NORTHFIELD — Colin Powell delivers a great Ronald Reagan impersonation.
Speaking about leadership before an audience of well over 3,000 Tuesday evening at Norwich University, the former national security advisor in the Reagan White House described a moment when Powell tried to fill Reagan in on the Iran-Contra affair soon after it erupted.
Looking through a window behind Powell’s shoulder, Reagan seemed more interested in the rose garden than the urgency of the international crisis.
Then Reagan jumped, pointed and exclaimed about a squirrel on a tree branch, bewildering Powell. He imitated the former actor’s soft voice to a T, warming the audience even more to his already personable presentation.
Reagan’s message that morning was oblique, Powell realized back in his office.
“That sounds more like your problem than mine,” Reagan seemed to be saying. But it wasn’t for lack of interest, Powell said. Reagan’s disengagement in that moment reflected an abundance of trust.
Mutual trust is central to leadership, Powell told the field house full of Norwich cadets, civilian students, faculty, staff and members of the public. The Veterans’ Day event was part of the school’s Fall 2014 Todd Lecture Series. The topic of Powell’s speech dovetailed with that of his newly released memoir, “It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership.”
“When your troops trust you, when they respect you … They’ll do anything that you ask them,” Powell said. And for troops to be successful, leaders must trust them as well, he said.
The exchange is borne not only of leaders ensuring troops have the training, equipment and clarity of mission they need. The role of the leader is to inspire, he said.
“Motivation is not good enough,” Powell said.
Leaders inspire their staff to a higher level of passion than can be conveyed by a sterile mission, he said. Leaders sense what their staff need, and respond to their fears, anxieties, dreams and ambitions by conveying a sense of purpose.
The lesson translates beyond military and diplomatic scenarios to boardrooms and beyond, Powell said. Whether on a battlefield, in a consular office or behind the desk of a corporation, Powell said our mutual purpose is to serve society.
Leadership currently is lacking in Washington, D.C., Powell said. Through four presidential administrations, the four-star general — also chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for both presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and later Secretary of State for President George W. Bush — said he feels the atmosphere in the nation’s capital has never been more polarized.
“Our Founding Fathers had strong views,” Powell said. But they also knew how to compromise, he said — even allowing the ugliness of slavery to continue. But by the same measure, America’s founders created the Constitution, which also provided a means of resolving slavery’s wrong.
Powell said today, there’s too much money in politics, too much gerrymandering and too much media in the way. Corrupting influences conspire to stymie policy decisions around crucial issues such as education, the environment, infrastructure, the economy and immigration reform.
Nonetheless, Powell said, the U.S. remains the leader on the world stage.
He said he’s convinced of this by consular offices around the world where people line up every day asking to go to America. He said he sees it in the tenacious optimism of the people he meets within the U.S. on speaking tours.
He wants to bottle that optimism and pour it over Congress’s heads, Powell said.
Just as leadership in the military or the workplace is a two-way exchange between people, so is leadership of a nation. He pleaded with audience members to rally others to the polls to vote their conscience and to become “deeply involved” in politics.
“Stop believing in those who don’t seem to believe in what this country is about,” Powell said.
Powell shared some of his family’s story in America to convey the sense of opportunity and responsibility he sees in citizenship. As a boy and a young man, the Harlem-born son of Jamaican immigrants felt he owed it to his parents to strive. As a senior presidential appointee and now spokesman for democratic values, he said he owes it to today’s immigrants to foster an atmosphere where they too can strive and succeed.
One of Powell’s favorite walks in New York City is up Park Avenue, he said, where he always likes to buy a hot dog, with mustard and red onion relish, from a pushcart vendor on the sidewalk. One day, the vendor recognized him from TV and refused to accept Powell’s money for his meal.
“You can’t pay me,” he man said. “America has already paid me.”
Powell said it’s people like his parents, that hot dog vendor and the immigrant parking garage attendants who work below the State Department who inspire him.
Every generation, he said, is the greatest generation.
