Colin Powell and Loyalty

Healthy conflict as written by Colin Powell in his book, It Worked for me in Life and Leadership:

“I encourage all my subordinate commanders and staff to feel free to argue with me. My guidance was (is) simple: ‘disagree with me, do it with feeling, try to convince me you are right and I am about to go down the wrong path. You owe that to me; that’s why you’re here! But don’t be intimidated when I argue back. A moment will come when I have heard enough and I make a decision. At that very instant, I expect all of you to execute my decision as if it were your idea.…we all move out together to get the job done. Loyalty is disagreeing strongly, and loyalty is executing faithfully. The decision is not about you or your ego; it is about gathering all the information, analyzing it, and trying to get the right answer. I still love you, so get mad, and get over it.”

Whenever I share this quote from Colin Powell with a coach, the response is usually the same; “Can I get a copy of that?"

Way back in 1978, I had observed what seemed to be the #1 value of coaches: Loyalty. Having just finished my college playing career I thought I knew a lot about coaches. Loyalty seemed to make sense. I could see a coaching staff move together from one school to another, one pro team to another. I assumed loyalty was the glue that held these coaches together and was ALWAYS beneficial.

That changed in 2004 when I began consulting on the Five Dysfunctions of a Team and began to observe that loyalty, misunderstood, can do a great disservice to any team! I found out a strong belief in loyalty drove many to avoid disagreeing with others on their team, out of concern that it might be seen as critical or disloyal. Simple disagreement is often misinterpreted as a negative team behavior. 

If a leadership team falls for the temptation of avoiding disagreement they walk right into the trap of insular thinking. This quashes innovation, problem-solving, progress. Furthermore, the leader is often frustrated and hindered when all the opinions and options are not on the table. Good leaders want, and need, to hear all sides so that they can have confidence that they have arrived at the best decision! Loyalty requires us to risk speaking up, to be the best we can be.