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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [Fwd: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?]</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><BR>
<DIV class=Section1>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Georgia size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Georgia size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia">Excerpt: Where Have All the
Leaders<BR>Gone?</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Georgia size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia"><BR>By Lee Iacocca with Catherine
Whitney<BR><BR>Had Enough? Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with
what's<BR>happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming
bloody<BR>murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state
right<BR>over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we
can't<BR>even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But
instead of<BR>getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the
politicians<BR>say, "Stay the course." Stay the course? You've got to be
kidding. This is<BR><ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">America</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>, not the damned Titanic. I'll
give you a sound bite: Throw the bums<BR>out! You might think I'm getting
senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and<BR>maybe I have. But someone has to
speak up. I hardly recognize this country<BR>anymore. The President of the
<ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE w:st="on">United
States</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION> is given a free pass to ignore<BR>the
Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of<BR>lies.Congress
responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the<BR>wealthy
(thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are<BR>not the
innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in
<ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">Iraq</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>,<BR>the <ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">Middle East</ST1:PLACE> is burning and nobody seems to know what to
do. And the<BR>press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's
not the<BR>promise of <ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">America</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION> my parents and yours traveled
across the ocean for.<BR><BR>I've had enough. How about you? I'll go a step
further. You can't call<BR>yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a
fight I'm ready and<BR>willing to have. My friends tell me to calm down. They
say, "Lee, you're<BR>eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people."
I'd love to, as<BR>soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds
and get them<BR>to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my
patriotic duty. I<BR>think people will listen to me. They say I have a
reputation as a straight<BR>shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not
pretty, but at least<BR>it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young
folks who say they<BR>don't vote because they don't trust politicians to
represent their<BR>interests. Hey, <ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">America</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>, wake up. These guys work for
us. Who Are These<BR>Guys, Anyway? Why are we in this mess? How did we end up
with this crowd in<BR><ST1:STATE w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">Washington</ST1:PLACE></ST1:STATE>? Well, we voted for them, or at
least some of us did. But I'll<BR>tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to
suspend the Constitution. We<BR>didn't agree to stop asking questions or
demanding answers. Some of us are<BR>sick and tired of people who call free
speech treason. Where I come from<BR>that's a dictatorship, not a democracy. And
don't tell me it's all the fault<BR>of right-wing Republicans or liberal
Democrats. That's an intellectually<BR>lazy argument, and it's part of the
reason we're in this stew. We're not<BR>just a nation of factions. We're a
people. We share common principles and<BR>ideals. And we rise and fall
together.<BR><BR>Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action
and make us<BR>stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of
<ST1:CITY w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE w:st="on">Lincoln</ST1:PLACE></ST1:CITY>?<BR>What
happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was<BR>a
time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and<BR>made
us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?<BR><BR>*The Test of a
Leader*<BR>I've never been Commander in Chief, but I've been a CEO. I understand
a few<BR>things about leadership at the top. I've figured out nine points, not
ten (I<BR>don't want people accusing me of thinking I'm Moses). I call them the
"Nine<BR>Cs of Leadership." They're not fancy or complicated. Just clear,
obvious<BR>qualities that every true leader should have. We should look at how
the<BR>current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this crew is going to
be<BR>around until January 2009. Maybe we can learn something before we go to
the<BR>polls in 2008. Then let's be sure we use the leadership test to screen
the<BR>candidates who say they want to run the country. It's up to us to
choose<BR>wisely.<BR><BR>So, here's my C list:<BR><BR>A leader has to show
CURIOSITY. He has to listen to people outside of the<BR>"Yes, sir" crowd in his
inner circle. He has to read voraciously, because<BR>the world is a big,
complicated place. George W. Bush brags about never<BR>reading a newspaper. "I
just scan the headlines," he says. Am I hearing this<BR>right? He's the
President of the <ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE w:st="on">United
States</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION> and he never reads a<BR>newspaper?
Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether<BR>we should
have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a<BR>government, I
should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." Bush<BR>disagrees. As
long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped<BR>through the
sound system, he's ready to go.<BR><BR>If a leader never steps outside his
comfort zone to hear different ideas,<BR>he grows stale. If he doesn't put his
beliefs to the test, how does he know<BR>he's right? The inability to listen is
a form of arrogance. It means either<BR>you think you already know it all, or
you just don't care. Before the 2006<BR>election, George Bush made a big point
of saying he didn't listen to the<BR>polls. Yeah, that's what they all say when
the polls stink. But maybe he<BR>should have listened, because 70 percent of the
people were saying he was on<BR>the wrong track. It took a "thumping" on
election day to wake him up, but<BR>even then you got the feeling he wasn't
listening so much as he was<BR>calculating how to do a better job of convincing
everyone he was right.<BR><BR>A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be
willing to try something<BR>different. You know, think outside the box. George
Bush prides himself on<BR>never changing, even as the world around him is
spinning out of control. God<BR>forbid someone should accuse him of
flip-flopping. There's a disturbingly<BR>messianic fervor to his certainty.
Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation<BR>he had with Bush a few months after
our troops marched into <ST1:CITY w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">Baghdad</ST1:PLACE></ST1:CITY>. Joe was<BR>in the Oval Office
outlining his concerns to the President, the explosive<BR>mix of Shiite and
Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the<BR>oil fields. "The
President was serene," Joe recalled. "He told me he was<BR>sure that we were on
the right course and that all would be well. 'Mr.<BR>President,' I finally said,
'how can you be so sure when you don't yet know<BR>all the facts?'" Bush then
reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe's<BR>shoulder. "My instincts," he
said. "My instincts." Joe was flabbergasted. He<BR>told Bush,"Mr. President,
your instincts aren't good enough." Joe Biden sure<BR>didn't think the matter
was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn't.<BR>Leadership is all about
managing change, whether you're leading a company or<BR>leading a country.
Things change, and you get creative. You adapt. Maybe<BR>Bush was absent the day
they covered that at Harvard Business<BR>School.<<A
title=http://www.bullnotbull.com/gallery/g-bush-harvard-mba.html
href="http://www.bullnotbull.com/gallery/g-bush-harvard-mba.html"><FONT
color=#1e66ae><SPAN style="COLOR: rgb(30,102,174)">http://www.bullnotb<WBR
title=http://www.bullnotbull.com/gallery/g-bush-harvard-mba.html>ull.com/gallery/<WBR
title=http://www.bullnotbull.com/gallery/g-bush-harvard-mba.html>g-bush-harvard-<WBR
title=http://www.bullnotbull.com/gallery/g-bush-harvard-mba.html>mba.html</SPAN></FONT></A>><BR><BR>A
leader has to COMMUNICATE. I'm not talking about running off at the mouth<BR>or
spouting sound bites. I'm talking about facing reality and telling the<BR>truth.
Nobody in the current administration seems to know how to talk<BR>straight
anymore. Instead, they spend most of their time trying to convince<BR>us that
things are not really as bad as they seem. I don't know if it's<BR>denial or
dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy after a while.<BR>Communication
has to start with telling the truth, even when it's painful.<BR>The war in
<ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">Iraq</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION> has been, among other things, a
grand failure of<BR>communication. Bush is like the boy who didn't cry wolf when
the wolf was at<BR>the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as
the casualties<BR>and chaos mount, we've stopped listening to him.<BR><BR>A
leader has to be a person of CHARACTER. That means knowing the
difference<BR>between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right thing.
Abraham<BR><ST1:CITY w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">Lincoln</ST1:PLACE></ST1:CITY> once said, "If you want to test a man's
character, give him power."<BR>George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say
about his character? Bush<BR>has shown a willingness to take bold action on the
world stage because he<BR>has the power, but he shows little regard for the
grievous consequences. He<BR>has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of
thousands of innocent Iraqi<BR>citizens) to their deaths. For what? To build our
oil reserves? To avenge<BR>his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have
him killed? To show his<BR>daddy he's tougher? The motivations behind the war in
<ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">Iraq</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION> are questionable,<BR>and the
execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does<BR>not ask a
single soldier to die for a failed policy.<BR><BR>A leader must have COURAGE.
