Where Have All The Leaders Gone? By Lee Iacocca, with Catherine Whitney, Scribner, 2007
By Ben Miles
Automobile-industry icon Lee Iacocca’s latest contribution to the annals of bestselling American nonfiction is 263 pages of the brilliant businessman’s head-of-the-herd thinking, along with his wisdom and inimitable abilities as a raconteur.
Iacocca, now in his eighties, is author of two previous chart-toppers. In his new book, the erstwhile CEO of both the Ford and Chrysler companies disassembles the construct of leadership and offers for examination its component parts—what he refers to as the Nine Cs of Leadership: Curiosity, Creativity, Communication, Character, Courage, Charisma, Conviction, Competence, and Common Sense. This simple template provides the framework for Iacocca’s written revelation of personal scenarios and memorable face-to-face encounters with other greatness. Iacocca seemed to know nearly everybody who is, or was, anybody. He maintained a friendship with Frank Sinatra until his death in 1998, and writes of how Ole Blue Eyes, after “celebrating” too much, sang at the auto honcho’s 1992 retirement party. It was the great Voice’s final public performance.
Iacocca’s relationship with Ronald Reagan was intimate enough for the mogul of the minivan to assert that Reagan was “the sunniest guy I ever met…[with not] a mean bone in his body.” Iacocca felt that Reagan’s agreeableness was the reason for his charisma. And who would’ve predicted that Iacocca would team with rapper Snoop Dogg for a nationally televised Chrysler commercial, the proceeds from which went to the Iacocca Foundation? The foundation is dedicated to curing type one diabetes, the disease that took the life of Iacocca’s first wife, Mary.
Iacocca’s critique and condemnation of George W. Bush’s leadership is piercing and unabashed, and is reportedly one of the reasons Iacocca (along with Catherine Whitney) wrote this book. Iacocca’s longwinded sobriquet for the president is “Mr.—they’ll-welcome-us-with-open-arms-as-liberators-no-child-left-behind-heck-of-a-job-Brownie-misson-accomplished—Bush.” If that doesn’t quite say it all, it certainly is a taut and to-the-point summary of Iacocca’s subzero opinion of our forty-third president.
Lee Iacocca is wealthy, still healthy, witty, and sly. Coming from that place, the author has no use for subterfuge or dishonesty. After reading Where Have All The Leaders Gone? one is likely to be convinced that Iacocca personifies and embodies the Nine Cs of Leadership, but he seems to exude one quality above all: Character.