04.23.07
Excerpt: Where Have All the Leaders Gone? By Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney
Had Enough? Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s
happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody
murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state
right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and
we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car.
But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads
when the politicians say, "Stay the course." Stay the course? You’ve got
to be kidding. This is
sound bite: Throw the bums out! You might think I’m getting senile, that
I’ve gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I
hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the
is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead
us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by
passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but
I don’t need it). The most famous business leaders are not the
innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in
is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That’s not the
promise of
>>
I’ve had enough. How about you? I’ll go a step further. You can’t call
yourself a patriot if you’re not outraged. This is a fight I’m ready and
willing to have. My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you’re
eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I’d love to,
as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get
them to pay attention. I’m going to speak up because it’s my patriotic
duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a
straight shooter. So I’ll tell you how I see it, and it’s not pretty, but
at least it’s real. I’m hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who
say they don’t vote because they don’t trust politicians to represent
their interests. Hey,
These Guys, Anyway? Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this
crowd in
But I’ll tell you what we didn’t do. We
didn’t agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn’t agree to stop asking
questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people
who call free speech treason. Where I come from that’s a dictatorship,
not a democracy. And don’t tell me it’s all the fault of right-wing
Republicans or liberal Democrats. That’s an intellectually lazy argument,
and it’s part of the reason we’re in this stew. We’re not just a nation
of factions. We’re a people. We share common principles and ideals. And
we rise and fall together.
>>
Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make
us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of
Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders
lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders
gone?
>>
The Test of a Leader
I’ve never been Commander in Chief, but I’ve been a CEO. I understand a
few things about leadership at the top. I’ve figured out nine points, not
ten (I don’t want people accusing me of thinking I’m Moses). I call them
the "Nine Cs of Leadership." They’re not fancy or complicated. Just
clear, obvious qualities that every true leader should have. We should
look at how the current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this
crew is going to be around until January 2009. Maybe we can learn
something before we go to the polls in 2008. Then let’s be sure we use
the leadership test to screen the candidates who say they want to run the
country. It’s up to us to choose wisely.
>>
So, here’s my C list:
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A leader has to show CURIOSITY. He has to listen to people outside of
the "Yes, sir" crowd in his inner circle. He has to read voraciously,
because the world is a big, complicated place. George W. Bush brags about
never reading a newspaper. "I just scan the headlines," he says. Am I
hearing this right? He’s the President of the
reads a newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to
decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or
newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to
prefer the latter." Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in
the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he’s ready to go.
>>
If a leader never steps outside his comfort zone to hear different
ideas, he grows stale. If he doesn’t put his beliefs to the test, how
does he know he’s right? The inability to listen is a form of arrogance.
It means either you think you already know it all, or you just don’t
care. Before the 2006 election, George Bush made a big point of saying he
didn’t listen to the polls. Yeah, that’s what they all say when the polls
stink. But maybe he should have listened, because 70 percent of the
people were saying he was on the wrong track. It took a "thumping" on
election day to wake him up, but even then you got the feeling he wasn’t
listening so much as he was calculating how to do a better job of
convincing everyone he was right.
>>
A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be willing to try
something different. You know, think outside the box. George Bush prides
himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out
of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping.
There’s a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty. Senator Joe
Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our
troops marched into
concerns to the President, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the
disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields. "The
President was serene," Joe recalled. "He told me he was sure that we were
on the right course and that all would be well. ‘Mr. President,’ I
finally said, ‘how can you be so sure when you don’t yet know all the
facts?’" Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe’s
shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts." Joe was flabbergasted.
He told
Bush,"Mr. President, your instincts aren’t good enough." Joe Biden sure
didn’t think the matter was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn’t.
Leadership is all about managing change, whether you’re leading a company
or leading a country. Things change, and you get creative. You adapt.
Maybe Bush was absent the day they covered that at
>>
A leader has to COMMUNICATE. I’m not talking about running off at the
mouth or spouting sound bites. I’m talking about facing reality and
telling the truth. Nobody in the current administration seems to know how
to talk straight anymore. Instead, they spend most of their time trying
to convince us that things are not really as bad as they seem. I don’t
know if it’s denial or dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy
after a while. Communication has to start with telling the truth, even
when it’s painful. The war in
failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn’t cry wolf when
the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well,
even as the casualties and chaos mount, we’ve stopped listening to him.
>>
A leader has to be a person of CHARACTER. That means knowing the
difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right
thing. Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you want to test a man’s character,
give him power." George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about
his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the
world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the
grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of
thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths. For what? To build
our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried
to have him killed? To show his daddy he’s tougher? The motivations
behind the war in
been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die
for a failed policy.
