[Dialogue] Lee Iacocca speaks truth to power

Sun Apr 22 16:15:45 EDT 2007

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 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.

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