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GREAT COMMUNICATION SECRETS OF GREAT LEADERS
COLIN POWELL—THE CENTERED VISION
In the Washington stature game, few stand taller than Colin Powell. Washing-
ton respects power, and Powell has plenty of it. One reason is that his appeal is
across party lines; as a black man in the party associated with the wealthy and
powerful, Powell has few enemies on the left and even fewer on the right. Sen-
ator John McCain refers to Powell as “the most popular person in America.” 15
Powell parlays his power strategically. He is not afraid to speak his mind.
As a military man who spent much of his career either as a political aide or as
the highest-ranking general, he knows the value of deference, i.e., when to
speak and when not to.
POWELL’S PERSUASIVENESS
As secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration, Powell shoulders
America’s foreign policy in time of war. Early in Bush’s tenure, it seemed as
though Powell was being shoved aside in favor of old hands like Vice Presi-
dent Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and newcomer
Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser. September 11 changed that
power paradigm; suddenly Powell seemed to be in the right place at the right
time for the right reasons. It fell to him to negotiate with President Pervez
Musharraf of Pakistan for the right to use Pakistani air space. Only a states-
man of Powell’s stature, it seemed, could negotiate with this one-time ally, who
was threatened by India on his border and squeezed by Islamic fundamental-
ists in his own military, and whose government recognized the Taliban gov-
ernment as legitimate. Powell prevailed, no doubt demonstrating the virtues of
having the United States as a friend rather than an opponent. According to
Richard C. Holbrooke, a U.N. envoy during the Clinton administration, “Pow-
ell and Musharraf have developed a relationship soldier to soldier, statesman
to statesman, which is really important and has paid off by bringing Pakistan
16
into the alliance against terrorism and preventing conflict with India.” Fur-
thermore, Powell earned praise from President Bush: “He single-handedly got
Musharraf on board. He was very good about that. He saw the notion of the
need to put a coalition together.” 17

GLOBAL VIEW
As a soldier and a statesman, Powell strives to take the long view. He under-
stands the ugliness of war, but at the same time he sees the need for taking a
stand. Powell also looks at the post-September 11 world as a chance to rede-
fine America’s relationship with two former adversaries, arguing that terror-
ism was a common enemy. “Here was something that had nothing to do with
any of the cold war models. . . . And it was something that everybody could