[wordup] Where have all the leaders gone?

[Adam Shand]

I'm quoting Snopes but it's *not* a hoax, it was just a convenient  
place to get a good copy of the text from.

Source: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/iacocca.asp
More: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1416532471/ 
urbanlegendsrefeA/

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

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.

Origins:   The above-quoted editorial, offering a scathing  
condemnation of the Bush administration and condemning a lack of  
strong leadership in the U.S. government, hit our inbox mid-April  
2007, attributed to 82-year-old businessman Lee Iacocca (best known  
for his tenure in the automotive business as the head of Ford and  
then Chrysler).

The attribution was correct, and the timing was no coincidence, as  
the text is an excerpt from the opening of Iacocca's just-released  
book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, written with Catherine  
Whitney and published by Scribner.