Retired General Colin Powell Speaks on Leadership, Faith at Willow Creek

When retired General Colin Powell speaks with wounded soldiers, he asks a rhetorical question rather than focus on the soldier’s injuries.

“Were you a good solider?” he asks.

It is a question that Willow Creek Community Church founder Bill Hybels found powerful when he first heard Powell ask it.

Hybels asked Powell about his interaction with soldiers when the Willow Creek leader talked with the former U.S. Secretary of State at the church’s Global Leadership Summit Thursday.

Powell finds soldiers want their service record acknowledged and honored. “They are not looking for sympathy,” he said. “Rather than commiserate with them, I want to talk to them about their service.”

The former U.S. Secretary of State spoke about the need to connect with people and respect people, a characteristic of leadership.

Powell was one of the guest speakers at the two-day Summit at the South Barrington church. Hybels gave the opening speech. The Summit is aimed at supporting and equipping churches with leadership skills by tapping into experts in different fields. Other speakers included producer Mark Burnett.

Another leadership trait is perpetual optimism, Powell said. People look to a leader for confidence, they look for a leader to solve problems, he said. So leaders need to convey no matter how bad it is, we’ll fix it, he said.

Hybels has known Powell for five or six years and began to realize the retired General is a person of deep faith. Powell was raised in the Episcopal Church and is active in his own church where he established a youth ministry.

His faith leads him to serve others and he has dedicated the rest of his life to doing that, he said.

David Reimann, a North Carolina businessman with Upward Sports, has heard Powell speak in the past. He said he could see Powell’s faith in the undertone of his speeches. Reimann feels Powell is putting his faith in action in the secular world and his church.

Jonathan Sara, of Woodstock, is an entrepreneur who found Powell’s speech inspiring for the day he becomes a CEO. The best advice in Powell’s speech was to treat everyone at every level with respect, Sara said.

“If you treat (employees) as people, they will do better work for you,” Sara said.