Colin Luther Powell, four-star General, diplomat, patriot and leader.
Special tribute to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet
One of the notable quotes of Colin Powell is that “Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”
General Colin Luther Powell, a four-star General, a diplomat, a patriot and a public servant was a great leader who believed that good leaders are those that are trusted by their followers. An authentic leader will feel the pain but would not show the pain because leadership is by showing examples. Candor, the quality of being honest, open, and sincere, is critical for success as a true leader.
General Colin L. Powell was born on April 5, 1937, in Harlem, New York, to Jamaican immigrants. He grew up in South Bronx and attended City College of New York, where he participated in ROTC, leading the precision drill team, and attaining the rank of a cadet colonel.
Powell was a former U.S Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who passed away on the morning of October 18th, 2021, due to complications of Covid 19. He got the two doses of the vaccine and was in line to receive the newly approved booster dose when he became critically ill. Even though he was fully vaccinated, Powell had multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells that suppresses the body’s immune responses, as well as Parkinson’s disease. A major lesson of Powell’s death is that if you have an underlying health condition, Covid 19 could still be a challenge for you.
Powell was a distinguished public servant and a professional soldier. His career took him from a combat soldier in Vietnam to becoming the first black national security adviser by the end of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. He was later to become the youngest and first African American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Presidency of George H. W. Bush. He became a visible national figure after the US led coalition forces became victorious during the Gulf war. For a while, he was being tipped to become the first Black President in the United States.
General Powell’s reputation suffered a set back when under his leadership, as the first Secretary of State under George W. Bush, the US misread the intelligence report on Iraq and concluded that Saddam Hussein had amassed weapons of mass destruction. He pushed this faulty intelligence before the United Nations to advocate for the invasion of Iraq. Like a worthy and responsible leader, he will later admit this mistake of poor judgement and called it a “blot” on his record.
Powell later wrote in his 2012 memoir, “It Worked for Me”, that he was “mad mostly at myself for not having smelled the problem. My instincts failed me” He continued by writing that “it was by no means my first, but it was one of my most momentous failures, the one with the widest-ranging impact” and that “the event will earn a prominent paragraph in my obituary.”
General Powell was respected and admired by many Presidents and was widely regarded as a great patriot and a distinguished public servant. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom twice in his career — as he was highly regarded, at home and abroad.
Later in his public life, General Powell became increasingly unhappy with the direction his party was heading. Although he remained a Republican, he used his political clout to elect some Democrats. Notably, in the battle for the White House in 2008, he endorsed the first African-American to be elected President of the United States, Barack Obama. His endorsement was a major significant boost to the candidacy of Obama as Powell was seen as one the most prominent and successful Black Americans in public service.
General Powell is survived by Alma Powell, his wife of 58 years who he told Bob Woodward in his last interview was the most consequential person in his life. Colin and Alma are blessed with three children and four grandchildren.
•Dr. Chima O. Dike, a management consultant and business capacity building specialist, contributes commentaries to USAfrica.
