Where Have All The Leaders Gone?
Lee Iacocca, Scribner, a division of Simon & Shuster, Inc; 2007

Where Have All The Leaders Gone?--automobile-industry icon Lee Iacocca's latest contribution to the annals of bestselling American non-fiction (Iacocca is author of two previous chart-toppers)--is 263 pages of this octogenarian's head-of-the-heard thinking, along with his wisdom and  inimitable abilities as a raconteur.

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 remarkable face-to-face encounters. It's as if Iacocca knows nearly everybody who is, or was, anybody. For instance, after "celebrating" too much, Frank Sinatra sang at the auto-honcho's 1992 retirement party. It was Ole Blue Eye's final public performance. The friendship endured, however, until Sinatra's death, in 1998.

Iacocca's relationship with Ronald Reagan was intimate enough for the mogul of the mini-van to assert that "Reagan was the sunniest guy I ever met" not "a mean bone in his body" and "that was the key to his charisma." And who would've predicted that Iacocca would team with rapper Snoop Dog for a nationally televised Chrysler commercial, the proceeds from which went to the Iacocca Foundation (dedicated to curing type one diabetes, the disease that took the life of Iacocca's first wife, Mary)?

Moreover, Iacocca's critique and condemnation of George W. Bush's leadership is piercing and unabashed, as well as 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, to-the-point summary of Iacocca's sub-zero opinion of Bush 43.

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 especially: character.

Ben Miles, National University