>>
A leader must have COURAGE. I’m talking about balls. (That even goes
for female leaders.) Swagger isn’t courage. Tough talk isn’t courage.
George Bush comes from a blue-blooded
talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in
the twenty-first century doesn’t mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a
commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk.
If you’re a politician, courage means taking a position even when you
know it will cost you votes. Bush can’t even make a public appearance
unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of
so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his
most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs.
>>
To be a leader you’ve got to have CONVICTION, a fire in your belly.
You’ve got to have passion. You’ve got to really want to get something
done. How do you measure fire in the belly? Bush has set the all-time
record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President, four
hundred and counting. He’d rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse
himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that
the
seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake. It’s no better on
Capitol Hill. Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006.
That’s eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry
Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect to
be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But
Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that’s not
leadership.
>>
A leader should have CHARISMA. I’m not talking about being flashy.
Charisma is the quality that makes people want to follow you. It’s the
ability to inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him. That’s
my definition of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang out
with at a barbecue or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where
the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn’t look very
presidential. Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so
much don’t go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from
our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came up behind her and started
squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof.
>>
A leader has to be COMPETENT. That seems obvious, doesn’t it? You’ve
got to know what you’re doing. More important than that, you’ve got to
surround yourself with people who know what they’re doing. Bush brags
about being our first MBA President. Does that make him competent? Well,
let’s see. Thanks to our first MBA President, we’ve got the largest
deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we’ve run up
a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in
starters. A leader has to be a problem solver, and the biggest problems
we face as a nation seem to be on the back burner.
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You can’t be a leader if you don’t have COMMON SENSE. I call this
Charlie Beacham’s rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the
car business, one of my first jobs was as Ford’s zone manager in
was the East Coast regional manager. Charlie was a big Southerner, with a
warm drawl, a huge smile, and a core of steel. Charlie used to tell me,
"Remember, Lee, the only thing you’ve got going for you as a human being
is your ability to reason and your common sense. If you don’t know a dip
of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream, you’ll never make it."
George Bush doesn’t have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites.
You know,
Mr.they’ll-welcome-us-as-liberators-no-child-left-behind-heck-of-a-job-Brownie-mission-accomplished
Bush. Former President Bill Clinton once said, "I grew up in an alcoholic
home. I spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based
world, and I like it
here." I think our current President should visit the real world once in
a while.
>>
The Biggest C is Crisis Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is
forged in times of crisis. It’s easy to sit there with your feet up on
the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else’s kids off to war when
you’ve never seen a battlefield yourself. It’s another thing to lead when
your world comes tumbling down. On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong
leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand
to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a
story about a pet goat to kids in
attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on
his face. It’s all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of
taking the quickest route back to
air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn’t
safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the
day, and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put
in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our
wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay,
and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his
bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero. That was George
Bush’s moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when
he’d regained his composure? He led us down the road to
own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush
didn’t listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself
on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn’t scare the crap
out of you, I don’t know what will.
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A Hell of a Mess.
So here’s where we stand. We’re immersed in a bloody war with no plan for
winning and no plan for leaving. We’re running the biggest deficit in the
history of the country. We’re losing the manufacturing edge to
while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care
costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent
energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves.
The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that
cry out for leadership.
>>
But when you look around, you’ve got to ask: "Where have all the
leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are
the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common
sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.
Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than
making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo?
We’ve spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all
we know how to do is react to things that have already happened. Name me
one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has
yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or
demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial
hours after the storm. Everyone’s hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping
it doesn’t happen again. Now, that’s just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with
it. Make a plan. Figure out what you’re going to do the next time.
>>
Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can
restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed
that there could ever be a time when "the Big Three" referred to Japanese
car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going
to do about it?
>>
Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down
the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care
problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are
eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.
>>
I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn’t elect you to sit on
your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being
hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is
everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a
name? Give me a break. Why don’t you guys show some spine for a change?
Had Enough? Hey, I’m not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here.
I’m trying to light a fire. I’m speaking out because I have hope. I
believe in
through some of
our worst crises, the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the
Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the
struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I’ve learned one
thing, it’s this: You don’t get anywhere by standing on the sidelines
waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it’s building
a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a
role to play. That’s the challenge I’m raising in this book. It’s a call
to action for people who, like me, believe in
but it’s getting pretty close. So let’s shake off the horseshit and go to
work. Let’s tell ‘em all we’ve had enough.
Excerpted from Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
(C) 2007 by Lee Iacocca. All rights reserved.
