CRISES REVEAL THE QUALITY OF LEADERSHIP

摘要

When I last revised On Becoming a Leader in 2002, the world was anxiously waiting to see if the United States would go to war with Iraq. Today we all know the tragic answer. In 2002 the nation was still reeling from a recession that saw the stock market tumble more than 40 percent. Today, as I write this, the country is in the midst of an even deeper recession, one that is being compared to the Great Depression. In a pattern that has become distressingly familiar, the current economic downturn followed a bubble. This time around, houses, not tulips, were the object of the public's frenzied buying. After soaring to absurd heights, prices of American homes are now in free fall, with sale signs blighting entire neighborhoods.