1_0General Colin Powell on Leadership1外文电子书.ppt

* * General Colin Powell Chairman (Ret), Joint Chiefs of Staff A Leadership Primer LESSON 1 Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off. Good leadership involves responsibility to the welfare of the group, which means that some people will get angry at your actions and decisions. Its inevitable, if youre honorable. Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity: youll avoid the tough decisions, youll avoid confronting the people who need to be confronted, and youll avoid offering differential rewards based on differential performance because some people might get upset. Ironically, by procrastinating on the difficult choices, by trying not to get anyone mad, and by treating everyone equally nicely regardless of their contributions, youll simply ensure that the only people youll wind up angering are the most creative and productive people in the organization. LESSON 2 The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership. If this were a litmus test, the majority of CEOs would fail. One, they build so many barriers to upward communication that the very idea of someone lower in the hierarchy looking up to the leader for help is ludicrous. Two, the corporate culture they foster often defines asking for help as weakness or failure, so people cover up their gaps, and the organization suffers accordingly. Real leaders make themselves accessible and available. They show concern for the efforts and challenges faced by underlings, even as they demand high standards. Accordingly, they are more likely to create an environment where problem analysis replaces blame. LESSON 3 Dont be buffaloed by experts and elites. Experts often possess more data than judgment. Elites can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world.