Book: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Overview

Lee Iacocca’s 2007 book “Where Have All the Leaders Gone?” is both a memoir-infused manifesto and a blunt diagnosis of a leadership vacuum across American politics, business, and civic life. Drawing on his decades turning around Chrysler after a storied run at Ford, Iacocca argues that the nation’s most urgent problems, war, disaster response, economic drift, energy dependence, and a frayed social contract, persist less from lack of resources than from a collapse of courage, competence, and accountability at the top. Co-written with Catherine Whitney, the book mixes boardroom lessons, public policy critique, and a direct appeal to citizen engagement.

The 9 Cs of Leadership

Iacocca frames his standard for leadership around nine qualities he calls the 9 Cs: curiosity, creativity, communication, character, courage, conviction, charisma, competence, and common sense. Curiosity and creativity fuel problem-solving. Communication ties leaders to reality and to their teams. Character, courage, and conviction anchor decisions when the data are messy and the stakes high. Charisma helps mobilize but is overrated without competence and common sense. He measures public figures against this yardstick and finds too many wanting, particularly when rhetoric substitutes for results.

Political Indictment and Civic Responsibility

The book’s most pointed critiques target the George W. Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina, which Iacocca casts as case studies in failed preparation, poor communication, and an absence of accountability. He condemns government by slogan and fear, arguing that spin erodes trust and paralyzes problem-solving. Yet he reserves as much criticism for citizens’ complacency as for politicians’ shortcomings, urging readers to demand performance, vote beyond party lines, and reclaim a tradition of pragmatic, can-do American leadership.

Business, Economy, and Corporate Accountability

From the vantage of a CEO who sought government-backed loans yet imposed discipline and shared sacrifice, Iacocca attacks a wave of corporate excess: short-termism on Wall Street, runaway executive pay, inattentive boards, and financial engineering that masks real performance. He argues that leadership means owning the numbers, walking the factory floor, listening to workers, partnering with unions when necessary, and aligning pay with results. Offshoring without investing in innovation and people, he warns, hollows out competitiveness and erodes the middle class.

Policy Priorities: Energy, Education, Healthcare

Energy independence is treated as a national mission on the scale of the space race. Iacocca chastises Detroit’s fixation on gas-guzzlers and calls for aggressive investment in alternative fuels, efficiency, and next-generation vehicles to reduce geopolitical risk and spark new industries. He links education reform to economic security, emphasizing rigorous standards, teacher quality, and STEM readiness. Healthcare costs, in his view, strangle families and employers alike; pragmatic reform should aim at access, prevention, and cost control rather than ideological purity.

Leadership Practice and Tone

Beyond policy, Iacocca offers operating principles: confront facts, make decisions, take the heat, and fix what is broken rather than blaming circumstances. He valorizes hands-on management and clear goals, but also the humility to admit mistakes and course-correct. The prose is colloquial, impatient, and often salty, designed to jolt readers out of resignation. Anecdotes from the Chrysler turnaround, pay cuts at the top, loan guarantees tied to performance, relentless focus on product, serve as proof that disciplined, transparent leadership can rally teams and rescue institutions.

Legacy

The book lands as a call to rebuild a culture of responsibility and results. Its test for leaders is simple: tell the truth, do the work, and put country or company ahead of ego. Measured against the 9 Cs, leadership is less a mystique than a set of choices made daily under pressure, choices that, in Iacocca’s view, America must demand again.