Colin Luther Powell Case

This assignment requires me to research and analyze a significant military or civilian leader of my choice, past or present, to which I've chosen retired General and diplomat Colin Powell. For this assignment I shall explain why I chose this leader, discuss his effectiveness or ineffectiveness as a leader, and discuss the relevance of his leadership style in today's environment. I will also discuss his key leadership characteristics, both positive and negative, what he did to improve his weaknesses, and why or why not his leadership style changed over time.

Colin Luther Powell was born on April 5, 1937, in Harlem, New York. The son of Jamaican immigrants Luther and Maud Powell, Colin was raised in the South Bronx. Powell was educated in the New York City public schools, and graduated from Morris High School in 1954 without any definite plans for where he wanted to go in life.

General Powell decided to go to school at City College of New York, where he studied geology, and found his calling--in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). He soon became commander of his training unit. This experience set him on a military career and gave him structure and direction in his life.

I chose General Powell because he inspired me as an African American and as a former soldier. When I dropped out of college in my sophomore year, I had no definite plans for where I wanted to go in life. When I joined the US Army I thought it would be nice to just get away for a couple of years. Well it didn't take me long (about a year), to figure out that I to found my calling as a soldier, and I knew that I wanted to make it a career.

Powell graduated in 1958 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. While stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, Colin Powell met Alma Vivian Johnson of Birmingham, Alabama, and they married in 1962. The couple has three children: son Michael, and daughters Linda and Annemarie. That same year, he was one of 16,000 advisers sent to South Vietnam by President John Kennedy. In 1963, Powell was wounded by a punji-stick booby trap while patrolling the Vietnamese-Laotian border. During this first tour of duty, he was awarded a Purple Heart and, a year later, a Bronze Star.

While on his second Vietnam tour of duty from 1968 to 1969, the then 31-year-old Army was injured in a helicopter crash. Despite his injury, he managed to rescue his comrades from the burning helicopter, for which he was awarded the Soldier's Medal. In all, Powell has received 11 military decorations, including the Legion of Merit.

Colonel Colin Powell served a tour of duty in Korea in 1973 as a battalion commander and after that, he obtained a staff job at the Pentagon. After study at the Army War College, he commanded a brigade of the 101st Airborne Division. He was promoted to brigadier general and served as a deputy division commander at Ft Carson Colorado. In the Carter administration, he was an assistant to the deputy secretary of defense and the secretary of energy. Promoted to major general, he again assisted Frank Carlucci at the Department of Defense during the transition from the Carter to the Reagan administration. He then served as senior military aide to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, helping to coordinate the invasion of Granada and the bombing of Libya.

In 1987, Powell became national security adviser, a post he held for the duration of the Reagan administration. In 1991, Colin Powell was made chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President George H. W. Bush. The post is the highest military position in the Department of Defense, and Powell became the youngest, the first African-American, and first ROTC graduate to receive that distinction. This in its self speaks volumes for his effectiveness as a leader. For anyone to attain the highest position in the United States military, one must be an exceptionally effective leader.

General Powell became a national figure during Desert Shield and Desert Storm operations in Iraq. As chief military strategist, he developed what became known as the "Powell Doctrine," an approach to military conflicts that advocates using overwhelming force to maximize success and minimize casualties. He continued as chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the first few months of the Clinton administration. He publicly disagreed with the president on the issue of admitting gays into the military, although he eventually agreed to the "don't ask,