Are You Mad As Hell Yet?
Lee Iacocca, the 82-year-old former CEO of Chrysler widely credited with saving the company from bankruptcy in the late 1970s, has expressed outrage at today's political and business leaders in his book, "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?" Iacocca is critical of President Bush’s handling of the Iraq War and says Congress refuses to tackle the biggest problems facing the United States. And business leaders, Iacocca charges, are more interested in making money for themselves than building strong companies. In the book, he also sizes up the 2008 presidential hopefuls.
WARNING: This is a lengthy post to read, but it is well worth the effort.
Excerpt from the book:
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 do that 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 about 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 at 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-Brown ie-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 bubblehead 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.
"Where Have All the Leaders Gone?" by Lee Iacocca is available from:
Amazon.com
Barnes and Noble
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