a fixed route at the same time each day. Everyone keeps an eye on the boss and his habits, and soldiers quickly learned to take advantage of this valuable face time. As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell outright encouraged employees to enter and leave his office “without exaggerated ceremony.” He kept round tables in his office and conference rooms, so no one would ever occupy the head seat. His desk was colossal in size, but when people entered his office, he was quick to come out from behind it for a handshake, and he was known for conducting discussions in a small alcove adjoining his office.”
“Behind these tactics is Powell’s desire to keep one ear to the ground. “He was always very interested to hear from people on the front line,” Zinni says. “He talked to me every day and called me anytime there was a policy or strategic decision being made at the senior levels. He wants the views from the people who are going to execute those decisions. That’s one thing everyone loves about him – that ability to bring subordinates in and involve them.”
“And with Powell, it’s genuine,” Zinni adds. “It’s not a put-on, and it’s not forced. He likes to seek people out at every level and always demonstrates his appreciation for what they do and for what they have to say.”
“Powell believes that knowing the opinions of those at the bottom will better inform the decisions made by those at the top. By constantly taking the pulse of the organization from head to toe, Powell feels confident in backing his team to the hilt, even if it puts him in a tight spot. During Operation Desert Storm, General Norman Schwarzkopf told Powell he needed a few extra days before the agreed-upon date to start the ground campaign. The president was anxious to get the campaign underway, but Powell got his approval to wait a few days. Then Schwarzkopf made a second request for more time, citing issues with the weather.”
“Powell, under no small amount of pressure himself, told Schwarzkopf the delays were getting difficult to explain to the higher-ups. Schwarzkopf exploded that Powell didn’t understand his problems and didn’t care about the lives of the soldiers.”
“That did it,” Powell told PBS’s Frontline in 1996. “I exploded and started shouting back at him. And we got into a pretty good row. But then we have the utmost respect and affection for each other. I think the world of Norm. And we knew we’d better stop talking. So, I said, ‘Look, Norm, we’ve got a problem. We’ll work our way through.’” Schwarzkopf confessed that the pressure was building. “I think I’m losing it,” he said. “I feel like my head’s in a vise.”
General Colin Powell, “You’re not losing it. You have our total confidence, but you’ve got a problem. We’ll work our way through this problem. You know at the end of the day, I will carry your message forward. You’re the guy in the field.”
“For Powell, the exchange was an exercise in an old lesson he learned watching two lawyers going at it – the lawyer who won the case later attributed his success not to the strength of his argument, but to the fact that the opponent let his ego get in the way. “Never let your ego get so close to your position that you lose your case and your ego at the same time,” Powell said at a speech at the fifth-annual Information Privacy Forum sponsored by InfoUSA in Aspen, CO. Powell took Schwarzkopf’s request to Cheney. “I told him, ‘We’ve got to wait a little while,’” Powell said. Half an hour later, the weather cleared, and Schwarzkopf was able to start the ground campaign with no further delays. “
“Powell, who retired from his position as secretary of state on November 15, 2004, continued to give speeches and promote the charity he founded in 1997, America’s Promise, with the objective of improving resources and education for children. He is not a man who likes to look back at turning points, greatest achievements or his most memorable moments. It’s no surprise that if he does have a definition of success, it’s wrapped up in the people who give their all for him, just as he gives his all in the work he does on behalf of the nation. As he told the Academy of Achievement: “No medal, no nice introduction, no awards could substitute for the knowledge I have that I’m reasonably well respected by my fellow soldiers. If I didn’t have that, I would have considered this to be a busted career.” (Mission Critical: Leadership Lessons from Colin Powell by SellingPower .com/7045)
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s Thirteen Rules of Leadership (Oct. 18, 2021) 1937-2021
"As we reflect on former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s legacy, we are reminded of his thirteen rules of leadership which have guided so many of our colleagues and principals. We are grateful for his love of the State Department and his legacy that we still feel in the workplace. "
Secretary Powell’s 13 Rules:
1. “ It ain’t as bad as you think! It will look better in the morning."
2. "Get mad then get over it."
3. "Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it."
4. " It can be done."
5. "Be careful what you choose. You may get it."
6. "Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision."
7. " You can’t make someone else’s choices. You shouldn’t let someone else make yours."
8. "Check small things."
9. "Share credit."
10. "Remain calm. Be kind."
11. " Have a vision. Be demanding."
12. "Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers."
13. " Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier."
General Colin Powell died on October 18, 2021. He was "an American statesman, diplomat, and army officer who was the 65th United States secretary of state from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African-American to hold the office. He was the 15th national security advisor from 1987 to 1989, and the 12th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993.”
General Colin Powell “whose decades long career repeatedly made history and who was for years the Republican statesman, often discussed his leadership philosophy, famously saying Leadership is solving problems.”