I'm talking about balls. (That even goes for<BR>female leaders.) Swagger isn't
courage. Tough talk isn't courage. George<BR>Bush comes from a blue-blooded
<ST1:STATE w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE w:st="on">Connecticut</ST1:PLACE></ST1:STATE>
family, but he likes to talk like<BR>a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than
your gun. Courage in the<BR>twenty-first century doesn't mean posturing and
bravado. Courage is a<BR>commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and
talk.<BR><BR>If you're a politician, courage means taking a position even when
you know<BR>it will cost you votes. Bush can't even make a public appearance
unless the<BR>audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of
so-called<BR>town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most
devoted<BR>fans. The questions were all softballs.<BR><BR>To be a leader you've
got to have CONVICTION, a fire in your belly. You've<BR>got to have passion.
You've got to really want to get something done. How do<BR>you measure fire in
the belly? Bush has set the all-time record for number<BR>of vacation days taken
by a U.S. President, four hundred and counting. He'd<BR>rather clear brush on
his ranch than immerse himself in the business of<BR>governing. He even told an
interviewer that the high point of his presidency<BR>so far was catching a
seven-and-a-<WBR>half-pound perch in his hand-stocked<BR>lake. It's<BR>no better
on Capitol Hill. Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in<BR>2006.
That's eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President<BR>Harry
Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect<BR>to be
fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But<BR>Congress
managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that's
not<BR>leadership.<BR><BR>A leader should have CHARISMA. I'm not talking about
being flashy. Charisma<BR>is the quality that makes people want to follow you.
It's the ability to<BR>inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him.
That's my definition<BR>of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang
out with at a barbecue<BR>or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where
the future of our<BR>planet is at stake, and he doesn't look very presidential.
Those frat-boy<BR>pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don't go over
that well with<BR>world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who
received an<BR>unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit.
When he came<BR>up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to
go right<BR>through the roof.<BR><BR>A leader has to be COMPETENT. That seems
obvious, doesn't it? You've got to<BR>know what you're doing. More important
than that, you've got to surround<BR>yourself with people who know what they're
doing. Bush brags about being our<BR>first MBA President. Does that make him
competent? Well, let's see. Thanks<BR>to our first MBA President, we've got the
largest deficit in history, Social<BR>Security is on life support, and we've run
up a half-a-trillion-<WBR>dollar price<BR>tag (so far) in <ST1:COUNTRY-REGION
w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE w:st="on">Iraq</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>. And that's
just for starters. A leader has to be a<BR>problem solver, and the biggest
problems we face as a nation seem to be on<BR>the back burner.<BR><BR>You can't
be a leader if you don't have COMMON SENSE. I call this Charlie<BR>Beacham's
rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the car<BR>business, one of my
first jobs was as Ford's zone manager in <ST1:CITY w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">Wilkes-Barre</ST1:PLACE></ST1:CITY>,<BR><ST1:STATE
w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE w:st="on">Pennsylvania</ST1:PLACE></ST1:STATE>. My boss was
a guy named Charlie Beacham, who was the East<BR>Coast regional manager. Charlie
was a big Southerner, with a warm drawl, a<BR>huge smile, and a core of steel.
Charlie used to tell me, "Remember, Lee,<BR>the only thing you've got going for
you as a human being is your ability to<BR>reason and your common sense. If you
don't know a dip of horseshit from a<BR>dip of vanilla ice cream, you'll never
make it." George Bush doesn't have<BR>common sense. He just has a lot of sound
bites. You
know,<BR>Mr.they'll-welcome-<WBR>us-as-liberators<WBR>-no-child-<WBR>left-behind-<WBR>heck-of-a-<WBR>job-Brownie-<WBR>mission-accompli<WBR>shed<BR>Bush.
