Colin Powell

Colin Luther Powell (1937–2021) rose from a New York City ROTC cadet to become the 12th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and, from 2001 to 2005, the 65th U.S. Secretary of State — the first Black American to hold the office. He spent the back half of his career being quoted as a management guru as much as a soldier, largely because a business professor named Oren Harari spun his blunt aphorisms into two bestselling leadership books. Powell’s recurring theme was that the leader who is never contradicted is the leader most likely to be wrong — a lesson he later said he had learned the hard way, calling his 2003 U.N. speech on Iraqi weapons a blot on his record.