The Powell Principles – 2/24 lessons from Colin Powell, a legendary leader

Placate Everyone – Be prepared to piss people off

“Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.”

As a leader, making tough decisions in the course of work is inevitable. Managing people’s emotion is another skill to develop. However, leadership can’t be a popularity contest, as Powell states. Leaders who cared more about being liked than being effective are unlikely to confront the people who need confronting.

This is certainly true. If a teacher bends the rule for students to ensure that they cooperate with them, ‘backing’ them up against other colleagues who ‘go by the book’, it would be inevitable that the students do things because they expect something in return, that they handle people by ‘bribing’ them or pitting them against one another. How do we 'confront', to use Powell's word, or simply reason with these teachers?

If a teacher does not see the need to meet with parents whose children are weak in their studies or have other issues of concern, through opportunity like parent seminar and is given reminders, and finally another colleague raised concerns and offered names of students from the class, the teacher goes about informing these students that specifically the other teacher is going to complain about them to their parents during the session. How do we reason with these teachers?

As leaders, we can choose either to verbally defuse or ignore or take the action of confronting the staff with the expectation of the organisation (and parents and students) and deal with the mental consequences after, as Powell states, “…An individual’s hurt feelings run a distant second to the good of the service.”


Check your Ego at the Door
“Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.”

As leaders, if we guard our turf protectively – ‘my charge is my responsibility and their performances reflect my leadership ability’ – it is the students and the organisation that suffer. Although some students benefit from having a skilful teacher who is able teach their first curriculum subject, another group of students suffer because other mediocre teachers in the department are ‘given away’ to take on more of their second curriculum subject. The organisation suffers because if leaders are unwilling to ‘share’ their teachers and develop them in other areas of work with other people, the teachers cannot realise their full potential and the organisation will be in jeopardy.