Former President Bill Clinton once said, "I grew up in an alcoholic<BR>home. I
spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based world,<BR>and I
like it here." I think our current President should visit the real<BR>world once
in a while.<BR><BR>*The Biggest C is Crisis** *Leaders are made, not born.
Leadership is<BR>forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your
feet up on the<BR>desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war
when you've<BR>never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead
when your<BR>world comes tumbling down. On September 11, 2001, we needed a
strong leader<BR>more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady
hand to guide us<BR>out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a
story about a pet<BR>goat to kids in <ST1:STATE w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">Florida</ST1:PLACE></ST1:STATE> when he heard about the attacks. He
kept sitting<BR>there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's
all on tape.<BR>You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the
quickest route back<BR>to <ST1:STATE w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">Washington</ST1:PLACE></ST1:STATE> and immediately going on the air to
reassure the panicked<BR>people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to
return to the White<BR>House. He basically went into hiding for the day, and he
told Vice President<BR>Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen
in front of our<BR>TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell
us that we were<BR>going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a
couple of days<BR>to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground
Zero. That was<BR>George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what
did he do when<BR>he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to
<ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">Iraq</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>, a road his own<BR>father had
considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't<BR>listen to Daddy.
He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being<BR>faith based, not
reality based. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you,I<BR>don't know what
will.<BR><BR>*A Hell of a Mess.*<BR>So here's where we stand. We're immersed in
a bloody war with no plan for<BR>winning and no plan for leaving. We're running
the biggest deficit in the<BR>history of the country. We're losing the
manufacturing edge to <ST1:PLACE w:st="on">Asia</ST1:PLACE>, while<BR>our
once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas<BR>prices
are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy.<BR>Our
schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class
is<BR>being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for
leadership.<BR><BR>But when you look around, you've got to ask: "Where have all
the leaders<BR>gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are
the people<BR>of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I
may be a<BR>sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.<BR><BR>Name
me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us<BR>take
off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent<BR>billions of
dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to<BR>do is react
to things that have already happened. Name me one leader who<BR>emerged from the
crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a<BR>single day
evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding<BR>accountability for the
decisions that were made in the crucial hours after<BR>the storm. Everyone's
hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't<BR>happen again. Now, that's
just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a<BR>plan. Figure out what you're
going to do the next time.<BR><BR>Name me an industry leader who is thinking
creatively about how we can<BR>restore our competitive edge in manufacturing.
Who would have believed that<BR>there could ever be a time when "the Big Three"
referred to Japanese car<BR>companies? How did this happen, and more important,
what are we going to do<BR>about it? Name me a government leader who can
articulate a plan for paying<BR>down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or
managing the health care<BR>problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the
crises that are eating<BR>away at our country and milking the middle class
dry.<BR><BR>I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on
your<BR>asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being
hijacked<BR>and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is
everybody so<BR>afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a
name? Give me a<BR>break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change? Had
Enough? Hey, I'm<BR>not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm
trying to light a<BR>fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in
<ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">America</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>. In my<BR>lifetime I've had
the privilege of living through some of <ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">America</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>'s greatest<BR>moments. I've
also experienced some of our worst crises, the Great<BR>Depression, World War
II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the<BR>Vietnam War, the 1970s oil
crisis, and the struggles of recent years<BR>culminating with 9/11. If I've
learned one thing, it's this: You don't get<BR>anywhere by standing on the
sidelines waiting for somebody else to take<BR>action. Whether it's building a
better car or building a better future for<BR>our children, we all have a role
to play. That's the challenge I'm raising<BR>in this book. It's a call to action
for people who, like me, believe in<BR><ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1:PLACE
w:st="on">America</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>. It's not too late, but it's
getting pretty close. So let's shake<BR>off the horseshit and go to work. Let's
tell 'em all we've had enough</SPAN></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV>
<P>
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