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Excerpt
Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
By Lee Iacocca with Catherine
Whitney
I
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
America , not the
damned Titanic.
I'll give you a 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 United States 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 Iraq, the Middle East is burning and
nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms
instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of
America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. 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, America, wake up. These guys work
for us.
Who Are These Guys,
Anyway?
Why are we in this mess? How did we end up
with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them—or at least
some of us did. 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 Lincoln? What happened to the
courageous, populist party of FDR and 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:
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 United States and he never 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
Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his 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 Harvard Business School.
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 Iraq has been, among other things, a
grand 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
Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has 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 Connecticut family,
but he likes to 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 high point of his presidency so
far was catching a 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 Iraq. And that's just for 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.
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 Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My boss was a guy named
Charlie Beacham, who 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 Florida when he heard
about the 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
Washington and immediately going on the 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 Iraq—a road his 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.
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 Asia, 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 America. In my lifetime I've had
the privilege of living through some of America's greatest
moments. I've also experienced 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 America. It's not too late, 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?.
Copyright © 2007 by Lee Iacocca. All rights
reserved.
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