Lee Iacocca speaks with conviction...

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Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
By Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney
04/11/07

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.

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.