Collin Powell Career Incorporating the Book of Essay

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Collin Powell career incorporating the book of the seven habits of highly effective people with the leadership secrets of Colin Powell using his leadership examples.

Born on 5 April 1937 in United States, Colin Powell became the 65th secretary of states in the U.S. General Powell was an open-minded member to the party of Republican. This took place between 2001 and 2005 under George W. Bush presidency. Apart from Powell being the General of the Army of the United States, he also performed the duties of national security advisor from 1987 up to 1989. Another of his achievement is that he chaired the joint chief of staff and raise to be the highest ranked African-American government official. This made a mark in the history of the United States (Wallace & Gravells, 2006).

Adolescence

In Colin Powell's bibliography, few citations support the idea of Powell undergoing adolescence. His story is not in any way like the common ones for heroes. His story shows that a family that was not decent brought him up but still he rose to become highest ranked person in American military. Powell was the son of Luther and Maud Powell, Jamaican immigrants. He was born on 5 April in the year 1937 (Wallace & Gravells, 2006). In his teenage hood, he was tall and thin. His ambition was to become an engineer but it was the case with many other teenagers his age, in actual sense he was not aware of the focus subject. He did one semester and switched to geology. Researchers define this stage as one where the subjects become aware of who they are, their direction, and purpose in life. To some point in his adolescent life, he lost the meaning of his life and did not know where his life was heading. One may wonder the type of boy that Powell was. In his autobiography that was published in the year 1995, he remembered being directionless. He had the normal life of teenagers and mostly hanged out with friends and went to watch movies on Saturday. He was not perfect as he got into trouble at times (Levine & Crom, 2008).

Early adulthood

From Powell's perspective, this is the period when one is faced with the challenge of interacting and relating with others. More so, he defines it as discovering oneself and still losing in another person. Just like other teenagers, he was involved with girlfriends but all this faded when he joined the army, as there was no time to think about family and marriage. All this changed on November 1961. On this date, he attended a double date with one of his best friends, Michael Heningburg. He met Alma Johnson, his wife on this occasion. The two got married in the year 1962 in Birmingham, Alabama. During their marriage, there were times when he experienced moments of isolation when he was to go on duty and leave his wife behind. This was when he went for a call of duty to Vietnam and luckily, he survived the war all thanks to his passion for his profession (Reece & Brandt, 2008).

Middle adulthood

According to Powell, middle-aged adults always have the urge and desire to build a legacy, which they will leave behind for the coming generation. The main concern is to help the younger generation in developing useful lives. After Powel made an achievement of his American dream and made a name for him. He became a public figure and was a role model to many because of his calmness and integrity. He was more potentially influential and powerful figure in the council of the president among all the other predecessors of his time. He established projects that will continue to hold his name in the books of history. To his achievements, he built the Colin L. Powell Elementary School situated in Woodlands Texas. The school was considered a source of joy and special pride. Colin Powel is also the founder of the America's promise organization with the ambition of effecting significant changes to the society he lived in and give the youth a direction to head to (Carlson & Donohoe, 2010).

The final stage has can be defined as the duration where people look back at their lives and start evaluating their achievements. The glances of display may be either negative (despair) or positive (integrity. Colin Powel was looked upon as a symbol of hope for morality and honesty.

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Powel always told nothing and nothing but the truth regardless of the circumstances. Still he carried his burdens with the assurance that was always part of him in the whole of his career. No evidence has been found to prove that he despaired in his life. His purpose was for the right course. He related healthily with other people and affected United States military history (Reece & Brandt, 2008).

Late adulthood

Colin Powell learned long ago that smartness is not a necessity in running a business but one will require smartness to be surrounded with good people (people with determination, vision, and imagination.

Leaders have varied personality hence different strategies of identifying and recruiting employees. Over years, Colin Powell believed that in business, he followed a saying that characters must be fired and skills trained. Every decision is based on the principles of honor and integrity. Powell discovered that recruiting smart employees with a rich basket of interest and knowledge would be of immense benefit to the organization than recruiting based on their experience in the mainstream media. This implies that organizations should hire fresh and smart new graduates because of their wide base of knowledge and their level of interests. This can be a source of competitive advantage (Wallace & Gravells, 2006). For long, Powel has hired employees based on intellectual and I.Q bandwidth. He supports the idea that talking to most employees is like a fountain shipment. Organizations benefit from hiring brilliant minds lacking training rather than hiring people with excess experience. Organizational leaders implement interview tests, which most applicants would not provide correct answers. This is through processing extremely tricky questions (Levine & Crom, 2008).

Powell emphasizes on the importance of recruiting, training, and retaining the appropriate workforce. The best people are individuals supporting the organization's agenda and delivering products of the business. Such people deserve more and expect more, whether these benefits come in form of accolades, additional compensation career advancements, and opportunities for personal development or plum projects. If these people are not given what they expect or deserve, they are likely to become demotivated cynical and deflated. Because they are trending in the market, they will be quick at updating their resumes if they feel unhappy (Carlson & Donohoe, 2010). Business organizations are currently operating in an extreme knowledge economy, which has the possibly of precipitating disasters. Many global leaders, including Powell acknowledge that the need for communication and trust in the workplace is an integral component of any business. The level of development of trust is likely to impact on the employee retention, team development, and organizational implementation of change and employee performance. Regardless of industry and size, businesses comprise of people sharing similar desires like ability to trust their colleagues. It is impossible for people to trust organizations but they are likely to trust their associates, fellow employees and superiors (Wallace & Gravells, 2006).

Issues of personal betrayal and broken heart attributed to major downsizing, organizational events, and restructuring. They result from an assortment of mini decisions made by managers and leaders within an organization. When agreements are not kept, when people fail to share information or when employees do not trust judgments and competence of fellow employees, they end up breaching trust (Carlson & Donohoe, 2010). A network of unresolved conflict develops from increased betrayal feelings among employees. If such conflicts remain unresolved, they are expected progress into strong feelings of disloyalty and mistrust, which is not easy to counteract. This is key fundamental for organizational leaders because their position holds them personally obliged to develop the required trust to ensure the organization is cohesively bind together as one unit. Leaders have the ability of controlling a wide range of mini-decisions contributing towards feelings of mistrust and undermining their leadership abilities. Through their personal actions and words, leaders have the power and authority to destroy or build the faith of employees. They must have the capability to know that each decision and statement is likely to generate impacts regardless of whether the organizational goals are attained (Wallace & Gravells, 2006).

Feelings of betrayal and broken heart are not mere results of organizational changes. These are everyday scenarios happening in a pervasive manner. A literature review reveals that people tend to have increased needs for self-actualization, esteem, and respect. On the other hand, leaders are primarily concerned with employee's needs of safety and salary. This is a clear illustration of disconnected.....

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